"Augs Lives Matter": Black Lives Matter co-opted for a scifi game, but creators claim coincidence

When you've been caught appropriating that hottest of cakes-the name of a contemporary political movement-one has two fair options: either (1) take your work seriously and make a case why it's clever/smart/funny/interesting, or (2) apologize and fuck off. But Andre Vu, the "global executive brand director" of forthcoming sci-fi videogame Deus Ex:Mankind Divided, thinks he has a third way out: to claim it's a coincidence.

A back-and-forth with BioWare designer Manveer Heir led to Vu's comments and other defenses of the campaign slogan. Vu chalked up widespread interpretations of "Augs Live Matters" as piggybacking on the similarly named social media movement to an out-of-context "hate wagon."

"You are criticizing our integrity and the fact we try to abuse of recent event when it isn't the case," Vu wrote in response to Heir's criticism that the ad was "a bad look... These words were thought in our game way before the current events," Vu said. "Unfortunate coincidence for sure."

How on Earth does he expect to be taken seriously?

The game, which tackles issues of segregation in a futuristic dystopia, already raised eyebrows after the company making it put out a bizarre statement reassuring players that 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's portrayal of government-mandated segregation is presented "as neutral as possible,"' as if apartheid itself were a subject upon which neutrality was a reasonable position.

Looking forward to Deus Ex:I Love My Augness, And Yours and the sequel Deus Ex:Oh My God JC It's A Bomb