Developer Big-O-Tree games has halted development and promotion of a planned mobile game called Dirty Chinese Restaurant after the title drew negative attention from sources including a US Congresswoman for racist portrayals of Asian-Americans.
“After careful consideration and taking the time to listen to the publics [sic] opinion we have decided it’s not in anyone’s best interest to release Dirty Chinese Restaurant,” Big-O-Tree writes in a message on its website yesterday. “We would like to make a sincere and formal apology to the Chinese community and wish to assure them that this game was not created with an intentional interest of inflicting harm or malice against Chinese culture.”
Official trailers for the game have been removed from YouTube, but archived copies show the planned games’ depiction of two Asian caricatures, named Wang Fu and Wong Fu, managing a restaurant by chasing stray animals for meat, finding produce in trash cans, and being threatened for deportation by immigration officials.