Ubisoft causes more offence through words

Oh dear. It seems Ubisoft is in trouble again over language used in one of its games.

You might remember that back in June copies of the Ubisoft-published Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach had to be withdrawn from sale after a parent complained a word was used within it that is considered offensive to people with disabilities.

The company blamed the inclusion of the word on dodgy Japanese to English translation, and indeed Nintendo was recently caught out in the same way when Mario Party 8 on the Wii was found to contain the same word.

But another 'sensitive' word has cropped up in DS game Scrabble 2007. This one is possibly less controversial but nonetheless has hit a raw nerve with some, as reported by the Belfast Telegraph who ran the story.

Apparently, Belfast dad Mr McAdam was playing the anagram mode of the game with his seven-year-old daughter when they were stumped by one five-letter anagram. Upon opting to give up, they were shown the correct answer: 'lesbo'.

Mr McAdam then said he "nearly fell off his chair". So would we frankly – how hard could it have been to work that out?

Ubisoft has apologised for any offence caused, however defended its corner, saying: "In the case of Scrabble 2007, the game uses a word list based on the Chambers Official Scrabble Dictionary and all approved words contained in this dictionary are playable in the game.

"There are over 277,000 approved words in the dictionary. 'Lesbo' is not considered as offensive by the official dictionary and therefore is playable in both [adult and junior] options."

Offensive or not? Let us know what you think. Just don't tell the Daily Mail about any of this.