By Tanvil Wattal
AsAmNews Intern
A company which at first defended its upcoming video game against criticism that it was racist is now apologizing for it.
As AsAmNews reported last week, the company Big-O-Tree was promoting their latest project, Dirty Chinese Restaurant, when Twitter users noticed their game and condemned what they believed to be its underlying bigotry.
The game made references to Asians eating dogs and cats and the supposedly unsanitary conditions in Chinese restaurant.
The Markham, Ontario based company initially reacted to the overflow of negative attention by releasing a statement to justify their game as “mainly satire and comedy influenced by the classic politically incorrect shows we grew up watching”. Critics, however, countered that shows like South Park and All in the Family, should not be what we base future media representation of Asian’s, or for that matter, any other race on.
Political leaders such as Congresswomen Grace Meng and Canadian politician Kathleen O’Day Wayne denounced the game publicly and expressed their concerns about the negative impact it would have on society if released.
This type of racism has no place in Ontario. I know this does not reflect the values of the people of Markham. https://t.co/7VjeqyLLcD
— Kathleen Wynne (@Kathleen_Wynne) September 28, 2017
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After processing the unfavorable reactions to Dirty Chinese Restaurant and, according to their website, “taking the time to listen to the public’s opinion”, Big-O-Tree Games decided against releasing DCR.
After careful consideration we have decided not to release DCR and like to apologize to the Chinese community https://t.co/pso7oS81xS
— Big-O-Tree Games (@bigotreegames) October 5, 2017
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Moreover, they replaced the marketing content on their website with a public apology to the Chinese community that verifies that “this game was not created with an intentional interest of inflicting harm or malice against Chinese culture”.
Big-O-Tree Games has wiped its social media accounts clean of material relating to Dirty Chinese Restaurant, and have even taken down their logo; this includes their two trailers on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
“Being politically correct is so…boring” was the companies mission statement. What they failed to recognize was that respecting other cultures is not about political correctness, but rather about allowing these cultures to grow without the intrusion of the majority culture.
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