Sifu developer SLOCLAP cancelled for being “full of white” guys

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Sifu, the highly anticipated rogue-like kung-fu beat ’em up, cancelled for having a Sloclap studio “full of white developers.”

People are boycotting Sifu, a rogue-like narrative driven kung-fu brawler, for being developed by white guys. Sloclap, the French developers, are called out for cultural appropriation for making a game about an ancient Chinese martial art. And this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

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Khee Hoon Chan, a non-binary Singaporean features editor for TheGamer, wrote a racist, anti-white, article about Sloclap, the small developer behind one of 2022’s most anticipated indie games Sifu.

In a nutshell, Khee Hoon has many reservations about Sloclap’s fighing game because the team isn’t nearly diverse enough.

While the writer applauds Slocap for doing “more than the bare minimum” for representation and diversity of Chinese martial arts without “resorting to racist clichés,” they admit to being massively disappointed to learn that none of the developers are Chinese or Asian (like the two are somehow mutually exclusive).

“This incongruence still says volumes about a predominantly white industry that is in love with non-white cultures, but is largely reluctant to challenge the structural racism endemic to the industry,” Khee Hoon wrote.

Sifu old man
Sifu developer/developers Sloclap cancelled for being white.

Khee Hoon goes on to explain that, albeit still “looking forward” to the game’s release, they have very little faith in an all-white developer for properly representing Chinese culture or martial arts in their game.

Isn’t this a racist piece, especially considering that this piece is penned by a Chinese-Singaporean person? If a white games’ journalist was to write a similar piece about non-white people making a game about Vikings, would that not be racist?

Nobody batted an eye that a Ashraf Ismail, a cultural Muslim, was the lead designer of Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.

Nobody cared that the Ubisoft Montreal didn’t hire any Viking larpers (live-action role-players) to give their input on Ubisoft’s vision of Nordic mythology. The game was great and the studio didn’t need to hire people just for the sake of diversity.

As referenced in the article, Khee Hoon also pointed out that Ghost of Tsushima was also made by a developer who was predominantly white, like it mattered.

Singaporean editor, Khee Hoon Chan
Non-binary Singaporean editor, Khee Hoon Chan.

Despite Sucker Punch’s so-called “lack of diversity,” they made one of the greatest culturally Japanese video games of all time. It is also one of the most highly voted games on Metacritic by consumers with a near perfect score of 9.1. Ghost of Tsushima is so cinematic and has such a compelling story that it was even picked up by Sony Pictures for a live-action movie adaptation.

Sadly, regardless of Ghost of Tsushima’s profound success, a legion of teenage Kpop fans tried to cancel the “racist game” because Sucker Punch consisted of mostly white developers.

One Kpop fan tweeted: “Listen up, white folk. We know you don’t have a culture of your own and your history is filled with racism and bloodshed but stop appropriating other cultures. Racist pigs!”

However, the sentiment was not shared by Japanese gamers. Many Japanese people expressed how they felt and called out the game’s decriers on social media saying that they felt that Sucker Punch did an amazing job in representing their culture and were even honoured by it.

“There is no such thing as a cultural appropriation, it’s simply appreciation. This new age term just created more division in an already highly politically-charged and partisan world. I’m Japanese and it honours me deeply to see people partake and celebrate my culture,” another added.

Despite efforts, Ghost of Tsushima was not cancelled and, according to early reports, Sifu will likely be one of the biggest hits this year.

Sifu, the roguelike kung-fu brawler by developer Slocap, is scheduled to release exclusively on PlayStation consoles and Windows 10 PCs early next month, February 8th 2022.

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