No More SCUM Nazis
Steam survival game SCUM has already sold over 250,000 copies and made its mark through its slapstick antics and strong attention to detail. But one particular detail irked some fans: the ability to put a Nazi tattoo on their avatars.
The tattoo was available after purchasing the SCUM supporter pack and featured the numbers 14 and 88. Both of these are white supremacist calls: 14 refers to the 14-word statement, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” while 8 refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H. And repeating it twice leaves you with HH, which stands for “Heil Hitler.” Now, after the outcry, the symbols have been removed.
“It’s a game. It’s fiction. If you are offended by some textures in the game, please don’t play the game,” developer Croteam’s incubator marketing and community manager Zenoslaf initially said. “Because if we start removing things that hurt someone’s feelings, it will be an empty game, with no people, no weapons, no blood, no humor, no pooping, killing others, eating human flesh, killing animals.”
“Devolver Digital has become aware of tattoos representing neo-Nazi symbology in the newly released prison survival simulation game SCUM,” publisher Devolver Digital later said. “We do not agree with use of this symbology or any hateful content, regardless of intention.” Devolver is now “conducting a full review of all assets and content in the game with Gamepires.”
“Our intention was to create an atmosphere of the worst of the worst criminals in SCUM, and to portray the horrible type of people who would find themselves in a ‘fight to the death’ situation for a futuristic reality show where the worst criminals are pitted against one another,” the game’s second developer Gamepires wrote.
“We apologize for this misstep and promise to our fans that we will take more caution in our approach moving forward.”