The official "Need for Speed" Twitter account (opens in new tab) woke up with a head full of regret after a series of boisterous tweets that have now been deleted. After insulting fans who criticized the upcoming "Need for Speed: Unbound" (opens in new tab), the account posted an official apology and promised to do better.

The exchange that triggered the apology took place last Monday, when a fan complained about an offer of three days of early access to players who pre-ordered Need For Speed: Unbound The NFS Twitter account responded to that fan by saying responded with an oh-so-ungracious response, "Either cry or buy it at the regular price."

Not exactly PR 101. You will notice that these tweets exist only in the form of screenshots. This is because at some point between the altercation and the apology, the post in question was deleted from the NFS account. Perhaps that was for the best, but being the Internet, people saved backups as soon as the tweets were published.

It is not clear whether the operators of the NFS Twitter page thought they were being lovably cheeky, or whether they were fed up with ministering to fan complaints and decided to disappear in all their glory. In any case, encouraging displeased prospective buyers to "cry themselves to sleep" is unlikely to win them any customer service awards in the near future.

"Need For Speed: Unbound" will be released next week on Steam (open in new tab), the EA app (formerly Origin) (open in new tab), and the Epic Games store (open in new tab). From the gameplay we've seen so far (opens in new tab), it looks like a good start, but those cars certainly seem to handle like toys, which may offend racing purists. They also look like toys, but if the sparkly effects are too "animated" (opens in new tab), you can turn them off, which is less of a problem. But I wouldn't do that. It seems like a milkshake brain move.