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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, iPhone, iPod touch

Last week the Baby Shaker app received a lot of negative attention and was subsequently pulled from the App Store. Deservedly so; that game was tasteless.

This week, Elaine Howard of the International Pacific Women's Information Network called Bolt's popular Pocket God an "...arrogant slap in the face to our people," referring to Pacific Islanders. If you're unfamiliar, the object of Pocket God (it's really more of a toy than a game) is to torment and kill island-bound characters in a variety of ways. I've always thought of the characters as pre-historic "cave men," not belonging to any specific culture. However, if I were of Pacific Island descent and saw someone playing this game on the subway, it'd bother me.

iPhone Saviour quotes Bolt representatives as saying "The fictional characters in Pocket God do not directly or indirectly represent any human nationality, race or cultural people ... Bolt Creative does not intend and has never intended to offend or marginalize any nationality, race or culture in any of its video games, including Pocket God." I believe that the game was in fact created without malicious intent.

Perhaps a solution would be to use culturally neutral characters like astronauts or LOLcats (see above)? For more on Apple's questionable approval process (not to mention the tastes of some customers), check out this horrifying list of The Ultimate Tasteless iPhone Apps.

TUAWMore App Store controversy from Pocket God originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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