We've had fairly large discussions on racism within games in the past, and today's top story shows how quickly the issue can return under the spotlight. What do you think?
News Blips:
Square Enix responds to Time Techland writer Evan Narcisse's scathing attack on the "racist stereotype" of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's Letitia character. "Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a fictional story which reflects the diversity of the world's future population by featuring characters of various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds," the publisher said in a statement. "While these characters are meant to portray people living in the year 2027, it has never been our intention to represent any particular ethnic group in a negative light." Narcisse claimed that Letitia's exaggerated speech "harkens back to the worst blackface minstrelsy of the last century." Stereotype or not, Letitia's only impressionable quality I can remember is that she was still standing after I threw five beers at her.
The average spending amount for Call of Duty: Black Ops players is $76. At the Call of Duty XP convention building in Los Angeles, publisher Activision whipped out its camo-painted calculator for some quick number crunching and determined that Black Ops gamers plunk down enough dough to buy a new copy of the game plus one of the four $15 map packs. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg revealed that 18 million map packs have been downloaded to date. [GameSpot]
WTB Skooma: The Elder Scrolls franchise isn't destined for the massively multiplayer genre. "I'm not really an MMO guy," Bethesda Game Director Todd Howard told Joystiq in an interview. "I respect them, I look at them, but I don't play them. It feels more real to me when I'm the hero, and it's crafted for that. A community aspect to it, I recognize a lot of people would want that in a game like this, but it changes the flavor for me." Kudos to Howard for prioritizing player experience over figuring out how to include a "ravage 15 Argonian maids" quest in a potential MMO.
Apple apparently loses a prototype model for its next iPhone iteration in a California bar — again. CNet reports that Apple's security "scrambled" to recover the lost tech, tracing the phone to a San Francisco home where the trail suddenly went cold. The entire debacle mirrors last year's reveal and subsequent police-raiding frenzy of the iPhone 4 after (wait for it) it was left in (wait for it again) a California bar. Great Scott, Marty! Someone set the DeLorean's controls to "infinite loop" again!
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