Ubisoft: Sorry about the ‘Lesbo’
OK, I’m trying really hard to maintain my feminist outrage, but I’m just… well, I’m laughing too hard.
Ubisoft has apparently apologized to customers after the word “lesbo” was discovered as a proper word to use in Scrabble 2007 for the Nintendo DS.
Now, it’s not enough that every lesbian I know would probably do a victory lap if they could successfully play “Lesbo” off of a triple-word score, because not everyone would enjoy it on the wry, ironic level that that sapphic hordes do. So, ok… composing myself long enough to say not cool allowing dipshit haters the ability to play a derogatory term in the game.
…except I have a hard time seeing dipshit haters picking up Scrabble over a shooter since there’s no teabagging in Scrabble.
So can I please be allowed to go back to finding this funny? I think I’m about to pull something trying to keep my lips pursed in disapproval.
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:57 am
And here I thought it was the lesbians complaining. After all, who else could possibly have the right to not like this label?
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I don’t play much Scrabble; too many bad experiences getting all Qs and no Us. Still, I thought slang terms in general weren’t okay in Scrabble. Is that the case? Am I just confusing that for the “no proper nouns” rule?
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I think the problem is that slang terms are acceptable, whereas proper nouns are not — so simply sticking an S on the end and declaring it to be an island off the coast of Greece isn’t going to be legal (whereas I guess more than one lesbian is acceptable). I don’t think they can police slang terms because so often slide their way into regular usage that it would be difficult to call that line.
Everyone I’ve spoken to has shown solidarity with the rules of scrabble — if it’s in the dictionary, and it’s not a proper name or an abbreviation, it should be playable. I think the problem is that Ubisoft has gotten themselves into is that a game of scrabble usually has a certain degree of policing from fellow-players WRT whether or not a word is allowed. And while it might be technically legal for me to play n—-r off of an open G, I’d probably just take the score hit and play “Grin” instead.
And yeah, Punning, that’s the problem and the point of the post — just because I think it’s funny to picture my friends playing the word (they might even let me get away with it) and getting a good laugh off of it, that doesn’t mitigate the fact that it’s a derogatory term. There’s no reason it should be in the dictionary if other derogatory slang words aren’t. I’ve just got too active an imagination and my friends and I are too irreverant.
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
It seems I can’t escape scrabble this week. Scrabble’s very popular in my house, but I hate it with a passion (I have issues with spelling). Anyway, in our house the rule is anything that’s in the scrabble dictionary (I believe my dad owns something like three different official editions of the scrabble dictionary) is fair game. As I recall there are more then a few derogatory and profanity terms in the scrabble dictionary. There are probably more in the Ubisoft version that just haven’t been found yet. Personally I don’t really see anything wrong with it. It’s not like the point of the game is to use the terms in a context to insult someone. In the game the words are really very divorced from their meanings.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:02 am
Your outrage has been noted and is appreciated. You may now return to finding this funny.
Warmly,
Lesbians Everywhere.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I just want to know if “Teabag” is a legal play in this game.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I’m sure “bitch” is a legal play since you could claim it’s just a female dog. But any derogatory word that doesn’t have another meaning (”what’s wrong with cock? It’s just a rooster!”) like, oh, say, lesbo or any number of racial epithets … again… if you’re playing with friends, you’re probably not going to play “wop” because then you look like an asshole. But if a machine is scoring it, is it really wrong for the machine to enforce common civility?
October 5th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I’m with stogoe on this one; they may yet find “teabagging” in scrabble as well…what may discourage them is a lack of “n00b/l33t” speak words; depriving them of their native language to spell with. “Where are the numbers?!”