French video gaming firm Ubisoft has decided to withdraw the brain training game MindQuiz. The game, which was released for the Nintendo DS, had come under criticism after it was found that a poor performance in one part sees the gamer labeled in an offensive manner.
Ubisoft has apologized to anyone who was offended by the game. A spokesperson from the firm said, “As soon as we were made aware of the issue we stopped distribution of the product and are now working with retailers to pull the game off the market. The game was developed in Japan, and we unfortunately did not pick up on the offending word in our quality assurance. We are currently working with the developer to find a way to rectify the issue.”
The MindQuiz issue was first noticed by a Belfast woman Nicola who found the term derogatory. She told BBC Radio that her father had cerebral palsy. Nicola was playing the game before to pass the time whilst in hospital giving birth to her baby son, Austin, last month. Her three-year old son had suffered from brain damage before passing away last year.
MindQuiz is a game that is made for gamers who are three and above and was released in March 2007. The game is also available for the PSP. This is the second time in this month where a major publisher had to withdraw a video game. A few days ago, Legacy Interactive had to withdraw Law and Order: Double or Nothing from sale in UK after it was found that the game contained an image of James Bulger.