The literary classic of Dante's Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy trilogy, has weathered time rather well. The story is still taught in many classic literature classes and the book is available at most retail book outlets.

However, it looks like Electronic Arts, which is already reinventing the story for its new video game, has gone a step further to come up with its own book cover for the original work, using the new Dante as the cover boy. The new cover trumpets the story as "The literary classic that inspired the epic video game From Electronic Arts."

The book cover appears to be nothing more than a huge ad for the game. The story is unchanged, although there is a new intro by the game's executive producer, Jonathan Knight, and a 16-page full color insert of artwork showing the monsters and villains.

This isn't the first time that EA has engaged in some questionable marketing tactics for the game. They staged a mock religious rally against the Dante's Inferno game at E3 last year. They also set up a web site for a bogus new religious video game called Mass: We Pray that later converted into an ad for Inferno.

The game is due out next Tuesday, and EA already has a huge ad spot purchased for the Super Bowl this Sunday. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.