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Offensive word sees Mind Quiz pulled

Ubisoft quick to action over BBC radio phone-in complaint

Offensive word sees Mind Quiz pulled

Following the recent fandango concerning the British Board of Film Certification's decision to deny Manhunt 2 a classification – effectively making it illegal to sell it anywhere within the UK – plus the fuss over the use of Manchester Cathedral in Sony's PS3 game, Resistance: The Fall of Man, comes another collision between games and society.

The surprising culprit in this case is the 3+ rated DS/PSP game Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach, developed by Sega and published in Europe by Ubisoft. It was a copy of the DS version that caused the offence, as revealed during a phone-in on BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show (as reported by BBC Online).

A woman, a young mother called Nicola said she was shocked when the game labelled her substandard performance in a test using a word that would 'really offend her dad', who suffers from cerebral palsy. Nicola had also recently lost her three-year-old, brain-damaged son to pneumonia.

A spokesman for Ubisoft apologised to anyone offended by the game, claiming the word wasn't picked up during the localisation process from Japanese to English. (The word hasn't been explicitly mentioned, but we presume it's 'spastic', an old official medical term since turned pejorative, particularly in the UK).

Ubisoft is removing the game from sale, and it's no longer listed on online retailers such as Game and Play.com (although copies are still available through Amazon Marketplace Sellers). It says it is working to find a way to rectify the issue with the developer.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.