Professor Layton and the Curious Twitter Accounts

Ssquared22 writes "'Frankly ... I'm ashamed. I have made myself a Twitter page and officially joined the world of technology. Perhaps Luke may help me update.' With those words on June 28, 2009, what had been just a fictional character in a Nintendo DS game became a fixture on Twitter. Over the coming days and weeks, the TopHatProfessor account would post dozens of riddles and brainteasers of the type found in 2008's Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the upcoming Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, soliciting answers from his slowly growing cadre of followers. Along the way, the professor happily answered questions about the upcoming title and shared little slices of life from his day, all without ever breaking character. Many followers were bemused and intrigued by what they assumed was a clever new viral marketing campaign put on by Nintendo ahead of Diabolical Box's August release. In reality, though, the TopHatProfessor account was the work of a lone college student and amateur game journalist, trying to get attention for a game he felt was being sorely neglected by publisher Nintendo and the media at large."

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Re:Join us next time...

[clang_jangle]

Instead it will be as likely to end with a cease and desist or even a lawsuit. FTFA:

While the reaction on Twitter was mostly positive and appreciative of DiLuigi's efforts, the reaction on gaming message board NeoGAF, where DiLuigi was a devoted member, was more negative. When a user turned up the fact that DiLuigi had used NeoGAF to promote the TopHatProfessor account without disclosing his role in creating it, the moderators decided to ban DiLuigi from further posting. "Nothing says more professional than faking a twitter as being some sort of pseudo official thing for Nintendo," wrote NeoGAF user shuri. "You did something stupid and then added layers of stupid on top of it. It was like a stupid cake. And now you're eating it," added user ShockingAlberto. "Why is a 'game journalist' viral marketing for Nintendo for free?" asked user Tiktaalik.

They do have a point. Doing something like that without permission these days can land you in deep crap.