A British media conglomerate, Sky, has just made a complete ass of itself on Twitter, after attempting to hang wiv da cool kidz while promoting its new partnership with David Beckham’s eSports company, Guild. Asking followers of the [checks notes] technical support account to tweet a screenshot of their “favourite childhood #IndieGame,” they offered to start with a picture of…Altered Beast. That infamously indie game released by Sega in 1988.
The formerly Murdoch-owned network of TV channels and broadband supply is now in the hands of Comcast, and it seems this corporate background has somewhat skewed their vision of independence. Replies to the tweet are delighting in suggesting alternative childhood indie favorites, like Halo, Super Mario 64, and Skyrim.
Others have helpfully suggested Dune II, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and one person dug up an obscure title called Tetris.
The support account has, in the last few minutes (some three hours after tweeting) started responding to the sarcastic replies with protests that they meant “#RETROGAMES.” But it’s far too late for that.
I too have ventured a suggestion.
Quite why a support account was the source for this silliness isn’t clear, but they’re now frantically trying to own the mistake in between explaining to customers why their internet might be down. Which is a very peculiar situation to have found themselves in. And now we’re making it worse for them by posting their mistake on a widely read international website.
Don’t feel bad for them. You should see how much they charge for their crappy TV and internet. Well, just imagine Comcast charges and service, and you’re most of the way there.
To their credit, they’ve yet to delete the tweet. And, you know, I’ve now heard of Guild for the first time, so maybe something’s working?