“#AlwaysbetonDuke too many went too far with their reviews. w r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”
The above tweet is from Redner Group, and is gaining a lot of attention on the web. The Redner Group was the PR firm for 2k Games, handling the release of the publicity dealing with Duke Nukem Forever, part of which presumably included choosing who to send review copies to. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the long awaited Duke game has been garnering between mediocre and low scores on many gaming websites. Following a few other words thrown back and forth, and an absolute cluster of players piling on in response, The Redner Group deleted the tweet and issued the following apology:
“I have to apologize to the community. I acted out of pure emotion. I will be sending each of you a private apology. I need to state for the record that 2K had nothing to do with this. I will be calling each of you tomorrow to apologize. Again, I want everyone to know that I was acting on my own. 2K had nothing to do with this. I am so very sorry for what I said.”
This does signify the beauty of the internet. With the continuing popularity of Twitter, saying something stupid and getting away with it has become almost impossible. 2k Games canned the group as a partner, and I think it’s safe to assume more companies will follow in the near future. That being said, emotion or not, Jim Redner (of the Redner Group Redners) comes off as nothing more than the type of bully I deal with on a regular basis here at MMO Fallout.
Just a reminder in the new age of technology: Getting yourself fired is only as far away as 140 characters will take you.
MMO Fallout 
Ya, sure, blame it on some idiot tweeting. Doesn’t change the fact that they screwed up or the fact that this has happened before with companies. Face it, when we see this type of behaviour, we just learn to avoid that companies crap in the future.
Eurogamer’s operational director noted that 2K Games has blacklisted the publication from receiving review copies, so it’s not even as if the Redner Group was acting out of line of what 2k Games wanted. There is no doubt a lot of review websites will be blacklisted by 2K over Duke Nukem Forever.
Companies blacklisting publications is nothing new, but it’s not often you get to see such a public admission of guilt. It’d be like some guy tweeting “judge didn’t pass sentence we wanted. We’ll be reviewing who we bribe in the future.”