Yesterday, we had reported about Manhunt 2, which was banned from the UK by the BBFC. Now, it is the turn of Legacy Interactive to withdraw their Law and Order: Double or Nothing game, which is based on the hit television series.
The game has come under fire after it was found that they used the CCTV image which shows the kidnapping of two year old James Bulger in 1993 in UK. He was later tortured and murdered by his kidnappers, Thompson and Venables, who were aged ten then. Bulger’s mother Denise Fergus had called to stop the game from being sold. Her spokesman, Chris Johnson told BBC Radio Merseyside, “It is something that she feels quite strongly about, that images of James should not be used and abused in this way as if he is some kind of public property.”
Distributor Global Software Publishing has withdrawn the game from UK stores. Denise Fergus had written to Legacy Interactive and the Law and Order: Double or Nothing was withdrawn after her demands were made public.
However, Legacy Interactive has also apologized. A spokesman told BBC News, “Obviously the game was out almost five years ago and this is the first time we knew anything about it otherwise we would never have put it out. We are sorry and we didn’t mean to hurt anybody. We will remove the picture and can only apologize to the family. We will do our best to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.”
It is commendable what Legacy has done. However, developers should take care not to hurt sentiments of people. Manhunt 2 was a fictional account, but Law and Order used images, even though in a small scale, it did affect people who were involved in the tragedy.