An international publisher will remove Adolf Hitler from a mobile phone game that lets players choose whether to send historical figures to heaven or hell following pressure from Australian Jewish groups.
Matchingham Games has apologised for causing any hurt and said updates removing the architect of the Holocaust from Judgement Day: Angel of God had been submitted to Google and Apple.
In correspondence with the Anti-Defamation Commission, the publisher said elements of the game had been misconstrued and it never intended to minimise the experience of Holocaust survivors.
“We are sorry to see that certain game and design elements used within one of our mobile video games have been construed as a deliberate attempt to belittle others’ suffering while our intention was quite the opposite,” Matchingham Games said.
“This was an issue tackled by our policy team last week, and separate updates had been submitted to Google and Apple to remove the levels in question.
“We deeply apologise for the understandable hurt which may have been caused by our game.”
Judgement Day, which has been downloaded more than a million times, allows players to decide on whether historical figures such as Vlad the Impaler and Mahatma Gandhi go to heaven or hell by rating their crimes and achievements.
Prior to the update, Hitler was a “special level” in the game and players were asked to “judge the fame”.
Read the article by Remy Varga in The Australian.