Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

September 8, 2011

Dead Island developer Techland is having more trouble this week on Steam as a file inside the game reveals an anti-feminist slur. On Tuesday a Steam user was digging through the files for the game when he came across a hidden skill called "Feminist Whore."

The studio issued an immediate apology to the public via Eurogamer:

"It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened," international brand manager Blazej Krakowiak told the web site. "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."

Earlier in the week developer Techland took some public lumps for an early version of the game that was accidently released on Steam. The released version was a port of the Xbox code, complete with a number of bugs, glitches, and performance issues. That version seems to have been fixed.

Source: MCV

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Comments

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Shahab on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 20:42.

Whoooooo cares!

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by TK n Happy Ness on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 16:37.

Why apologize? I think Techland is onto something, especially with these feminist whores being so upset about it. Somebody had the balls to tell the truth about them.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by MechaCrash on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 20:32.

Are you fucking serious?

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Austin from Oregon on Fri, 09/09/2011 - 10:31.

Don't feed the troll.

-Austin from Oregon

Feel free to check out my blog.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Vake Xeacons on Fri, 09/09/2011 - 08:20.

No one has a problem with anti-Chauvinists slurs. Why should we treat feminists any different? No one likes sexual bias.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Austin from Oregon on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 14:23.

So wait...can you access this in game? Or do you have to dig through the files to find two words?

 

It would be interesting if this was just code left in...but then could be accessed by a cheat code. Hot coffee anyone?

-Austin from Oregon

Feel free to check out my blog.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by SeanB on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 15:23.

Exactly. Who gives a flying f*** what the code says. If it doesn't appear in the game, they have no reason to apologize for it.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Andrew Eisen on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 14:36. 
sub Skills_Purna(){
	Skill("TeamSpirit1Purna");
	Skill("SharpApprenticePurna");
[...]
	Skill("TeamSpirit2Purna");
	Skill("FeministWhorePurna");
	Skill("MeleeDurabilityPurna");
[...]
}

 

Can't tell without reading the entire thing but it might just be the code's name for the "Gender Wars" skill which that gives Purna a 15% damage bonus against male zombies.

 

Andrew Eisen

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Neeneko on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 15:29.

So not accessible in-game as a string, but in plain text?

Not horrible and I can see why Q/A would miss it, but it is still something that should have gotten noticed by code review and is still a professional lapse that it is nice to see them addressing.  I can recall my last company had rules about throwing stuff like this in because some regions required code escrow or validation before we could sell games there.... or outside contractors, or new employies... you never know who is going to need to look at or work on a piece of code so standards of professional conduct can really pay off, or at least avoid some nastyness.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Austin from Oregon on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 15:40.

I guess, but this really shouldn't be as big a deal as it seems to be. Seems like just a lack of professionalism rather than some kind of war on feminism. Heck, I'm not sure this could be considered a feminist slur as opposed to just foul language.

-Austin from Oregon

Feel free to check out my blog.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Neeneko on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 16:52.

I am not really seeing people saying it is a huge deal or a war on feminism....

BUT, this does play into a larger narrative.  The video game industry has a long track record of problems with institutionalized sexism in development, including a tacit acceptance of such slurs being left in the code and making female developers feel uncomfortable... so finding something like this makes people wonder what the culture at the company is like that such a thing could have made it in in the first place, much less into production code.

So while a small thing itself, it is an artifact from a much larger (and very real) problem in the industry and thus got attention for it.

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Andrew Eisen on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 17:26.

Then again, maybe a woman wrote that line of code.

 

Andrew Eisen

Re: Techland Apologizes for Anti-Feminist Slur in Dead Island

Submitted by Austin from Oregon on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 17:57.

The "oh snap!" in my head just about knocked me out of my chair there.

-Austin from Oregon

Feel free to check out my blog.

 
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