Note: This contains some language that you may find issue with.

Techland’s been working on Dead Island since 2005 now. It’s one of those games that has just taken forever to finish, and some would argue that there’s still a bit to go.

But there’s no excuse for what one person found in the game’s code, then posted to the Steam forums for the game.

One of the lead females in the game, Purna, has a skill called “Gender Wars” that allows her to deal more damage to male enemies.

Once upon a time, however, the name of that ability wasn’t so nice. Let’s take a look at the code, hm?

sub Skills_Purna(){
	Skill("TeamSpirit1Purna");
	Skill("SharpApprenticePurna");
[...]
	Skill("TeamSpirit2Purna");
	Skill("FeministWhorePurna");
	Skill("MeleeDurabilityPurna");
[...]
}

Well, great. Purna’s a feminist whore. What the heck? That ability is a little weird in itself (and that’s probably another discussion entirely), but its existence doesn’t warrant calling her that. How many thousands of other possibilities were there when it came to naming this single skill? And yet, whoever was doing the naming that particular day thought that “feminist whore” was the best option. Yeah, I’m gonna call for a little more creativity on their part.

This particular bit of code, which appears to name Purna’s skills, only appears in the botched version of the game that Steam players preloaded, fortunately, but that still doesn’t excuse the ability being named that in the first place.

When this was brought to Techland’s attention (via a blog post from Tracey John), they provided an answer to, at the very least, appease some of the masses:

“It has come to our attention that one of Dead Island’s leftover debug files contains a highly inappropriate internal script name of one of the character skills. This has been inexcusably overlooked and released with the game. The line in question was something a programmer considered a private joke. The skill naturaly [sic] has a completely different in-game name and the script reference was also changed. What is left is a part of an obscure debug function. This is merely an explanation but by no means an excuse. In the end that code was made a part of the product and signed with our company name.

“We deeply regret that fact and we apologize to all our customers or anyone who might have been offended by that inappropriate expression. The person responsible for this unfortunate situation will face professional consequences for violating the professional standards and beliefs Techland stands for.”

You know, it’s not us being offended that’s the problem. I’m just glad that someone had the thought to change the in-code references…for the most part. Whether this is an “obscure debug function” or not, it should never have been there. The fact that someone saw this and just changed it instead of finding the person in question and bringing it to the attention of higher-ups is more disturbing. If no one had ever found this, there would never have been any “professional consequences” for the offending employee to face.

You can’t just operate under the idea that things like this are okay (as long as no one ever finds them). Act like someone’s standing over your shoulder, watching everything you type. Don’t do things like this, and there won’t be anything to apologize for. Misogyny is misogyny, whether it’s found or not. If you wouldn’t call someone that to her face, don’t stick it in your code and expect no consequences.

Australia’s pretty much guaranteed to help out game development in the country following the passage of a $1.9 billion (that’s with a B) tax break bill, which will be enacted next month. Why “pretty much?” Because the bill covers a variety of “digital creative industries.”

This incentive has already caught the eye of global game publishers. It will also help out companies already in the continent/country — since 2008, Australia’s lost about 1,000 development jobs, which amounts to about 50% of that workforce. Ouch.

Being an Indie Game Developer can be extremely satisfying and extremely frustrating. There is a lot to know and many times the developer just wants to see his or her game made.

Now comes some help. Gary Bracey, founder of Digimask, is encouraging visitors to his “Ask I.V” site to ask any business-related question. No matter how simple or naive you may think it is.

“In addition to Gary, we will have other industry specialists involved, such as Martin Brown of Team 17, Mark Morris of Introversion, and we have access to many more so we are in the position of sourcing the best information for the question asked.” says Richard Hill-Whittall, founder of indievision. “We shall also include guest slots with industry lawyers and accountants who will be able to give useful pointers and tips about diverse issues such as IP Protection and Tax Credits.
Networking is one of the most valuable resources in any industry and via the above people we have access to practically all of the key ‘movers and shakers’ in the business.”

The team hopes to help indie studios with questions that crop up on a daily basis and are common. Go to the Indievision website here for more details and information.