The, uh, not-so-great name a Dutch development team chose for their upcoming browser-based platformer has been cast off in favor of one less cringe-inducing, unintentionally or not. Everyone, say hi to Curio's Starquest.
Formerly, this was known as Starcoon and if, like me, some of your best friends are black, you can recognize how that isn't a an elegant portmanteau on this side of the Atlantic. "Coon" is a longstanding racial epithet in American vernacular.
Mike Fahey pointed this out on Monday and the developers, a group of students from the Utrecht School of Arts & Technology, responded at once that they would change the name. Today they unveiled the new title.
"We decided to avoid further confusion about the title of our game and decided to drop the title 'Starcoon," the team said. "The reason for this change of the title is that we acknowledge the fact that our former title might raise some eyebrows about the use of the word 'coon' of which we missed the controversial meaning due to cultural differences."
They're shifting their old website and domain name over to http://curiosstarquest.eu, which should be active within 48 hours.
"We hope that with this new title, the game will still get the support it deserves," they say, "as Curio would be most happy to bring joy in the lives of gamers all over the world."
Space Raccoon Game Changes Its Unfortunate Eyebrow-Raising Name