Thanks to the efforts of one "hilarious" prankster, Mojang has issued a statement today to apologize for an offensive racial slur that found its way into the latest Minecraft snapshot release.
"In these snapshots there are about 50 language files translated by the community, and it happens that they are ruined by pranksters," Mojang explained in a statement to Kotaku.
"Players are quick to find and fix these, so they are removed in the next snapshot," he added.
Luckily, snapshot builds are openly available but aren't pushed to all five million of the game's users, so it shouldn't be too widespread.
Comments
11 comments so far...
gypsygib on 29 Jan '12 said:
I don't get how it's not important enough to patch immediately...?
Also, black people should stop using the word too to add more legitimacy to fact that it is highly offensive in ANY context.
IMO, it's hypocritical to say something is offensive if said by one race and fine if said by another.
If a black person put it in there, it still wouldn't be ok right?
Signed,
A black dude.
gypsygib on 29 Jan '12 said:
It's not at all 'hilarious' CVG. I'm disappointed that you think it is...very disappointed.
TheLastDodo on 29 Jan '12 said:
I think you need to learn what " " means on the internet mate.
Curt580 on 29 Jan '12 said:
am i the only one finds the humor in this? its clearly meant as a joke and alot of people taking it way to seriosuly
BenThomasFoster on 29 Jan '12 said:
Tell me again why it's offensive to be called a "nigger" these days. Yesteryear the word implied that being black was like being subhuman. These days we have moved past that stigma and we certainly know(for a fact) there are no races just cultures. The word means pretty much nothing as much as saying "scopflog". Of course there are still "racist(again there are really no races in terms of genetics)" words towards peoples skin colour and thus they must be subhuman... but the word nigger has lost all context certainly from how it was used originally. Or maybe i'm naive as I also believe swear words are non exsistant and serve no purporse, and cause 0 offence.
I pose the question again why it so offensive to say it these days still?
a3HeadedMonkey on 29 Jan '12 said:
Nope.
Because people want it to remain offensive. That's why we keep passing on to our children which words are offensive & which are not, so they can pass it on to their children. A pretty retarded world we live in isn't it?
Imaduck on 29 Jan '12 said:
See, this is the endless problem we humans seem to have. First something is different/bad, then they try to tell everyone it's not, then they try to say "everyone is the same!", then they demand that everyone agrees, and end up with a situation where nobody agrees, many feel overlooked and unheard and the unusual group has lost it's identity.
Let's "answer" that shall we?
. People react to things they don't understant/arn't used to with caution and always will, animals do the same.
. You can't TELL people something's not bad or odd, you have to give them reason to change their mind otherwise you're just trying to stifle them which will lead to supressed/festering feelings and then one day violent outbursts. Best case scenario that has to come from the "unusual" group themselves, some real rock solid reason to accept them, that's solid and will last.
. We aren't the same, we're all very different in many different ways. If we weren't the world would be boring as f**k.
. We don't all agree of everything and never will
If people could just get those few basic ideas, life would be so much better and we'd actually sort things out
Racism's biggest maintainers these days (in my experience) are the "White wine? THAT'S RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" types, you know, the ones who see race everywhere yet think everyone else is the problem?
The biggest problem with these things is when people make them into like an official "category". In doing so, they've made the thing into an itemised issue instead of a case by case situational personal challenge.
Sorreh, just had to get that off my chest
Respecto to ye all!
Nishi on 29 Jan '12 said:
Ah, the internet, eh? Where everyone has an opinion and it's always right.
...or wrong.
...I forget.
...Ooh, noodles! Yum .p
Windowlicker79 on 30 Jan '12 said:
You seem to completely misunderstand the use of the quotation marks in this article, to the point where you have failed to use them at all and for some reason have replaced the with apostrophes.
BASIC ENGLISH LESSON: The fact that they used the quotation marks on a single word as opposed to the whole sentence signifies sarcasm in the use of the word. See the below example...
Gypsygib thought he would appear "intelligent" by saying that he is disappointed with CVG.
as opposed to...
Gypsygib thought he would appear intelligent by saying that he is disappointed with CVG.
Can you see how different they appear when you actually read them properly? If not then there is no hope for you.
http://mantatheeloquent.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/yshdubvjg.jpg
panantukan on 30 Jan '12 said:
Ba ba multi-cultural sheep...
Imaduck on 30 Jan '12 said:
"Multicultural" is next on the Racist list. Sure "Transphobia" has arrived now as a label for anyone who doesn't entirely embrace sex changes. This wurld r madness