‘The apology made it worse’: Video game news platform slammed over Welsh jibes
A video game review news platform has been criticised after apologising for a joke about Wales, but then changing it to something that annoyed fans even more.
While covering the announcement of the video game Made of Sker, which is made by Wales Interactive and inspired by Welsh folklore, Push Square opened the review by saying “There are scarier things in Wales than the accent”.
After a backlash by fans they apologised and changed it to “there’s more to Wales than lovespoons and sheep, apparently”.
“I’d say that makes it worse,” Hannah Lewin replied. “It’s condescending.”
Games Wales, an organisation that champions game development in Wales, criticised the news platform, saying: “The updated headline and non-apology is still pretty lame, especially with the tweet still in circulation.”
‘Supernatural’
Maid of Sker is a first-person survival horror made by Wales Interactive, a video games company based in Pencoed near Bridgend.
The company’s owners and founding members are David Banner MBE, Managing Director and Richard Pring, Technical Director.
The game is set in a remote hotel with a macabre history, inspired by the story of Sker House near Bridgend.
According to the legend, the father of a woman called Elisabeth Williams locked her in a room of the house to prevent her from running off with her lover. Legend has it she died in that room of a broken heart.
“Set in 1898 and inspired by the haunting Welsh tale of Elisabeth Williams, this is a story of a family empire driven by torture, slavery, piracy and a supernatural mystery that suffocates the grounds of the hotel.,” Wales Interactive said.
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It seems that it’s fine to make comments about Cymru/Wales and Cymry/Welsh people that would never be tolerated by any other national, racial or faith group. It’s time we struck back!
Struck back against Welsh computer games makers based in Wales?
No, the reviewers. Read the article properly.
try reading the article instead, then comment.
I agree. I was watching Mastermind the other day and John Humphrys welcomed back a contestant to the general knowledge round by saying he was from an unpronounceable Welsh village. I seem to remember some years ago by BBC newsreaders were bending over backwards to pronounce the name of an Icelandic volcano.
Anyone else more bothered that Nation Cymru’s article starts off referring to the game as Made of Sker? I’ve read the responses on http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/04/maid_of_sker_proves_there_are_scarier_things_in_wales_than_the_sheep Surprisingly encouraging, I thought. Some people genuinely surprised to learn there is a different language as well as accent. Still the overwhelming belief remains that nobody speaks Welsh other than one man and his dog (presumably a sheepdog). For me a scary Welsh accent is the generic one heard on many TV shows that have a ‘Welsh’ character! As the Nutrimatic machine in the Heart of Gold produced a liquid that was ‘almost but not entirely… Read more »
This could be a new sport. Have a listen to Roger Lloyd Pack’s lamentable attempt in the TV drama ‘Dandelion Dead’ (on YouTube).
I watched The Vikings last week. (The 1958 film with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis). I was 10 the last time I saw it. The plot revolved around the abduction and ransoming of Morgan, fictional daughter of ‘King Roadray of Wales’ who was betrothed to the king of Northumberland. I assume it was meant to be Rhodri Mawr. No trace of a Welsh accent attempt by anyone. Not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved! The Hollywood view of Wales as one big coal mine/tip (as in How Green Was My Valley) was demonstrated by Ernest Borgnine’s Viking King Ragnar… Read more »
We should be pleased there was no cod-Welsh accent. I’m glad the producers didn’t expect characters in a 10th century drama to be identified by their speaking English with modern-day local accents. After all, contemporaneously Morgan would have spoken Welsh, King of Northumbria a Northumbrian Saxon dialect, and the Vikings early Norse. There’d have been a lot of gesturing! (Very fond of the film – but now I’m going to have Dee Daa-da, …, Dee Daa-da,, .., Dee-da Dee-dum Dee-dum Dee-dum Dee-dum running through my mind for the rest of the day).
I rather like being described as “scary”. I love the way Shakespeare presents Owain Glyndwr as exotic and magical in Henry 1V. It would be rather nice to be exotic and magical. As a Welsh speaking Welshwoman whose grandparents were flogged for speaking their own language, I take no offence. Prefer “scary” to sheep and love-spoons.
Shakespeare did create the joke Welshman, Fluellen, but he did also have Henry V describing himself as a leek wearing Welshman, so good evidence to use should England attempt to annex Gwent again!
Some times we can be confident enough to laugh , an call them c**t .