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.
On that last point, DiLuigi defended his actions by arguing there was no real conflict of interest. "While I am the main Nintendo writer for Gaming Vice, I will not be doing the review or any sort of preview for the upcoming Layton game," DiLuigi said. "Those will be given to someone else due to the fact that I admittedly have a bias towards the series." Despite his unorthodox methods, DiLuigi compared the Twitter account to the efforts of any other journalist trying to get more attention for an under-appreciated game in which he believes. "Professional game journalists (i.e. people who do this for a living) do this all the time, to a lesser extent than TopHatProfessor of course."
As for the response of the posters and moderators on his beloved NeoGAF? "Honestly, those reactions were perfectly justified," he said. "I just wanted people to take note of the game's existence and, as evidenced by the Twitter page, I did my job. ... I was banned from an Internet message board. Life goes on."