It’s caused controversy on Facebook . And now the innocuous game of Scrabble is causing ructions on the Nintendo DS. Tonya Carrington, 36, gave her eight year old son Ethan a copy of Scrabble for the handheld console to “help boost his vocabulary”. It has done, but not in the way she expected. The game comes with a PEGI 3+ rating, but Tonya and Ethan discovered it comes with a slew of rude words used by the computer-controlled characters.
According to the Daily Mail newspaper, Ethan found characters using words such as “t*ts”, which the in-game dictionary listed as both “a garden bird” and “an informal word for female breasts”. Other words available to AI characters included “f*ckers” (“a slang word for chavs”), “sh*t” and “toke” (“a draw on a cannabis cigarette”).
Ubisoft, the game’s publisher, said: “We are sorry the game has caused concern, but it includes a ‘junior’ option that stops it using unusual or offensive words.” But according to Tonya: “I read the booklet that came with it, and there was no mention of a junior version.”
While undeniably funny, this appears (judging by the definition and inclusion of “f*ckers”) that this was probably more another prank by programmers than something approved of high-up in Ubisoft (and then marketed as a family-friendly game). But either way, where was the quality control guys?
