14 DAY TRIAL // We know that some games feature Mature content, but most of them pertain to the action, FPS or even RPG genre so we're puzzled to see ... a Scrabble videogame including such content. What's worse is that a seven-year-old spotted the title's issue, as while she was playing with her father the word "lesbo" popped up.
The father, Zachary McAdam claimed that he wanted the Nintendo DS title Junior Scrabble 2007 to be recalled. "Lesbo" is an offensive term pertaining to the slang language, so Mister McAdam looked it up on dictionary.com, in order to convince himself that the noun really was unappropriate. Scrabble 2007 was produced by Ubisoft that used all the words included in the Chambers Official Scrabble Dictionary. After the father's complaint Ubisoft apologized for the offense, mentioning that their only goal is entertainment and that they've used over 277,000 approved words from the Chamber Official Scrabble Dictionary.
The producer also pointed out that the title includes a "junior" option that turns off the usage of offensive words. This doesn't help much, as the term "lesbo" is available in any of the game's versions, not being considered offensive by the title's dictionary. Now I've seen it all, as the average Scrabble DS title gets turned into some sort of Manhunt-like phenomenon. We're living in a free society nowadays, where homophobic bullying isn't allowed and discrimination is not as present as 20 years ago.
Nevertheless Ubisoft's mistake has to be fixed one way or the other, but I'm not so sure that they'll recall the game. If the whole story gets big and the media starts talking about it, the producer will be forced to take some action. This goes to show that if you keep your eyes peeled there's some offensive content hidden even in the most unoffensive title ever.