Witty banter from social media teams and brand accounts can often help to drive up fan engagement, especially when Wendy's takes a dig at Trader Joe's, but sometimes corporate steps in and tells everyone to pump the brakes. The official Need For Speed Twitter account has issued an apology for some of the replies it recently posted.The account posted a pre-order deal that would give you three days early access to the game, alongside a gameplay video and message, "you asked and we listened," referring to the footage. One fan complained in the replies that charging more for early access isn't listening.RELATED: Need For Speed Unbound Just Reminds Me How Much I Miss BlurFrom there it quickly devolved into the brand account making mild insults at the fan for not realising the early access deal has been around for some time, and the fan growing increasingly irate a stranger controlling a brand account on the internet wasn't taking their criticism seriously. In the end, they said they wouldn't be buying the game and tagged EA.

As you can see from the above very official and corporately worded apology, things did not go well for the brand account. It seems EA wasn't happy with potential customers being called "milkshake brain" and told to "cry about it bro."

This sort of edgy online persona works for companies that commit to the bit, like Devolver Digital, but it's harder to do when there's no history of it and the suits get scared at the notion of scaring off even a single buyer.

Embracing online meme culture is seen as a way to drive up engagement, but the risk of offending people, even trolls and bad faith responders, is just deemed too high risk for some companies.

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