Animal Crossing Drops The N-Bomb

There aren't many things you can't say in this day and age but the N-bomb is certainly one of them, so it's more than a little odd that press copies of Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World game would contain just that particular racial slur.

Copies of the game with all of the content unlocked were recently distributed to gaming sites in order to show how easy it is to move content from Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS to Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii. Apparently, in order to unlock this content, Nintendo had someone play the game and then copied the saves for distribution to game writers. (Not me, sadly.)

It turns out that you can train the game's virtual residents to say all kinds of new and interesting words, and apparently someone at Nintendo thought it would be amusing to train a sheep named Baabara to greet the player with a hearty, "How are you, n---a?" The slur was first discovered by Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer, and then confirmed by Kotaku's Brian Crecente. And that's not all: According to Crecente, Baabara peppers her conversation liberally with the word, saying things like, "I almost forgot about you, n---a," "So got any juicy gossip for me, n---a?" and "Just thinking about it gets me all excited, n---a."

This material won't show up in the retail version of the game, as the characters have to be trained by players to say things, but even so this is just wrong on so many levels that it makes my head swim. In this day and age, who in their right mind would even consider something like this funny? Admittedly, the Japanese culture allows for a lot of stuff that just don't fly on this side of the water, but this is utterly, incomprehensibly inappropriate. I think it's safe to say that Nintendo, and quite possibly the world, will be minus one would-be comedian in very short order.

via: Kombo.com

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This is really surreal...

What if they made the sheep african american?

Ok, look. This is the most rediculas thing i've ever seen.

When you have a critter in a town, it says stuff, and you can get the option to change that. You. Not japan. Not the game. You.

If i want it to call me donkeypunch, i can make it call me donkeypunch.

Animal crossing is not dropping the N bomb, the player is. And it makes the game much more bearable.

Wait, so this is just something that someone trained the programming to say? So why does it matter? This is like getting pissed off about a mod adding nude character models (yes, Oblivion).

Wow, just wow...

well thats what you get when you give ppl too much freedom in games

Its time for everyone to get off their high horses. This is hardly anything to get worked up over. Its a freakin' video game. If someone gets kicks out of that particular word (I for one found the "So got any juicy gossip for me, n-a" to be particuarly funny), then let them.

This is a load, if you want them to say something different, you can tell them that. It's just someone's juvenile idea of being funny.

If you have such a bad sense of humour, at least be careful not to include it in the release thingie. This guy deserves to lose his job for stupidity, even if he really isn't a racist.

I think its pretty funny. I am an African America and I think it is freaking hilarious. Besides you can hear a heck of a lot worse coming out of any Hip-Hop song...

So the user got someone to say a racial epithet in their version of the game. Just theirs.

How is this news and/or controversy. Oh right. It isn't.

I'm guessing the trainer here must also play a lot of XBox Live, most likely CoD4.

theApoc:
I think its pretty funny. I am an African America and I think it is freaking hilarious. Besides you can hear a heck of a lot worse coming out of any Hip-Hop song...

Where the heck did they put African America? I can't find it in any Atlas

I lol'd

Well most Sheep have black skin, with white fur. So clearly Baabara is completely justified in using the soft R version, That is "Nigga", rather than N***er. One is ebonics, the other is a slur.

Khell_Sennet:
How is this new?

Animal Crossing classic for the Gamecube used to have some of the animals ask you for new words to say, being tired of their pre-programmed *Chirp* or *Bark*, etc. We had them say everything from Bukakke to Vagoo.

Same thing here, the first time one of the residents asked me if they used a saying to much I said yes and that opened up a whole new world to me.

I could have done that in the Pokemon games by naming my character if I wanted to, it's pretty much the same thing. No real problem, though I wouldn't be suprised if this gets way more attention than it deserves.

This can't be real. Why would Nintendo allow this? O.O

Easykill:
If you have such a bad sense of humour, at least be careful not to include it in the release thingie. This guy deserves to lose his job for stupidity, even if he really isn't a racist.

If this person hadn't discovered it the result from releasing this worldwide then having a child discover it would have been a lot worse.

Don't you just love it when little nubcakes get up-in-arms about pathetic words and sex in video-games, then go off to blow up each other in Halo? I just can't believe that someone would whine about this. In Fallout 3 I could call my character anything I wanted and suddenly it'd be Bethseda's fault? Jesus christ, you coulda wasted my time with something better, like how violent video-games make you into a killer.

Aardvark:
What if they made the sheep african american?

Bah bah black sheep?

I'm getting extremely sick of people viewing certain words as inherently insulting. "Nigger" was/is one of them, despite attempts by the black community to "reclaim" it. If people stopped treating these words as unspeakable, a generation would grow up with no swearing and thus no excuse to get offended by a word let slip in their vicinity.

An example of what I mean: I've "cursed" on buses and been threatened with bodily violence merely because a child was present. If I'd grown up in a society where "bastard" hadn't been bastardized to the point its application is an insult regardless of whether or not your parents were married, there'd be one less way to insult thousands of people and get up the backs of angry mothers.

My point is that "nigga" has been successfully "reclaimed". Black people call each other "Nigga", gay people call each other "fags" and the only people that get offended are last generation and/or stupid.

Stop treating situations like this news as a big deal and they'll stop being a big deal. Problem solved.

Slayer_2:
Don't you just love it when little nubcakes get up-in-arms about pathetic words and sex in video-games, then go off to blow up each other in Halo? I just can't believe that someone would whine about this. In Fallout 3 I could call my character anything I wanted and suddenly it'd be Bethseda's fault? Jesus christ, you coulda wasted my time with something better, like how violent video-games make you into a killer.

Right on the money. Also: "This material won't show up in the retail version of the game, as the characters have to be trained by players to say things,"
so what's the big deal here...?

I agree (somewhat). A word can be used ironically, but if it isn't it can, carry the weight of hundreds of years of conflict and carnage. This clearly is a case of ironic use, but I still find it amusing that nintendo of all companies let this through, considering how picky they are about family-friendly content.

I don't see how this is any different to the countless racist names you encounter on any FPS multiplayer game. From what I understand, this is a player who has trained the character to say this. If that's the case, what's the problem here? Have I missed something?

Molikroth:
I'm getting extremely sick of people viewing certain words as inherently insulting. "Nigger" was/is one of them, despite attempts by the black community to "reclaim" it. If people stopped treating these words as unspeakable, a generation would grow up with no swearing and thus no excuse to get offended by a word let slip in their vicinity.

An example of what I mean: I've "cursed" on buses and been threatened with bodily violence merely because a child was present. If I'd grown up in a society where "bastard" hadn't been bastardized to the point its application is an insult regardless of whether or not your parents were married, there'd be one less way to insult thousands of people and get up the backs of angry mothers.

My point is that "nigga" has been successfully "reclaimed". Black people call each other "Nigga", gay people call each other "fags" and the only people that get offended are last generation and/or stupid.

Stop treating situations like this news as a big deal and they'll stop being a big deal. Problem solved.

How has it been "reclaimed"?

I sincerely respect my black lecturer and I'm pretty sure if anyone approached him and said it he would be deeply offended.

The people who get offended by it are neither last generation or stupid they are the ones with dignity and respect.

EDIT: Since I condoned it in the other topic let me explain. When it's aimed at people it's offensive, I did find the picture to be incredibly hilarious.

Jesus; it really says something that the controversy here needs to be explained.

These were press copies of the game. Nintendo handed out these copies of the game as representative of the company.

This is not just random shit that some kid blurted out on-line. It is how Nintendo is advertising itself.

And, no, we cannot simply decide that words no longer give offense, and, no, this word has not been reclaimed at all.

But even if we could change the effects of words so easily, this particular one has not been changed yet.

Not good publicity.

While that particular word may not be politically correct, the fact that the guy slipped it into the game, and then Nintendo sent out lots of copies is hilarious. One guy wanted to spice up his game, I'm sure lots of people are going to do much worse things when they get the game.

I'm sure worse things happen in people's personal games, but this became newsworthy when some jackass who played the game decided to make it more "interesting." It's not just some random guy. They sent copies of this game out with this on it.

Okay, a lot of people aren't actually reading the article, so let's clarify:

Yes, the animals can be taught any words, BUT... this particular word was taught to the sheep in a prepared media release. Meaning it was taught BY Nintendo, or at least someone at Nintendo.

ThePlasmatizer:
How has it been "reclaimed"?

I sincerely respect my black lecturer and I'm pretty sure if anyone approached him and said it he would be deeply offended.

The people who get offended by it are neither last generation or stupid they are the ones with dignity and respect.

I forget the name of that black guy who does the hip rap. It's something to do with money.

Anyway, yeah, count the amount of times he says "nigger" in his songs.

As I said, if people are still offended by an archaic term that sees more use today as a synonym for "person" among their community, they're stupid. Seizing at any opportunity to be offended irritates me to no end whether it's black guys, old people or religious nuts.

I'm bisexual and have no problem with the terms "queer", "fag" "depraved monster" and the rest of the petty labels you guys (i.e. society in general, not these forums) fling at me, and certainly don't have a problem when they're used in another context - for example, here in Glasgow "fag" sees more use as a slang term for cigarrette than as an attempt to insult gay people.