I’m not saying that we should be hyper sensitive about everything that may be personal to us. What I’m saying is that from a developers perspective, if you want to maximise sales and make a game that doesn’t suffer from this kind of negative publicity then you have to take the hyper sensitive people into consideration.

You have to put your brain into gear and think about the reality that there are people who will jump on your back given the slightest chance.

Look at the Haitian uproar that happened with GTA. Look at the trouble Ubisoft got into with Venezuela.

It’s all just unnecessary aggravation that will impact your sales, your brand and your company image.

As for the movie industry, then films are certainly not free from criticism if they go down a similar kind of controversial route. Just take a look at rottentomatoes and see the amount of negative press that most films get these days if they try and take on a political issue in the wrong way.

Why should we be so overly sensitive to it? It’s not a big step from there to changing the main char because it offends fat people or single mothers etc etc. Why is the gaming industry not afforded the same creative freedom that the movie industry is for instance?

Did it bollox. The cinema chain didn’t show the film because of a financial dispute between it and Sony Pictures.

You can easily verify this with a Google search, but why let the facts get in the way of polemic?

Having worked in the games industry for almost 8 years, I know that there are many design decisions that are taken so that the game doesn’t cause offence to any group/individuals.

Just take a look at FIFA manager for example. When setting up your character you can choose to be involved in a ‘same sex’ relationship instead of a having a wife.

To be perfectly honest. If the developers of this game looked at the concept of a white alpha male killing nothing but black zombies, then they’re a bit careless to say the least.

Fair enough, the game is set in Africa, in some place where you’d expect 99.9% of the population to be black, but a little common sense says that some people could interpret it the wrong way.

Anyway, they seem to have taken the criticism on board now and changed the game, so surely that’s a sign that they didn’t intend any offence initially…

However, as for this ridiculous ‘blacks worked on the development’ rubbish, then what does that mean??

Is there a black guy in external QA??

Did they employ a black photographer to get resource material from the place where the game is set??

It’s gibberish that smacks of the old, ‘I’m not recist because my butler’s black’ nonsense. They’d have been better off just saying nothing and getting on with making a good game.

Instead they’re using the bizarre ‘but if a black person indirectly supports it, it can’t be racist!’ angle.

It just reeks from all angles like an industry embarressingly out of touch with the real world, and I really hope the national press somewhere takes someone to the cleaners over it.

Ubisoft more than Capcom on the content front no doubt, but Capcom’s flip-flopping shouldn’t be ignored either.

The Odeon cinema chain here in the UK refused to show the recent Rambo film for it’s tasteless advocation of using violent mercenary tactics to solve current political issues and presenting it as entertainment.

Good on them.

What’s especially common with military action in Africa, focused around what little built up areas there are is what simple ammenities the country has left get destroyed or abandonded, so that even after ‘the job is done’ a few years later and some ‘side’ has finally caved in, the people are left with nothing to survive on.

And from what Far Cry 2 has shown so far there’s blowing up of buildings, oil pipes and such. Things that the local people in any African country have been made completely dependant on by the same people that are now deciding to destroy for tactical advantage in another bloody conflict.

Read something like the recent Blood River by Tim Butcher and you’ll be slapping your hand on your forehead watching the Far Cry 2 trailers and dev diaries where they talk more about the setting of the game and try and justify shooting untrained 18 year old African militia in the face with a huge gun.

Also read up on people like Mike Hoare, the most uncompromisingly evil mercenary prick you could hope to come across.

Are you trying to say that the leaders in Africa are not corrupt? By that I mean more corrupt on average than other politicians…hehe.

If anyone trys to defend the evil overlords that oppress their people in Africa I imagine they will have a hard time defending it even against a 5 year old. I mean, can anyone justify African warlords? To me it seems that the African leaders love to keep their people starving and dying of AIDS while they keep their power and wealth. I really don’t think it is the same issue (as the accused racism). Matter of fact, I think they are both non-issues. Do you really think any game designer would set out with the attitude of ‘lets try and make blacks look bad’? I don’t.

Just wait until any decent journalist from outside this embarrassingly insular industry gets hold of it. They’ll rightly rip it to pieces while we get the same confused bleeting about how unfair it is that games aren’t considered art.

Then I read further and thought, ‘well, N’Gai, smart as he is, does need to be told on this issue’, his comments ran a little too close to ‘hysterical’,

Girls, it’s only the freaking color of skin. Get over it.

Or are we not allowed to shoot people who have giant mouths coming out of their faces that eat people? You know, in case we hurt their feelings.

I also have a number of jokes I could use here… but they’re wildly inappropriate. \o/