Acclaim's Dance! Online: 'I GOTTA PAY TO BE BLACK?'
Uhoh - over at Broken Toys, Lum has posted a story called 'Acclaim: Being Black Is Awesome!', which reveals: "Acclaim’s new DANCE! Online dancing-required microtransaction-driven MMO has decreed that being a black person on the dance floor is so totally awesome, you must earn the privilege."
Let's just cite the particular argument as Lum explained it, since it's... touchy, to say the least.
"Or, as one somewhat surprised user asks,
'I GOTTA PAY TO BE BLACK?'
to which a “player moderator” replied,
'Black is an EXTRA feature. It makes your person look unique, so that is an EXTRA feature. Therefore, you having to PAY for it. (Or ask a friend to pay for it).'
Thankfully, before Rev. Al Sharpton was made aware that MMOs exist, an actual Acclaim employee immediately chimed in with
"As an optional character upgrade, we must put this in the item shop for players to acquire. This is the only way to offer the African-American heads. However, it should be EASILY accessible to all, so we made it just 1 POINT in the shop (which is basically for FREE). You don’t have to spend any money to get it, just play the game and earn points. Thanks!""
Wait, and Broken Toys commenter 'GreyPawn' chimes in: "It is in deeper trouble than just its racist tenor. In-game, there is a built-in marriage system for characters. However, the system intentionally excludes same-sex couples." Oh dear! Set up the PR barricades, Acclaim, it's going to be a long week.
Comments
I think in the flurry of anger over who can be black, who can get hitched, and so on, we're losing sight of the bigger question: why is Acclaim making a game about dancing in which people can get married, and why does anybody care?
The very concept of Acclaim's game is so ridiculous that they could probably just shoehorn in whatever they wanted, racist or heterosexist or otherwise, and it'd be okay, because the ideas are cultivated in what sounds to be a general realm of batshit insanity.
Next week's announcement: Dance! Online update allows for same-sex marriage and dinosaur tea parties.
Posted by: Aaron Linde | April 16, 2007 9:38 AM
Living in a country where, for the most part, same-sex marriage is not legal... I'm not sure what responsibility Konami has to GUARANTEE that functionality in any of its games.
Posted by: Icupnimpn2 | April 16, 2007 10:30 AM
Acclaim, pardon! Not Konami! That was a Freudian slip.
Posted by: Icupnimpn2 | April 16, 2007 10:33 AM
Whatever you think of the game itself, this speaks to Acclaim's total and utter laziness. They've imported a number of titles from Korea and are trying to get them up and running with as little effort as possible. Some of this effort is basic relanguaging, and some of this effort is a little more complicated. For example, when your country (Korea) doesn't have a lot of African-Americans, an African-American avatar is an "extra feature". But if you're going to launch the same game in the USA, you really need to spend a little time addressing these content issues for your audience. Shame on Acclaim!
Posted by: Matt | April 17, 2007 8:02 AM
my friend has download the game dance online. buth she can't open it.
she already asked you what she had to do and it didn't work. what chould we do?
Posted by: Lisa | April 22, 2007 9:34 AM
I downloaded it and it ran fine. Did you double click the install file? You need to sign up thou on the site. Makes a difference from WoW, and was better than I expected.
Posted by: wobble | April 24, 2007 12:29 AM
i think it looks great!
Posted by: kadeem | April 29, 2007 1:49 AM