Minecraft Menu Drops the N-Bomb

[The Wooster]

Minecraft Menu Drops the N-Bomb

An unimaginative, translator-turned-troll managed to add an unpleasant racial epithet to Minecraft's main menu.

Yesterday, Afrikaans-speaking players who fired up the latest snapshot build of Minecraft got an unpleasant surprise: The phrase "You are a ******," had replaced the single player option on the menu screen.

Recently-promoted head developer, Jens Bergensten, apologized for the incident and pinned the blame on a "prankster" hiding amongst the multitude of volunteer translators working on the game. "Sorry about that =( I thought I had banned that user," read one of his tweets.

The offending translation has since been removed, and the forum topic that originally it pointed out has been shuffled off this mortal coil as well.

Minecraft is largely text-free, but many users have taken it upon themselves to translate the game into a variety of different languages, evidently without much oversight from Mojang. The game is currently playable in 56 different languages, including a few humorous, made-up ones, like "Pirate," "Canadian English" and "French."

Now, I'd be lying if I said that the idea of contaminating a highly popular game's main menu with absurdly offensive expletives doesn't tickle my ever-so-slightly anarchic funny bone, but is "******," complete with caps, really the best this person could come up with? That's just sad, in a tired kind of way. It makes the low-brow gremlins who scrawl mustaches and crudely-drawn genitals on billboards look like Banksy [http://www.banksy.co.uk/].



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[Scarecrow]

Huh, I have to admit that this is kinda funny. I'm not sure what else to say besides that. Offensive, but funny.

 

[The Random One]

"u r blax lol"

Honestly though, I don't even know where Afrikaan is spoken. Is that- is that racist?

 

[Micalas]

"u r blax lol"

Honestly though, I don't even know where Afrikaan is spoken. Is that- is that racist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans

I suppose if you wanted to be offensive to those speaking Afrikaans, without going for the low hanging fruit of "******" they could've put "You are a Kaffir."

 

[Krion_Vark]

including a few humorous, made-up ones, like 'Pirate,' 'Canadian English' and 'French.'

I have to say I laughed hard when I read this part.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

"u r blax lol"

Honestly though, I don't even know where Afrikaan is spoken. Is that- is that racist?

Afrikaan is basically spoken in South Africa and Nambia, it's one of the Germanic languages but has shifted to take in their dialect. (Oddly spoken in Jersey as well?)

So most of the countries hit by this would be ones that had racial apartheid very recently.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Its not even that its the word ****** that makes me disappointed in this. Its the lack of creativity. I mean c'mon is that really the best trolling anyone could think of?

 

[Andrew_C]

Offhand it seems odd that the troll used the N word when they could have used the K word. Which, if you can imagine, is considered even more offensive in South Africa than the N word is in America.

I suppose Mojang were looking out for Afrikaans swearwords and obscenities but forgot to check for other languages. I hope they are now checking all the translations, just to make sure no-one else has slipped a joker into the pile.

As they say in South Africa "Afrikaans is 'n foklekker vloektaal!"

 

[LadyDeadly]

including a few humorous, made-up ones, like 'Pirate,' 'Canadian English' and 'French.'

I have to say I laughed hard when I read this part.

I used to have the language setting for facebook on pirate then i forgot which words ment what, XDD

And french lol

"I'm French! Why do you think i have this outrageous accent you silly king!"

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Newfag is newfag. Let's hope this doesn't cripple Minecraft's sales.

 

[Strain42]

including a few humorous, made-up ones, like 'Pirate,' 'Canadian English' and 'French.'

I have to say I laughed hard when I read this part.

Yeah, me too. I actually had to read it twice to make sure I read what I thought I'd read.

On regards to this though...yeah, the occasional troll translator going nutso is supposed to be funny. This is just more sad than anything.

 

[drisky]

He probably meant to say "You are a DIGGER", but made a typo. Minecraft is all about those filthy diggers.

 

[TilMorrow]

including a few humorous, made-up ones, like 'Pirate,' 'Canadian English' and 'French.'

I have to say I laughed hard when I read this part.

Yeah, me too. I actually had to read it twice to make sure I read what I thought I'd read.

I had a similar reaction to this humourous comment. Really where do those people in that strange country next to Italy get off making nonsense languages?

OT: Hmm, I think it lacks the drive to make it a wholly insulting gesture. If anything it's just someone being stupid on the Internet again. Though if Minecraft had been made by someone from South Africa rather than someone from Sweden then there would have been much more weigh behind this troll's actions.

He probably meant to say "You are a DIGGER", but made a typo. Minecraft is all about those filthy diggers.

Well played.

 

[0p3rati0n]

This is just stupid and really sad. This is the worst attempt at trolling I've seen all week. Quite possible the whole month.

 

[hooksashands]

Funny on a gut level, not much else.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

At the time I saw the topic pop up in the forums here, I suspected it might have been shopped. Well that's the downside of having volunteer translators.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Wow. I can't care about this at all. This is on the level of the first four or five posts on some Slashdot threads that are just racist copypasta trolling that everyone ignores and swiftly gets downmodded into oblivion. Oh well, I'm sure someone will use this as a case study on the risks of crowdsourcing or something.

 

[Akimoto]

He probably meant to say "You are a DIGGER", but made a typo. Minecraft is all about those filthy diggers.

No objections! Apparently the would-be troller did not do his homework.

 

[Baldr]

luckily he didn't know the "K-Word", which is more offensive in that culture that uses that translation than the "N-Word"