14 DAY TRIAL // Dante's Inferno is an upcoming videogame partly based on the epic poem The Divine Comedy written by Durante degli Alighieri. One of the main elements of Hell as envisioned by the poet is a segmentation of those condemned related to the sins they committed.
In an effort to promote the videogame, the good people working at the marketing department at Electronic Arts have turned greed into some hard currency that they have sent to game journalists.
Each of those targeted received a 200-dollar check set in a wooden box. The decorations included two skeletons and a velvet pillow. The box also contained a brief note that reads, “In Dante's Inferno, Greed is a two-headed beast. Hoarding wealth feeds on beast and squandering it satiates the other. By cashing this check you succumb to avarice by harding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality. Make your choice and suffer the consequence for your sin. And scoff not, for consequences are imminent.”
News of the marketing stunt comes from Kotaku and its solution to the challenge presented by greed was to burn its money and by doing so, free themselves from the temptation that material value had on them. Other people have suggested that a better use for the check would have been a donation to charity or the purchase of copies of the Divine Comedy, which could then have been distributed for free to those who plan on picking up the videogame.
This is just the latest move in a wider trend on the part of marketing departments to woo opinion makers in the videogaming world. Journalists recently received things like baseball bats and hand cuffs as part of such campaigns.