Pocket God Accused of Racism

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Pocket God Accused of Racism


The popular iPhone game Pocket God [http://pocketgod.blogspot.com/] has come under fire as degrading and racist for the way it portrays a primitive group of islanders who wear grass skirts and bones in their hair.

The Bolt Creative [http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3174004] says the game is not meant to depict any particular nationality, not everyone is convinced that the islanders, who can be set on fire or tossed to the sharks, are harmlessly cute.

Bolt's claims are "ridiculous," said Elaine Howard of the Pacific Women's Information Network. Calling it an "arrogant slap in the face to our people," Howard, who lives in the U.S., continued, "How do you think people would react if you created a game where you were God and you could create and kill as many Mexicans as you wanted? Or Asians? People would be outraged."

"I hope you don't decide to advertise your application in New Zealand or Australia because you will get a backlash of the same intensity," she added.

Dr Malakai Koloamatangi of New Zealand's Canterbury University [http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/] agreed with Howard's assessment, calling the game "totally degrading" and saying it reinforced widely-held stereotypes about Pacific people. "To claim they are not Pacific islanders is ridiculous. Everything about them is Polynesian. How can they justify encouraging the torture of a race in this way? It's disgusting," he said. "I'm not saying let's bring in the thought police but there needs to be limits on what is acceptable, and this surpasses those."

Bolt issued a letter to the PWIN apologizing for any offense but maintained that such offense is "misplaced." "The fictional characters in Pocket God do not directly or indirectly represent any human nationality, race or cultural people," the studio said. "Bolt Creative does not intend and has never intended to offend or marginalize any nationality, race or culture in any of its video games, including Pocket God."

Peter Molyneux [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux], who actually has nothing to do with this, was not available for comment.

via: 1Up [http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3174004]


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Baby Tea

Just Ask Frankie
Sep 18, 2008
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Let me be one of the first to say that this is a load of crap.
Seriously, people need to stop looking for the marginalization of races where there is none. I bet you any money if they were little white people no-one would say a damn thing. You know why? Because it's just a freaking game.
 

Skrapt

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May 6, 2008
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But if they were white it would be A-OK!

Sorry but it's true, i don't wish to offend anyone as much as the next person but stuff like this is taking political correctness too far. The racial outcries are (nearly) always about games where the predominant skin colour of the enemy isn't white, all its leading to is the formation of the 'generic bad guy' who can't stir up controversy but is bland, generic and almost always completely out of place in whatever country the supposed countries the conflicts are taking place in.
 

ConstantJoe

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Apr 10, 2009
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I don't see the problem. Hell, if there was a game where you could mess and torture lots of small ginger drunk fighting Irishmen, I'd totally buy it!
 

KDR_11k

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Feb 10, 2009
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I suppose they could replace them with overweight white guys sporting baseball caps [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Higgins]...

Maybe you could get Capcom's RE5 team to comment on black natives chucking spears :p.
 

Cpt_Oblivious

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Jan 7, 2009
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Why do people look for racism everywhere?
It's not stereotyping any particular race of people, the developers wanted their islanders to look that way so what's wrong with it? If they were black, people would complain. If they were white, people would complain. If they were hispanic, people would complain. You can't win against these freaks of political correctness.

And quite honestly, I think these poepl would have better uses for their time than this. It's just a silly little game for the iPhone.
 

Baby Tea

Just Ask Frankie
Sep 18, 2008
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Cpt_Oblivious said:
If they were black, people would complain. If they were white, people would not complain. If they were hispanic, people would complain.
Fixed.
Seriously, if they were white people, no-one would say anything. Because it's just a silly game.
 

Fanboy

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Oct 20, 2008
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This could all have been avoided if they weren't portrayed in such a stereotypical manner, but were instead dressed in little business suits and cowboy hats. That would be much more historically accurate.

Oh, and they should have guns, and live in houses, and speak english... and be white. Yes, much more accurate, so there would be no calling for racism.
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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People made some silly looking, stereotyped (I think tongue in cheek) drawings for a phone game and people are offended by this? Are they trying to say their ancestors looked like doodles? That's insulting!
 

Sheen150

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Oct 23, 2008
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*sigh* Why can't all the other races just get over it? I mean seriously, I'm not trying to be racist but do you see ANY white people complaining about a game where you kill other white people? No. Because they don't care. They see it's just a game and don't play the whole race card thing. They're just little animated people on a damn iPhone game. Who cares what they look like? Personally I love that game. It's a good way to pass the time if you're bored. People just need to get it through their heads its JUST A GAME.
 

Theophenes

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Dec 5, 2008
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Okay, so it's like Wrath with Polynesian (I hoped I spelled that right) guys. I don't get the point, but whatever.
 

heintzer

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Dec 5, 2007
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I'm really troubled by the comments around the interwebs about this story. The complaint itself is kind of silly - it *is* just an iPhone toy and probably shouldn't be taken so seriously.

But the responses from all the entitled little fucks who turn around and say "NO ONE WOULD CARE OF THEY WERE WHITE" and other absurd, ancient and refuted arguments is very worrisome.
 

HazukiHawkins

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Mar 3, 2009
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Baby Tea said:
Let me be one of the first to say that this is a load of crap.
Seriously, people need to stop looking for the marginalization of races where there is none. I bet you any money if they were little white people no-one would say a damn thing. You know why? Because it's just a freaking game.
In a way I agree. It's my opinion that unless they'd decided to make the islanders green or otherwise non-human, they would have to look like either an existing ethnic group, or a strange mishmash of features from several... that they ended up looking like some people somewhere on the globe doesn't surprise me.

Seems most logical to consider the possibility that this is just another example of game designers with a slight lack of foresight and perspective, coupled with the unfortunately common minority pastime of stepping into the path of something with a certain amount of offensive potential and becoming offended at it, presumably in order to then be able to complain about it.

To my limited knowledge, the pacific peoples do not suffer especially high levels of racist persecution, so it seems rather whiney for some of them to act so offended by a once-in-a-while thing like this... especially since the use of stereotypes goes to show that the developers were probably not among the sharpest eggs in the turnip refinery. Oh, and if anyone has better knowledge than me of the situation of actual pacific islanders, please do correct me.
 

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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As a Pacific Islander, I'd like to state clearly that Elaine Howard and Dr Malakai Koloamatangi do not represent my beliefs, and, to borrow popular internet colloquialism, they can die in a fire. Their misplaced, misinformed, and misguided efforts do nothing to help anyone.

Some people just want to be outraged. Perhaps it's best to just ignore their tantrum, as we would do with a child that throws one, and stop rewarding bad behavior.

In the meantime, since the image above apparently captures an accurate portrayal: Batman! Gotham city is actually somewhere in the Pacific! So this grass-skirted ancestor passed down his knowledge to today's dark knight. Amazing!