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The Sun Misfires Against Disney Over Swear in Game

Posted by Zonk on from the see,-it-helps-if-you-check-your-facts-first dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "UK paper The Sun published an article about a father who purchased a recent Gameboy title from Disney for his daughter. They were horrified that the credits of the game contained the F-Word and he immediately contacted the paper. The Sun published the article without researching the fact that this was a pirate cartridge based off of the cracked version of this game released. Oops!"

5 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Did he know? by Some+guy+named+Chris · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article is rather vague, but I would be interested in whether the man knew the game he had purchased was a bootleg.

    1. Re:Did he know? by Ayaress · · Score: 4, Interesting

      From the picture in the Sun article, I don't think he knew it was. The cartridge looks like fifty other GBA games I have sitting around, and it has a very legitamate-looking sticker on it. It's obviously an otherwise good fake made with a crappy unclean ROM downloaded off the internet complete with the cracker intro (Where the "fuck off and die" bit came from).

      There are a couple ways the father could have gotten it:
      1. Bought it off ebay or otherwise from a non-vendor. Worse yet, he could have bought it from one of those carts that get set up in malls and vanish after three days. There was a strange event in the mall near me where a vender cart like that sold dozens of remote control cars with the electronics gutted out of them, and then vanished. Whatever the conditions, if this is how he got it, he's at best foolish (for not realizing it's a fake) and at worst a fool (for buying from shady vendors).

      2. Somebody sold the fakes to stores as used. I've heard of it happening at the EB near me once or twice. A good fake can pass as legit to a visual inspection, and most places don't take the time to actually run the game. In this case, it's not the guy's fault for buying it, but he still should have seen it was fake and complained to the store. From what the intro text said, it should be pretty clear. I guess he's one of those people that can look at a page of text, and only see the word "fuck" in the middle of the page and nothing else.

  2. Hope they prosecute this loser... by Mr.+Bendy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, I hope FACT or someone takes this guy to the cleaners. Why not take the game back to the 'shop' where he got it, or to Trading Standards (UK retail 'police'). Instead he tries to take advantage of his daughter's discomfort and make some money off the Sun. Scum. The Sun is an example of everything wrong with British journalism. Low grade version of the Daily mail - a paper for Chavs everwhere.

    1. Re:Hope they prosecute this loser... by Ayaress · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Sun is an example of everything wrong with British journalism Nah, just journalism in general. They're just as bad over here. I'm waiting for the Saginaw News to print this story. They're pretty good at printing stories without researching it. Once, the DoE transported a steel assembly through Michigan that would eventually be used in a nuclear reactor. An unrevealed "someone" provided a "leaked DoE document" to the SN saying that the "radiation" from this material would kill "300 to 600 people" along its transport route, but that the DoE "considered that acceptably low." The truth was, it was just like the shitillion other tons of steel stuff that gets shipped through Michigan every day. It was going to go into a nuclear reactor, but it had never been exposed to nuclear material. The steel had been forged into the desired form up in the UP, loaded on a boat, transfered to a train, and then carried to who-knows-where out west to actually go into a nuclear reactor out there. Nobody was killed, although the article triggered a protest along the transport route (It wasn't the even the correct route, they ended up protesting about 150 tons of feed corn, if I remember right), in which several people were injured when they had to be forcably pulled away from the tracks by the police before the train spread them out over the next eight miles of railroad ties.

  3. Re:Fraudulent, I doubt it by Puggs · · Score: 2, Interesting
    On the thread over at fark.com, there is a pic of a 2nd hand cartridge from ebay and the image from the article. theres clearly a difference in the label.

    Although as this is The Sun, I wouldnt put it past them to make articles up...