Not one to back away from controversy, Electronic Arts today mailed out real checks payable to game reviewers for $200.

Each check, mailed in wooden boxes decorated with twin skeletons and the words Dante's Inferno, was affixed to a velvet pillow inside a box. Inside the top of the box is a welcome to the fourth circle of hell which 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.

Not wanting to give in to temptation by cashing the check or using it to market Kotaku, or waste the money, we came up with a different solution. Balls in your court EA.

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