Steam User Finds Misogynistic "Joke" Buried in Dead Island Code [UPDATED]

[sephiroth1991]

It's mostly likely a in-studio joke, I think its just a harmless joke for the devs that they forgot to change, My friends sometimes name they command codes funny things in order to remember them more easily.

 

[Zarmi]

I've heard a lot of stories about incredibly mysoginistic attitudes in various development studios.

I certainly wouldn't say its anything larger than one or two people, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was revealed those one or two people had that sort of attitude.

I approve of that joke. Feminists are fucking stupid anyway.

No, people who think feminists are exclusively jilted, middle-aged women spouting sexist shit are stupid.

I highly doubt that you don't think men and women should be equal.

I'd love for men and women to be equal. I'm just tired of feminists, in every degree possible, because each and every one of them don't want equality, they just want the good parts of it. More money, etc. Today it's still commonly seen that the male should pay on the first date, which fucks up equality. Secondly, try ask a feminist if they want to get drafted into the army the way males do in many countries. You will see, true equality will never happen.

I say that "Feminists are fucking stupid", because every single one I've seen of them only want the good parts of equality, but not the bad ones, which in my books, marks them as stupid.

 

[Azuaron]

Seriously, if there was a male character that had a skill to do extra damage against female enemies (it could still be publicly named Gender Wars and privately named, I don't know, MisogynistAsshole or something) and people would, again, flip out on behalf of women.

More like PimpHandJoe, rite?

U r not rite... the entire point of my statement was that the code version would be offensive to men.

 

[somonels]

Yeah, feminists and more reasonable humans are alien to the concept of misandry. Heck, even the dictionary does not recognize it, hence, it supposedly does not exist. Funny thing.

 

[Stall]

I like how people who say this are men and have never experienced personally misogyny and is probably bitter because women won't sleep with him. Grow up man if you acted a little nicer to women maybe, just maybe you will find someone who will not reject you.

As a rather openly irrelgious person in the American Deep South, I can personally testify that I have been discriminated against, and the victim of "hate speech". And you know what? I don't give a shit. When people seriously call me a heathen or tell me I am going to hell, or say things like "Oh, I used to think so much higher of you before I learned you were an atheist/agnostic/whatever," or "I don't know if I can be friends with you anymore," I don't fucking care. They're just words said by people who I have zero concern with. If I can get past people acting like an asshole towards me for my beliefs, then I think women can get past a few misogynistic jokes every here and there.

Are women and feminist so sensitive that a silly joke in a video game is some how deeply offensive to them? Seriously. Stop making mountains out of molehills. Either laugh at the joke, or move on. It's nothing to get so flustered about.

And just because I don't think misogyny is a problem means women won't sleep with me? What kind of fucking logic is that? Oh right. It's not logic.

 

[Avaloner]

So i haven't had the chance of playing this game yet, but does any male char have a bonus on killing female enemys..if not than THIS is sexist.

 

[Zhukov]

*sigh*

One mention of gender politics and the verbal diarrhea promptly starts oozing out from all sorts of unexpected places.

Quite the spectacle.

Stay classy, escapists.

 

[Blind Sight]

Well, to be fair, apparently she started this 'Gender War' in the first place so really she had it coming. I kid, I kid.

Amazed this stuff passes for news. If I had searched the code, this is something I would have just seen as incredibly immature and ignored.

 

[l3o2828]

we as a community should stop with sexism already.
Feminism is just silly, its segregating.
And like yahtzee said ' It's very depressing when you can't make honest cultural commentary without having to disavow the assumption that your feelings are motivated by an irrational hate-trigger response to different levels of melanin. You know what? A society where anyone can make jokes about anyone else and everyone laughs is a truly tolerant society. Political correctness-charged censorship only serves to engender resentment and distance between social groups. Besides gangster rappers don't need defending ? they've got guns for that!'

It still applies to this.

I still think that piece of code was just a joke. so no need to over react.

 

[Baneat]

I've heard a lot of stories about incredibly mysoginistic attitudes in various development studios.

I certainly wouldn't say its anything larger than one or two people, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was revealed those one or two people had that sort of attitude.

I approve of that joke. Feminists are fucking stupid anyway.

No, people who think feminists are exclusively jilted, middle-aged women spouting sexist shit are stupid.

I highly doubt that you don't think men and women should be equal.

I'd love for men and women to be equal. I'm just tired of feminists, in every degree possible, because each and every one of them don't want equality, they just want the good parts of it. More money, etc. Today it's still commonly seen that the male should pay on the first date, which fucks up equality. Secondly, try ask a feminist if they want to get drafted into the army the way males do in many countries. You will see, true equality will never happen.

I say that "Feminists are fucking stupid", because every single one I've seen of them only want the good parts of equality, but not the bad ones, which in my books, marks them as stupid.

Obviously they don't want to get drafted like men, and get the good parts, but if you offered an actual, reasonable feminist the package deal of the good and the bad they'd take it.

 

[Azuaron]

I've heard a lot of stories about incredibly mysoginistic attitudes in various development studios.

I certainly wouldn't say its anything larger than one or two people, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was revealed those one or two people had that sort of attitude.

I approve of that joke. Feminists are fucking stupid anyway.

No, people who think feminists are exclusively jilted, middle-aged women spouting sexist shit are stupid.

I highly doubt that you don't think men and women should be equal.

I'd love for men and women to be equal. I'm just tired of feminists, in every degree possible, because each and every one of them don't want equality, they just want the good parts of it. More money, etc. Today it's still commonly seen that the male should pay on the first date, which fucks up equality. Secondly, try ask a feminist if they want to get drafted into the army the way males do in many countries. You will see, true equality will never happen.

I say that "Feminists are fucking stupid", because every single one I've seen of them only want the good parts of equality, but not the bad ones, which in my books, marks them as stupid.

That's like saying every vegetarian is a card-carrying member of PETA, everyone who wants environmental reform is a member of ELF, every Muslim is a terrorist, and every Christian thinks God loves dead soldiers.

There are self-proclaimed feminists who are actually just misandrists, but that's not what feminism is. I'm a feminist. I'm also a man. By your statement of, "I'd love for men and women to be equal," you are also a feminist. From Dicitonary.com, feminism is: "the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men."

So stop calling yourself "fucking stupid". Stop misunderstanding a movement because some people claiming to be part of the movement don't actually want what the movement advocates. Every movement has them; just ignore them.

 

[tzimize]

Steam User Find Misogynistic "Joke" Buried in Dead Island Code

Developer Techland has included some less-than-PC language in the code for Dead Island.

The code for Dead Island [http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Island-Pc/dp/B004PAGJMO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1315486981&sr=8-3] has turned up some interesting things. Earlier in the week, it was revealed that the version of the game on Steam was actually a debug version never intended to be seen by the public [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112801-Dead-Island-Dev-Could-Have-Released-Wrong-Version-to-Steam], and today we've learned that someone on the dev team seems to have an "interesting" attitude towards women.

Tucked away in the code for Purna's - a former cop, turned bodyguard - skills is an entry for a skill called "FeministWhorePurna." Steam user AlekseiVasiliev discovered the entry, and posted it to the official Steam forums [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2106493]. It's thought that the entry refers to Purna's "Gender Wars" skill, which grants her a bonus to the damage she deals to male zombies. The fact that other entries in the file have names like "MeleeDurabilityPurna" and "TeamSpirit2Purna," which don't directly refer to the skills Purna uses in game, make this scenario seem all the more likely.

I'd imagine - or hope, at least - that this is some really, stupendously, dumb in-joke at Techland, and not indicative of someone's actual attitudes. All the same, this is not something that should have made it into the final code, even if Techland didn't think that anyone would see it. We've reached out to Techland to see if it has any comment on this discovery and will update when and if we hear anything back.





Permalink

And in a game where you chop the heads off people, THIS is what is offensive? What a fucked up world.

OT: Get over it! Not everything is serious!

 

[JakobBloch]

Let me get this straight... she has a skill... that does more damage... when she attacks men... and people are complaining about what it's named in the code more than the blatant misandry of that skill?

Seriously, if there was a male character that had a skill to do extra damage against female enemies (it could still be publicly named Gender Wars and privately named, I don't know, MisogynistAsshole or something) and people would, again, flip out on behalf of women.

I'm thinking of the two perks in Fallout:NV. I was thinking this exact thing when i saw them.

'Black Widow' and 'Lady Killer'. They even have same sex versions so equality all around i guess, but really?

Edit: The code name catapults this to another level though. I don't want to imply that I agree with you about the naming and why people are more concerned about that.

The skill is not inconsistent with this type of game. If it fits the character that she has some problem with men, then it makes sense she'd damage men more out of anger. The insinuation that all feminists wish to damage men more is the misogyny.

And the assumption that this skill refers to ALL feminists is stupid.

Lets break it down shall we.

The ability was in house (and in the wrongly released bug test version) called FeministWhorePurna. In the real game it is called Gender Wars. It makes her able to harm male zombies more then female zombies. So why would she be able to do that? Because she hates men - like what you might call militant feminists or more colloquial feminist whores. A misnomer as they would probably not whore around but it denotes the negative connotations. Purna comes from a law system that is very much a boys club. She has fought tooth and nail to get into a good position. She sees corruption and the power that men have over women and the world in general and she is not happy. In essence she is pushed into here male hating ways. However to the casual observer she is still just a feminist *****. In truth she is not a feminist at all. She just hates men and she has been placed in a position where she can smack them around, so she hits them harder.

So basically the reason the ability was called FeministWhorePurna is because she is one of those feminist whores who give the sensible normal feminist (you know the ones that want equality) a bad name. That is the character being the character. It is not the entirety of a game company (or indeed anyone at the company) being misogynists. Purna is a a *****. She has every reason to be a ***** and is completely in her right to be one, BUT she is still - a *****.

Yes I know. I will get letters.

 

[LiquidGrape]

I'd love for men and women to be equal. I'm just tired of feminists, in every degree possible, because each and every one of them don't want equality, they just want the good parts of it. More money, etc. Today it's still commonly seen that the male should pay on the first date, which fucks up equality. Secondly, try ask a feminist if they want to get drafted into the army the way males do in many countries. You will see, true equality will never happen.

I say that "Feminists are fucking stupid", because every single one I've seen of them only want the good parts of equality, but not the bad ones, which in my books, marks them as stupid.

You're categorically wrong. I don't quite know how else to put it, but this nauseatingly reductive interpretation of yours is nothing but uninformed tripe.
- What you speak of isn't feminism.

 

[Versuvius]

Allow me to say: laaawl. Bad taste but...kinda funny. My sense of humour can range from the lowest to the highest brow, you know. :uffs pipe, sips tea, reads Pride and Prejudice (and zombies)::

Edit: A male char should have a damage boost against female zombies with the code tag "WifeBeater". Balances it all out

 

[Odlus]

Are women and feminist so sensitive that a silly joke in a video game is some how deeply offensive to them? Seriously. Stop making mountains out of molehills. Either laugh at the joke, or move on. It's nothing to get so flustered about.

The "joke" isn't even in the video game; it's a single line of code that was never supposed to be released to the public anyway. I view getting upset at this close to finding some random kid's journal, seeing an entry that says "Jaime is such a feminist nazi whore" then getting offended by it and claiming whoever wrote it is a misogynistic woman hater.

I also think it's funny that this is just a single line of code insulting a single female character in a video game (a female character that deals extra damage to male zombies, so she clearly has some kind of hate towards the opposite sex going on anyway) and people are acting like it's an insult to all females/feminists. It couldn't POSSIBLY just be referring to the character the line of code is related to

 

[GonzoGamer]

Wow. That means that somewhere out there, there?s an overworked programmer who feels bitter towards women. That?s a big surprise. Maybe he?s still upset because he had to take his sister to the prom.

If you?re going to show disrespect towards (some) feminists, you should at least do it politely like HL Mencken.

 

[jmarquiso]

It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I certainly feel its true. Although I don't think it's some insane feminist conspiracy or something, I do feel that our society as whole tends to have very unequal views regarding the gender roles and violence. Look at the various cases of "amateur penectomies" committed by disgruntled women that have gotten significant press coverage over the past few years. Sure, it's not a perfect point, but these cases of really horrific domestic abuse were the butts of jokes all across the media. It's really goes to show how much of a double standard there is in our society with gender and violence. I really didn't mean to imply that it was a conspiracy, but more or less that it was just a quirk of our societal norms, and that the media is, to some degree, a decent mirror of thesis societal norms.

I only know of two amateur penectomies in the last 30 years, but I don't spend too much time on it. Only one can I kind of recall the names involved.

Neither one was a "feminist" act, but at least one was possibly defendible from being in a bad situation (I don't think it's completely mitigating). There is something to be said for people in abusive situations not being able to fight back until its expressed in the ways above.

 

[Catie Caraco]

What bothers me about this is the insight into the minds of the people designing video games. How is it supposed to grow as an industry with immature frat-boy like behavior going on behind the scenes? With people like that at the helm, no wonder female side kicks in video games are card board cut out tropes in chain main bikinis. It's funny, I guess, if you've got a really low brow sense of humor. Or maybe I just have a stick up my ass, but just because something is offensive doesn't make it funny, at least to me.

Just to set the record straight, I'm a woman, but I'm not really a feminist. I'd rather people be treated fairly than equally, and the two do not mean the same thing. Give everyone a fair shake, let them do what they're best at, and leave them the hell alone. Live and let live and do no harm.