News: Nintendo News | MindQuiz Offends Players with Disabilities Page 1

Nintendo News | MindQuiz Offends Players with Disabilities

29.06.2007

Ubisoft's DS training game, MindQuiz, has been pulled from the market due to an offensive word that's used when players don't do well in certain sections.

According to The BBC News report, players are labeled in a potentially offensive way with poor performance. Ubisoft apologised to "anyone who was offended by the game" and said it will withdraw it.

"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. The game was developed in Japan, and we unfortunately did not pick up on the offending word in our quality assurance. We are currently working with the developer to find a way to rectify the issue," a spokesperson told the BBC.

Thanks to Grumbler for the tip. Be sure to stick around for further updates...

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Uberpid 29.06.2007#1

What was the word in question?

CuRoi 29.06.2007#2

Lol! So what was the word then?

Slydevil 29.06.2007#3

Retard?

IANC said:
Dude yuor totally awesome. And i won't be killing you anytime soon.

Raff 29.06.2007#4

I love the way Ubisoft blame it on the Japanese developers, when it was probably localised in-house by a British person.

I reckon the word was Mong, but it would be more fun if it was fucktard.

( Edited on 29.06.2007 18:31 by Grumbler )

It's going to be shit and you jolly well know it.

snkngshps 29.06.2007#5

"Apparently, the game included at least one offensive word, as it was pulled from UK shelves recently due to said word. As it was released in March, along with a PSP version back in October, one would wonder why it wasn't pulled sooner. Well, the word is not included in the PSP version, apparently, and is only included in the DS version.

So, why did it take so long for this word to be discovered? Well, it all comes down to one woman who has two family members with cerebral palsy. She was playing the game, discovered the word and contacted a BBC radio show, then it all snowballed from there. Ubisoft was quick to start grabbing up all available copies after the story became public, obviously, stating "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."

The article makes no mention of what exactly the offensive word is."

snkngshps 29.06.2007#6

I got to the bottom of it:

"Ubisoft's Mind Quiz was pulled from shelves today after a mother of a child with cerebral palsy complained about the game calling her a "spastic" when she didn't score well, reports the BBC."

Via: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6173353.html