Techland Issues an apology for ‘Feminist Whore’ Slur in Dead Island coding
After a player discovered through digging through Dead Island‘s data files that one of the original skill names for player character Purna was “Feminist Whore” (changed to “Gender Wars” in the final game), developer Techland has issued a formal apology.
Their official statement from Blazej Krakowiak, international brand manager to Eurogamer reads:
“It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened. We’re investigating this right now and we’ll issue a statement later. For now, I can only express my sincerest apologies for this incident and assure you that whoever acted so irresponsibly did not represent the views and opinions of Techland. I’m equally sure that aside from the author of that unfortunate line of code, everyone at the office is as disturbed by this as you are.”
Speaking with blogger and games writer Tracey John, representatives of Techland added:
“It has come to our attention that one of Dead Island’s leftover debug files contains a highly inappropriate internal script name of one of the character skills. This has been inexcusably overlooked and released with the game.
The line in question was something a programmer considered a private joke. The skill naturally has a completely different in-game name and the script reference was also changed. What is left is part of an obscure debug function. This is merely an explanation but by no means an excuse. In the end that code was made a part of the product and signed with our company name. We deeply regret that fact and we apologize to all our customers or anyone who might have been offended by that inappropriate expression. The person responsible for this unfortunate situation will face professional consequences for violating the professional standards and beliefs Techland stands for.”
They say any publicity is good publicity, but something like this should never happen in the first place.
