Dead Island developer Techland "disturbed" by Feminist Whore skill

Eurogamer: Dead Island developer Techland has apologised for a line of code that referred to a skill called "Feminist Whore".

[AngelGirl16]

I don't see what the problem is. It wasn't in the actual game. The loser who found this needs to get a life. Why is people going into the game source code. What the point in doing that.

[snipes101]

I kinda laughed when I saw this, but it was a dumb move not just deleting that part of code entirely after what happened with hot coffee in San Andreas a few years ago...especially considering how offended people can get about this stuff.

[dalibor]

There's blood, people dying and butchering one another yet they can't handle a simple line of code or the hot coffee in SA. Haha that's crazy. The ratings system is there for a reason. I suggest to use it if you get offended quite easily to know what games to stay away from. Simple as that really.

[snipes101]

Yea that's another ironic part of the whole thing, we're gonna get worked up about a part of the game that, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist and ignore the fact that you spend (to my knowledge), the entirety of the game essentially butchering people. Facepalm?

[slayorofgods]

Feminist whore zombies would have made this game even more scary

[SilentNegotiator]

They're only mocking feminists, anyway. Who cares? :)

Most of these special interest groups such as feminists only make matters worse, because they don't fight for equality but instead gain. (ie black "rights" groups that sued Chicago for LITERALLY not hiring "enough" black persons who lost out to MORE QUALIFIED people. Seriously, the fact that the people hired were more qualified was NOT DISPUTED.)

[ChrisW]

Exactly. It's not like we're back in the days of women's suffrage... Though sometimes I wish we were so we could legally tell them to STFU!!!

BTW, I would also love to see skills that mock groups like PETA and the Sea Shepherd Terrorists.

[Shadowstar]

@SilentNegotiator: That's because there are systemic issues that are being fought as well as the individual ones. I would say that blacks and whites are born with approximately the same inherent capabilities, so if whites are still disproportionately represented, we need to explain why that is and take steps to correct it. (*Note, I am not a PoC, so my comments are entirely from a white person perspective.)

As a woman, I do think women are not seen as equal to men. We have societal biases against successful women, for example. How do we overcome those? I don't know. Some people think the answer is to have more successful women, so that it becomes normalized. I would guess that the black-white governmental jobs thing would be something similar-- if people think they can't get a job because of racism, they might not even apply. How do you combat that? Have more prominent PoC in those areas, I suppose.

That said, a line of code that was removed shouldn't be a big deal. It's something I would comment on only in that it probably indicates that I (as a female software engineer working in video games) wouldn't feel welcome there, and that is kind of sad.

[seinfan]

This is America. We are more concerned with racism, sexism, and homophobia than murder, theft, assault etc. In order to be tolerant, you have to make a big deal of asinine things. I applaud Atlanta for recently changing their yellow line subway route to the gold line because Asian-Americans were getting offended. Even though nothing is being done about that pesky Yellow River that runs through China, it's still a small victory we can basque in.

[jessupj]

@ Shadowstar

Well said, and I respect your opinion, however I think the biases against men in todays society FAR out weight the stereotypes against women.

Just look at the statistics. How many family court judges the western in world routinely cut out the father of a childs life by giving the dad visitation. Of the top of my head I think 84% of single primary carers are women.

There is too much corruption in the child support system to list here, but in some cases men are literally getting 50% or more taken out of their pay cheque in child support.

If they start to fall behind, they get charged interest. If they fall behind even more they can't get sent to jail.

In NO OTHER area of the law does a person go to jail for being in debt, it's only cases involving child support.

And when their income is lowered for some reason, it's very hard and expensive for them to get their child support obligations reduced. By the time they finally do, they're usually in debt and paying interest.

They courts strongly inforce their child support orders, but when it comes to enforcing visitation they turn the other way for some reason.

That's just one area of society and the law, I could be here all day discussing with you how men are constantly being descriminated against by the law and by people themselves in many other areas, but I won't.

I would love ACTUAL equality to exist between the sexes, but I think I won't see that in my life time.

http://www.fathersandfamili...

[seinfan]

@jessup
Include how men are discriminated against in elementary education. The reason why we have more female teachers in elementary is because school districts believe men interested in childhood education are simply pedophiles.

Or how about the fact that the physical tests that firefighters need to do have lower bars for females because most wouldn't be able to lift as much or be as fast? Let's employ people that are physically unable to carry a 300 lb man from a 4-story window in a burning building.

Society ignores that men are the overwhelming majority (over 99%) of deaths on the battlefield during war, but there's no outcry from feminists that such a thing is unequal and unfair.

Men are constantly told how to behave around women in order to avoid a false allegation of sexual harassment. Tell women how to dress in order to avoid actual rape and it's called sexism.

But you know, we're progressive. And these things are okay.

[candystop]

You know I once worked on a project many years ago with a woman from cps(child protective services). She would share many stories and once said that more women molest children then men by great number. Of course I was like whatever until a friend at the time came out and told us both about his aunt who molested him. As far as child support goes I really wish there was a way for men to get help and not be treated like criminals.

[Shadowstar]

@jessupj : I will certainly agree. It's awful that men and women will both use children as bargaining chips and ways to hurt each other. I'm certainly not trying to say that women have a monopoly on being treated badly, and I do believe that there's a lot of unfairness in a lot of areas-- that's definitely one of them. Part of the problem, I think, is that some people (clearly a number of them are judges) think that taking care of the kids is woman's work, so of course she should have custody of the kids and the ex-husband should pay for it. It's definitely not right. I support the dad's groups that are out there (well, as much as I support the women's groups, which is mostly by saying... go you!)

Still, I think in the workplace, we do face discrimination. It's not conscious, but the aggressive office b**** and the aggressive office go-getter are sometimes only differentiated by whether they are male or female. There was a study done where they showed people the exact same list of accomplishments of a businessperson, but changed the sex of the person, and the woman was perceived very differently from the man. We know that a woman in politics ends up with a lot of questions about her kids (so much that one of the better strategies is to brag about what a good mom you are), while a man in politics has far fewer.

As a woman who works in a man's occupation-- and let's face it, software engineer on video games? it's very male dominated for a variety of reasons-- I am conscious of it, whether I want to be or not. I'd love to see equality too, and agree that it's probably not in our lifetimes.

@seinfan : I'm not so sure about that reason. When my mother was an elementary school teacher, she told me they were actively looking for men to work at the elementary level, but men seemed to want the prestige of high school jobs. (At the time, there were lots of jobs around, mind you.)

[ChrisW]

What's got me pissed off is the response to it:

"It has come to our attention that one of Dead Island's leftover debug files contains a highly inappropriate internal script name of one of the character skills. This has been inexcusably overlooked and released with the game."

Nothing like some super-duper-arse-kissing PR clean up to keep the PMS stricken, frothing feminist lawyers at bay.

--EDIT--
I just noticed that just about everyone has a "Disagree" or two. Now we know that there's at least 1 feminist whore trolling N4G.

[Coffin87]

@edit: I lol'd.
@topic: yes, all of this keep-our-company's-image-c lean-BS really can get annoying.

EDIT: OMG it's true. *everyone* has at least 1 disagree, except the newest comments.

[SonyPS360]

I also laughed when I read the article headline.

[subtenko]

Anyone whos offended is obviously a feministwhore..why else would they be upset? LOL prostitutes....they play games too!! xD I bet you most of Technland is going "ughh...first the kid, now angry feminist...at least the zombies are staying cool"

Agree or Disagree if you Agree

[manumit]

The game has a lot of swearing, you can cut off limbs and bash skulls in, but some people are kicking up a fuss over a line of code named feminist whore?

[JsonHenry]

Hahaha, feminist whore power??!! You can't make this stuff up people. hahahahahaha

[JsonHenry]

It is the power to nag and it makes the zombies within hearing distance heads explode.

[Kurt Russell]

It is the power to complain, piss and moan about equality - as long as said equality gives you an easier ride and doesn't include effort.

[newn4gguy]

This is something you would joke about around friends. :)

There is NO problem here.

It's like women's basketball. It's not politically correct to joke about...but...let's be honest with ourselves. It's pretty hilarious.

[Xenial]

WOOOOOOOOW.

[newn4gguy]

umadbro?

[Xenial]

Not really, i'm just surprised at how many people agreed. Not cool tbh.

[newn4gguy]

Not a big "humor" fan, are you?

[Xenial]

In a sense it was funny, but overall i thought it was just rude. Either way, idc really. Just the internet.

[scotchmouth]

Reality check. It was funny.

[gamernova]

Lmao either way, it's publicity for dead island which deserves it because it's an awesome game :D

[MysticStrummer]

It's a buggy repetitive mess with an awesome premise. Hopefully they can fix at least some of the problems.

[gamernova]

I have no issues with the game at all so far. How is it repetitive? I am in a totally different map now. There is not even a beach anymore and now it gets dark.

[MysticStrummer]

I'm not sure what repetitive gameplay has to do with the setting, but I've had good weapons either vanish completely or sit there on the ground flashing while I'm unable to pick them up. One good quality shock machete vanished within about a minute of me making it. I lost hours of gametime because the game lied when "game saved" appeared on the screen. I was just playing co-op with a friend when a screaming, running zombie bolted toward him, ran through a wall and vanished, then popped up out of the ground in front of me and attacked. If you're not having problems then congrats, but this is the buggiest game I've ever played in my life.

[Kleptic]

and isn't the entire 'pre-load' broken currently?...as in the people that bought the PC version could download it early, then get a code to unlock it the other night...

and...that...doesn't...wo rk...

[Drano]

Bored coder trying to put some "pep" in his life, probably. That'll probably cost him his job.

[gamer1232]

It's rated M anyways. It's no biggie. But then again, if I do say so, 90% of the users on this site are guys, we're not to sensitive about this stuff.

[bobrea]

I thought it was funny.

[BuffMordecai]

Anybody who finds offense to this needs to be kicked in their mangina.

[Jack_DangerousIy]

"Anybody who finds offense to this...."

*here comes the grammar police*

OT: I'm not opinionated enough on this topic to say anything.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

It's actually kind of crazy that not one person has a single hangup on it at all. I can't say I'm surprised. This is the society we live in, but man that's just crazy to me.

[SuperK]

I dont see the big deal.... You stab, cut of limbs, chop of heads etc, but we must be horrified with a hidden code called "feminist whore"?
I actually think its a cool name. LOL

[DasTier]

Im disturbed at the fact there is only 2 characters i will ever want to play as. It's worse than dead rising when the 1st three people in choose and the last guy gets stuck with the useless piss annoying Rochelle (SHE SHOULD DIE). 4 person games like this should have like 10 characters to choose from rather than 2 forgien whores, a failed QB and a bling covered black guy...

[ChrisW]

Ummmm... Rochelle is in L4D2. And Elis is the guy no one wants to play as. Seriously! Who wants to play as a stuck-butt inbreed hick?

And as for Pruna being "FOREIGN"... Yeah, Australia is about as foreign of a country as any can get. Hell, they don't even speak English there. They speak some sort of Old Brit cockney linguistic crap there. LOL, them Aussies...
/sarcasm (if you couldn't tell)

[Modestmex]

i like playing as Ellis!!

[DasTier]

Woops I meant l4d2 but my point still stands, and I disagree Ellis is a ton more popular than Rochelle, shes just useless and annoying

[clrlite]

Politically correct fear mongering BS.

Exactly, all of the brutal content in this game and people are making a fuss about this little thing.

Pull your heads out of your %$@es at some point.

[Bolts]

I'm offended by the launch day bugs.

[SugarSoSweet]

Pretty silly of Techland to make a mistake like that...

[3GenGames]

I love game code with hidden text like this in the file, it's awesome nommatter what. I don't find this offensive at all either, just not suitable for public saying, which it isn't public at all even, it's in the games binary. Big whoop. Nintendo's programmer [Who worked for somebody else at the time] to find programmers, put a job offer in Donkey Kong's binary in plain ascii. Might as well, anyone hacking it would be somebody you'd be look for to learn to program anyway.

[N8]

I think I better go buy this game before they change something. This will be all over Fox news

[Knightofelemia]

I wouldn't mind unlocking the trophy / achievement with that name.

[Nuclearwinter]

oh noes the women's equality movement has been completely undone by this stupid line of code. hurry and get someone fired over it so we can get to feeling self righteous again.

[BladedTech]

It sounds hilarious.

[TheHean]

This is a funny video covering this topic

[SuperK]

Haha i love that video.... very funny. LOL