Somebody has finally created a smartphone game more frustrating than Flappy Bird. A Canadian developer that goes by Big-O-Tree Games (stop and say the name out loud …) is getting predictable flak for a supposed new game that’s called Dirty Chinese Restaurant. You play as Wong Fu, owner of a purposefully filthy “genuine” Chinese joint where apparently no racist stereotype gets left behind. Points are earned by Dumpster-diving for supplies, taking a meat cleaver to alley cats and stray dogs, and running the kitchen at “sweatshop” speed. Tax evasion is encouraged, and immigration officials constantly make Fu’s life difficult by deporting line cooks.
Sound awful enough yet? The two trailers are worse.
The game is whipping people into a rage online, and it so horrified Grace Meng, New York’s first Asian-American member of Congress, that she posted a message on Facebook earlier this week blasting the company for using “every negative and demeaning stereotype that I have ever come across as a Chinese American.” She went on to write that “this game epitomizes racism against Asian Americans”:
HuffPost points out that Dirty Chinese Restaurant sure seems to violate both Google’s and Apple’s terms of agreement for developers, so it’s unlikely this horror show will actually end up in the app stores.
