DIGITISER
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ

TEN OF THE STUPIDEST VIDEO GAME CONTROVERSIES EVER

6/3/2018

19 Comments

 
Picture
To everyone but the most moronic and indoctrinated, it's pretty obvious that Donald Trump is currently using video games as a smokescreen to distract from the issue of gun control.

It seems unlikely that he has any real conviction over wanting to censoring video games, given that he typically says the first thing that comes into his ridiculous head. That said, I'm not averse to games having age ratings - indeed, I think they should - but, y'know, this is Trump. Going through with any sort of wide-scale censorship would prove a risky move for him, given former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's courting of the Gamergate crowd.

Speaking before a planned meeting with the president - announced in the wake of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida - America's Entertainment Software Association issued a statement: "Like all Americans, we are deeply concerned about the level of gun violence in the United States. Video games are plainly not the issue: entertainment is distributed and consumed globally, but the US has an exponentially higher level of gun violence than any other nation.”

That's not to say that video games don't have a history of controversy. We all know about the violence and the epilepsy and the Hot Coffee, but what of some of the other - more outlandish and unexpected - controversies to strike gaming?

Here are ten of them, brah!
SIMCOPTER
Picture
A helicopter simulator is perhaps the last game you'd expect to be accused of homophobia, but designer Jacques Servin hid an Easter egg within the code of Maxis' Simcopter which prompted outcry when discovered, and ultimately cost him his job.

To wit: the cityscapes would sometimes become populated by semi-naked, muscled men, wearing tiny pants, who would hug and kiss one another, and had fluorescent, glowing, nipples. On occasion, the homosexuals would swarm around your chopper en masse, only to be sliced up by its rotor blades - requiring you to ferry them to the nearest hospital.

Having not told his employers about the semi-naked partyboyz, Servin was fired when an AIDS charity called for a boycott of all Maxis products. After initially blaming stressful working conditions for his decision to include the gay swarms, Servin later admitted he was paid $5,000 by anti-consumerist organisation RTMark to "subvert" the game.
SHADOW MAN: 2ECOND COMING
Picture
Fight me if you like, but I think the Shadow Man games were truly horrible - all ugly visuals coupled to a trying-too-hard storyline.

However, they weren't quite as horrible as publisher Acclaim's announcement that it would be willing to pay grieving families for the opportunity to promote Shadow Man: 2econd Coming on the graves of their deceased relatives. While it might've been a cheap and tasteless publicity stunt, it had the desired effect; Acclaim came under fire from no less a group of dudes than the Church of England.

Responding to the criticism, an Acclaim spokesperson honked: "It's a dark, gory type of game and we thought it was appropriate to raise advertising to a new level," adding that payment to the grievers could be seen as "a subsidy to burial costs to give their loved one a good send-off".
MIND QUIZ
Picture
This 2007 Nintendo DS title surfed the "brain training" craze, but ran into trouble in the UK due to its use of the term "Super Spastic"; offensive in the UK, but not elsewhere in the world.

Publisher Ubisoft pulled the game from release once the issue came to light... but barely a month later the whole thing happened again when the offending word appeared in Mario Party 8. Specifically, the phrase "Turn the train spastic".

Given how grossly offensive it has become, it's odd to think that "spastic" was recently considered acceptable when describing people with cerebral palsy - I still remember Spastics Society shops on the high streets. They have now, of course, all been renamed Scope, which has - regrettably - led to the term "scoper" coming into parlance. 

It was BBC children's show Blue Peter which popularised the use of the term "spaz" as an insult, due to its well-intentioned - but ultimately misguided - decision to use cerebral palsy sufferer Joey Deacon as a recurring guest.

In America, the word no longer has connotations with cerebral palsy. In a 1965 article, the film critic Paul Kael wrote, for some reason: "The term that American teenagers now use as the opposite of 'tough' is 'spaz' . A spaz is a person who is courteous to teachers, plans for a career, and believes in official values. A spaz is something like what adults still call a square."

SUPER MONACO GP
Picture
The original arcade release of Super Monaco GP landed Sega in trouble over its use of in-game advertising for Marlboro cigarettes. Or, rather, the thinly-veiled "Marlbobo" cigabettes.

​In a 1989 complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, Dr. John W. Richards of the Medical College of Georgia, accused Sega of promoting tobacco products to minors: “Super Monaco GP is essentially one big Marlboro ad. A child playing Super Monaco GP is exposed to literally hundreds of Marlboro ads during the game, if he’s good. If he’s not good and doesn’t reach ‘extended play,’ then he’ll see only 50 or so Marlboro ads.”

Additionally, Sega was sued by Marlboro manufacturer Philip Morris for copyright infringement, forced to pay a fine and run three months of full-page ads in trade industry magazines, offering Super Monaco GP owners conversion kits and $200 to remove the offending Marlbobo branding.
LITTLEBIGPLANET
Picture
Sony's attempt to create a PlayStation mascot to rival Sonic and Mario rather backfired when LittleBigPlanet was recalled worldwide when it was revealed that some of the licensed background music included quotes from the Qu'ran. Specifically, the phrases "'Every soul shall have the taste of death" and "All that is on earth will perish".

​Sounds like a cheery book.

Unfortunately, in attempting to avoid offending Muslims, Sony then came under fire from anti-censorship advocates...
PORTAL 2
Picture
Sometimes it feels as if people are just looking for a reason to be offended. Case in point: Valve's Portal 2, which featured the player's character being mocked by an AI over her supposedly adopted status, by calling her "Fatty fatty no parents".

An adoptive father complained to local CBS news station that he found the comment offensive.

"It literally pokes fun for not having parents," he told WBTV, though conceded that "If you're not an adoptive parent it's probably not that big a deal to you,"
GAME OVER
Picture
As Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake discovered to their peril when they chose to expose the former's breast during the Super Bowl half-time show in 2004, people don't wish to see any unscheduled boobies.

If only they had been aware of Game Over, a 1987 cross-platform shoot 'em up, published by Imagine Software. Foolishly, Imagine chose to promote the game with advertising featuring a cyborg warrior and a scantily-clad space lady wearing a futuristic bikini - the artwork had originally appeared on the cover of Heavy Metal magazine - which partially exposed one of her areolae. 

Following widespread outcry, Imagine re-published the ad in magazines the following month, with the nip-nip hastily and crudely obscured by a metal plate. Ironically, the censored version appeared in the September 1987 edition of Your Sinclair... which also came with a free Game Over poster displaying the uncensored nipple in all its turgid glory.

Apropos nothing, the Janet Jackson nip-flash was directly responsible for the creation of YouTube; the site's co-creator Jawed Karim has admitted he was inspired to develop the site after he had difficulty finding the clip online. 
SPANISH FOR EVERYONE
Picture
This educational DS game was supposedly a tool for teaching children Spanish, through the south-of-the-border exploits of a young boy called Shawn.

Ostensibly, Shawn is trying to track down his Nintendo DS - which a Spanish friend has run off with accidentally (he got into his father's car, which he hadn't realised was being chased by the police) - but along the way he encounters numerous racial stereotypes, and accepts lifts from strangers who offer to "teach you many things" (one of whom is named Gina VAsquez - think about it...). 

Additionally, the game is littered with grammatical errors - both in English and Spanish - and features a talking bull who believes that Shawn's coming has "been foretold in the world of bovines since the dawn of time", and that Spanish is "the language that will thwart evil".

Lastly, he gets a ride with a man who is quite clearly some sort of drug smuggler, who promises Shawn that "We won't get attacked if we ride together".

To which Shawn replies: "Jeeps are cool!"
NIGHT OF BUSH CAPTURING
Picture
No, not as filthy as it sounds... Night of Bush Capturing is an Islamic attempt to redress the balance when it comes to first-person shooters - a vast majority of which see players shooting Muslims. Published by Global Islamic Media as a free-to-play title, it featured, naturally, the player fighting back an infidel invasion, before facing off with a crudely-depicted version of then-President George W. Bush

The US State Department damned it as a recruitment tool for Al Qaeda - not entirely dissimilar, in fact, to the way the Call of Duty titles are essentially recruitment tools for the US military - thus drawing entirely unwarranted attention to a game that would otherwise have been ignored.

Somewhat metaphorically, Night of Bush Capturing was a re-skinned version of a game called Quest For Saddam, a sequel to a little-known title called Quest For Al Qaeda. Developed in 2003 by one Jesse Petrilla as a response to the 9/11 attacks, it saw players shooting terrorists, before finally taking on Saddam Hussein.

A favourable TV news report on quest For Saddam claimed it included "many funny scenarios", over the top of footage showing the heads of Saddam's bodyguards exploding in clouds of red mist.

"I've been laughing every time we've been playing this," continued the the MSNBC host. 

Speaking about the Night of the Bush Capturing, Petrilla offered: "They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. But I'm not flattered."

Petrilla went on to form the United American Committee, a political action group which aimed to remind Americans of "the threat that radical Islam poses to all of us."

He later successfully ran as a Republican candidate for the city council of Rancho Santa Margarita, California, an achievement which was seemingly unaffected by his 2001 conviction for firing a gun during a bar fight.
CANNIBAL ISLAND
Picture
Of all the games on this list, the ZX Spectrum adventure Cannibal Island - which saw the player stranded on a remote island, with a mission to build an escape raft - was the least controversial upon release.

This is despite the titular island being populated by human cannibals - with big lips and bones through their noses - who wanted to eat you, and said things like "Ugg um blood!" and "Me no want to die!" and "Umgowwa um pain!" and "Me hurt me die!"

Even though it was released as recently as 1986, nobody even batted an eyelid. There weren't even any complaints at the instructions advising you that "Loosing a fight with a cannibal will result in you loosing a limb".

Have I ever told you the story about how I met a self-confessed cannibal? 

It was during my expedition to Guyana to look for real monsters - as sponsored by Capcom. Our guide, Damon - an Amerindian chieftain descended from an eagle - took us to a remote village to meet with a man who had encountered some of the monsters we'd been searching for. Right before we arrived, Damon warned us: "He's a cannibal, but don't mention that, I'm not sure how he feels about it..."

We were introduced to the feller, who told us about his encounters with a giant anaconda, before Damon blurted out: "Tell them about that time you ate somebody".

He proceeded to relate a tale of how he was sent up a nearby mountain to retrieve the body of the village chief's son, whose plane had crashed, and was believed to have perished. Upon finding the crashed plane, he wrapped the decapitated corpse in polythene, slung it over his shoulder, and headed down the mountain to present it to the chief.

Unfortunately, he got lost en route and was stuck out in the jungle for weeks, eventually becoming so low on food that he ate the arm of the chief's son, thus returning the body sans one limb. 

"What was it like?" we asked. 

"It was okay. It had already been cooked because the plane had caught fire."

He didn't even have a bone through his nose or anything. He was wearing a baseball cap.

    SIGN UP FOR THE DIGITISER THE SHOW NEWSLETTER!

Subscribe to Newsletter
Picture
19 Comments
deKay link
6/3/2018 10:20:09 am

"Coming on the graves of their deceased relatives" was a bit far, I'd agree.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
6/3/2018 11:06:35 am

Press "F" to pay respects.

Reply
RG
6/3/2018 11:52:23 am

Waggle joystick to pay respects?

colincidence link
6/3/2018 12:02:29 pm

Super Monaco GP year error bleh bleh bleh

Reply
Nick
6/3/2018 12:09:48 pm

The controversy continues.

Reply
colincidence link
6/3/2018 12:13:38 pm

I was just amazed by the graphics for 1986.

Reply
Mr Biffo
6/3/2018 12:23:22 pm

Three years out. I obviously had my laptop upside down.

Reply
Sofa Cough
6/3/2018 12:39:46 pm

Wasn't it Grange Hill not Blue Peter that had Joey Deacon?

Reply
Mr Biffo
6/3/2018 12:50:06 pm

Er... no.

Reply
Mrtankthreat
6/3/2018 12:56:03 pm

"Going through with any sort of wide-scale censorship would prove a risky move for him, given former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's courting of the Gamergate crowd."

Would it though? The loudest voices during gamergate have been remarkably silent over Trump's comments. I've even seen some defending what he said.

Reply
Fake News
7/3/2018 01:09:20 pm

The only thing I've seen are the unethical gaming sites and Anita Sarkeesian doing a 180.

Trump has repeated exactly what Anita and those Websites have been saying for the past few years but now that the "wrong person" has agreed with their views they have suddenly had a change of heart.

Reply
superfog
6/3/2018 01:24:32 pm

I don't like cannibals much...

So I always give them the cold shoulder...

Ah-ha ha!

Reply
colincidence link
7/3/2018 02:45:58 pm

Cannibals only go to restaurants for the company.

Reply
Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
6/3/2018 03:25:42 pm

The horde of gays showed up at the end of the level in Simcopter (usually you landed at the airport to a hero’s welcome, complete with marching band). It was extremely difficult to injure them with your rotors in that circumstance, in fact, doing so at all tended to need a Sim standing on the edge of a rooftop so you could even get your rotors near them.

You could cause plenty of injuries with your tear gas launcher if you really wanted to.

Reply
ChorltonWheelie
11/3/2018 06:08:36 pm

Yeah, not homophobic at all. More an in your face fuck off to the haters.
Much like this (any excuse to share my favourite youtube clip ever)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2UVnY6tuCA

If you don't like this clip we can't ever be friends.

Reply
Mrtankthreat
6/3/2018 05:14:43 pm

I'm in two minds over the Portal thing. No doubt the media overblew it (accusing Sony of shifting blame by telling the journalist to contact Valve, the actual people who made the game etc.) but as an adopted person I can see where the dad was coming from. Certainly at the time I did think it was a fuss over nothing but on reflection the line did register with me. I wouldn't go so far as to say it offended me but it was definitely noticable in a way that it wouldn't be for someone not adopted.

Also by the time I encountered the game I had done a fair bit of processing with regards to my adoption. If I was younger it might have had a different effect. I can certainly imagine a scenario where it could have upset me to the point that I stopped playing the game. Adoption stirs up a gamut of emotions.

That's not to say I think the line shouldn't have been in the game. Nor should anyone have to apologise for including the line. I think sometimes the likes of comedians are too quick to apologise for jokes for example. It's possible to acknowledge that someone was offended and empathise with them without having to retract anything you've said.

There was probably little need for the dad to go to the media but there was no call for the game to be banned or anything was there? It was more a raise awareness thing. Just to think about how your actions might affect people that you don't normally come in contact with.

For me it's like cars parked on the lip of a path. It's something people do all the time and 99% of the time will not cause an issue. But there is still that 1% of the time someone in a wheelchair will struggle to get down off the path because it's blocked by a car.

Now, I don't drive or have to deal with people in wheelchairs on a regular basis so it would be quite easy for me to go through life without having to recognise that cars parked on the lip of a path could pose a problem but I remember seeing a report on the tv urging people not to for the aforementioned reason and it's stuck with me ever since. When I see a car parked on a lip I think if only they had seen the same report I had seen. The people who do park on lips aren't doing it out of malice or because they hate disabled people, it was just something they never had to think about.

So yeah, I can agree that there are people who go out of their way to be offended but there are also a lot of people who get offended by people who get offended when all their doing is saying, have a think about other people for just a bit.

Reply
John Cross
6/3/2018 10:04:52 pm

I would encourage people in wheelchairs to adopt the approach I did when I had a baby in a pram... Before going out into the road and risking your safety try to pass through the gap, no matter how improbably small, at least 14 times. Backwards and forwards. Just to make sure that the pram/wheelchair really can't fit past the inconsiderate pricks car without scraping it.

Reply
Lummox60N
7/3/2018 05:06:17 pm

Didn't those cheeky chappies at "Your Sinclair/Spectrum" give away a Game Over poster with that same picture on it? I'm fairly sure I had a copy of it on my bedroom wall as a young teenager.

And poor old Joey Deacon, losing his shoe off the side of the ferry like that.
Weirdly, 'round here it didn't popularise the word "spaz", but we DID start calling spazzies "Joeys" instead.
Make of that what you will.

Reply
Chris Wyatt
9/3/2018 12:52:28 pm

I downloaded that Quest for Al Qaeda game a long time ago from DOS Games Archive, which used to be one of my favourite websites in ye olde age of the internet.

I'm surprised it didn't get more publicity, and I'm also surprised we weren't all playing on it in the IT rooms at school.

About the only thing I remember is the radios were playing mock middle eastern music (basically a load of gobbledygook wailing). Quite funny, but probably a little bit racist. The game would probably have caused more uproar if it had been released now.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings:


    Current Number Of Columns are = 2

    Expand Posts Area =

    Gap/Space Between Posts = 12px

    Blog Post Style = card

    Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

    Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

    Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

    Picture
    Support Me on Ko-fi
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    RSS Feed Widget
    Picture

    Picture
    Tweets by @mrbiffo
    Picture
    Follow us on The Facebook

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ