Is "Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration" A Racist Game App?

Comments

• hatersgonnahate February 7, 2011

  Have you been to Boston? The prerequisite for living there is to be a racist mofo.

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  • Cindy Casares February 8, 2011

    oh no you di-int.

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  • Nacomprende February 9, 2011

    I've been a few times. What I saw was just very white.

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• ElConde February 8, 2011

  I noticed that the game creator's last name was Schwartz. I'm sure he won't mind when I release my "Escape from Auschwitz" app. The best part is when you shake the phone to increase the amount of gas being released into the gas chambers! No offense Jews...it's just satire. F*cking moron.

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• friendOfAFriend February 9, 2011

  Dear author, There was a specific friend of the developer (and myself) immigrating from the Middle East at the time, and the hassle was immense, costly, and took far longer than was reasonable. So yes, you should believe what Alex Schwartz says. My current roommate is also trying to immigrate his wife and newborn child from Vietnam right now, and I'm seeing the flaws of the U.S. immigration system yet again. I was at the game jam where Smuggle Truck was conceived and I remember a common attitude was that the immigration system was so awful and hard to change that we just felt like we had to joke about it to even start to make games about it. Games that are just downright depressing aren't a lot of fun. One group made a game about the horrible maze-exploring, form-completing experience one went through to make it through the immigration office, but covered it with lots of humor to make it playable. Part of what made me appreciate Smuggle Truck was that it was loud and in-your-face, and I thought it might shake some things up and raise awareness. That's what's happening now. The goal of the game was definitely not to promote racism.

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  • ElConde February 10, 2011

    @friendOfAFriend - If this game is meant to raise awareness about immigration issues, then why not focus on the struggle of immigrants from all over the world? Why not focus on the immigration story of your friend that immigrated from the Middle East? Why is this game so decidedly focused on immigration from Mexico? Why does the game feature characters like a luchador and a man with a sombrero? And if the purpose of this game is to raise awareness about immigration issues, how much of the game's profits is the game developer willing to donate in order to immigrants? How much? You can try and justify this game all you want, but the fact is that the developer wanted to create a controversial game that would gain attention and in return sell a large amount of apps in the Apple App Store. The developer of this game lacks the creativity to create a game with an original concept, so they have resorted to one of the cheapest gimmicks in society today...shock. And then the developer has the audacity to claim this game is meant to raise awareness. Screw him and screw you for defending him. Do you realize that people die trying to make into our country? People die! And you sit here and try to justify a game that profits off of that. Both you and the developer are scum and cowards and if there is any justice in this world the Smuggle Truck app will be banned from the Apple App Store.

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    • friendOfAFriend February 10, 2011

      "If this game is meant to raise awareness about immigration issues, then why not focus on the struggle of immigrants from all over the world? Why not focus on the immigration story of your friend that immigrated from the Middle East?" I agree that more could be done. I think that second idea would make a great story and could become a good game. That's up to the developers, and if you just sent those two lines to the devs, I'm sure they'd listen and try to incorporate those ideas. "Why is this game so decidedly focused on immigration from Mexico? Why does the game feature characters like a luchador and a man with a sombrero?" The individuals in the game are actually of all different economic levels and races. And there's all different kinds of terrain to cross, so its not just Mexico. There's Africans and Asians and Caucasians in there too. There's a nerd with a pocket protector. The characters are stereotypical because they need to be noticable without much attentions, since as you play you just care that they're in the truck. You're focused on the road and the rocks and the jumps, not the art. And yes, the game was created to be controversial; it was meant to shock. That's why we're talking about this game and not the other 4 games that came out of the Immigration Game Jam. As for donations to immigrants? It's raising awareness, not generating revenue. The game isn't a fundraiser. It's a statement about the immigration problem that is stimulating outrage, discussion, and hopefully eventually some social change. And your argument about the deaths of people rings on deaf ears because I have a friend who died in Iraq and several still serving terms there and yet Call of Duty sells millions. I don't blame CoD for being about war, and I don't think it profits from his death. I don't think Smuggle Truck is profiting from deaths either. It's a work of fiction with some measure of truth in it, like all fiction. If games can't be made about serious issues then we'll always be stuck with plumbers jumping on turtles and eating mushrooms. I personally see that as a missed opportunity for human expression and free speech. And as a Jew who's grandparents escaped from Russian pogroms to come to America, I take personal offense at your racist comments. How can you expect others to not be racist when you are? The first two lines of your response are excellent, but then you just drop into angry rant, and eventually into personal attacks. That's not going to fix anything.

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      • ElConde February 10, 2011

        Of course you took offense to my comments, because my comments about Jews were just as absurd as the idea behind the Smuggle Truck game. The reason this game has generated so much outrage (or as you would no doubt prefer to call it, "discussion") is that many Latinos like myself find it extremely offensive to trivialize the struggle that many of our friends and family members went through in order to make it to this country. You have taken that struggle and turned it into a for profit video game! Why don't you make a video about YOUR GRANDPARENTS? You claim that your grandparents escaped from Russia, then make a video game about that! Stick to something you know because you don't know anything about the Latino immigration story and you never will. You claim that this game isn't a fundraiser, but it's purpose is to make a statement. As the old saying goes, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and do something positive to bring about real change. Donate to groups that are helping immigrants. Donate to organizations that are trying to bring about equality in Arizona. Donate to the Dream Act. I could sit hear all day and offer ways that you could somehow make this right, but it will only fall on deaf ears. You don't care about immigration, you only care about profit. In the end, the joke will be on you when this game fails to make it into the Apple App Store, or is promptly removed if it ever does get approved. Do you really think Latinos are just going to sit back and let you profit off of this game?

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• Douggie February 16, 2011

  I think it’s a shame that these people are making a $killing$ with this issue. An iPhone game that glorifies the fact that people die while they search for a better way of life? GIVE ME A BREAK! But as bad as this seems, this game is not the first one creating all this controversy. Last month the very first "controversial" iPhone game was released, the one who started this entire dilemma, JOSE COMES TO USA.

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