Ubisoft Pulls MindQuiz Over Offensive Word

[Andy Chalk]

Ubisoft Pulls MindQuiz Over Offensive Word

MindQuiz [http://www.ubisoft.com]off the market due to complaints about offensive language contained in the game.

Specifically, players who perform poorly are subjected to being called a name considered derogatory to the disabled.

"As soon as we were made aware of the issue we stopped distribution of the product and are now working with retailers to pull the game off the market," a Ubisoft spokesman said. The company said the game was developed in Japan, which would account for the inclusion of the offending term, and slipped through quality control without being caught.

The offensive label was discovered when a woman from Belfast contacted a BBC Radio Ulster [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/] show to complain about the game. She had been playing it while in the hospital giving birth to her son, when her poor performance caused her to be labeled in the derogatory fashion. "I thought it was absolutely appalling that a word like this should be used to describe someone who has not achieved very well," she said. The word was particularly affecting for her because of the recent death of another son, who suffered from cerebral palsy and severe brain damage, just before Christmas.

Ubisoft has issued an apology "to anyone who was offended by the game."



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[Bongo Bill]

So what word was it? "Retarded," I'm guessing.

 

[drunkymonkey]

Spastic.

 

[Bongo Bill]

Spastic.

That's offensive, now?

 

[Andy Chalk]

So was it actually "spastic," or was that just a guess? Because I would've put my money on "retard" too.

 

[Tarmanydyn]

I actually thought it was 'retard' too, and thought it was really funny in a ridiculous way, but now that it's a word that really doesn't carry any connotations with me, it sort of ruins it.

It's things like this that make me not care about language, cursing, political correctness, it's all subjective, and not to mention completely arbitrary. Fuck that shit.

 

[drunkymonkey]

So was it actually "spastic," or was that just a guess? Because I would've put my money on "retard" too.

It was actually spastic, yes.

 

[Bongo Bill]

I'm not sure who noticed it first or when, but effectively being able to censor anything by claiming you were offended by it has some pretty dark implications.

 

[Arbre]

I'm not sure who noticed it first or when, but effectively being able to censor anything by claiming you were offended by it has some pretty dark implications.

Agreed. So no more insults in games, since most of them are anyway based on biological deficiencies, or degrading humans with comparisons to "sub-human" species?

You know, like "idiot" (related to idiocy, or "extreme mental retardation").

But hasn't the UK became the land of absolute nonsensical political correctness these last years anyway?

 

[Arbre]

True.
That said, if one were to create such a society, in theory, in an absurd way, that would be giving ammo to the mechanism behind the freezing of certain games.
Wouldn't sound much serious. But with the track record of absurd lawsuits you can find nowadays, you never know... in Germany, laws are rather strict on that point, regarding any form of insult.
As for "retard", there's a plentiful of associations and agencies for retarded people.

Anyway, insults are not necessary, especially used against the gamer to punish him/her, and as you pointed out, there are "soft" insults, and there's those which carry a rather touchy meaning.

That said, could a game sanction a player and call him/her blind because of a bad accuracy? Yes.
However, God himself couldn't even count the number of associations, groups, agencies and societies for blind people.

Does anyone know where to find a dictionary of neutral and political correct insults by any chance?