Hos, Crack And Guns In Pimp Game

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not prudes. There’s a time and a place for hos, crack cocaine and guns – usually late at night in the privacy of your own car on a lone motorway. Not actually ‘doing’ them you understand, but listening to Dr Dre or Ghostface Killah with the system up. Pretending that your knackered old Fiesta is in actuality a fully pimped out beamer, pulling 'gansta leans' at the lights to impress the ladies.

Unfortunately though, it seems that many (mostly white, middle class) videogame developers (if we should even deign to call them that) seem to think this edgy urban hip hop glamour can somehow translate into a successful game – usually referred to in the industry as ‘the GTA effect’. New ‘free’ multiplayer online game ‘The Pimp Game’ - aimed at 14-year olds and above - is perhaps one of the worst examples of this trend to date.

SPOnG would urge all designers of cash-in gritty urban GTA-clones out there to please reconsider what they are doing. Try to come up with something that doesn't insult the intelligence of the gaming audience for the Nnnnnnth time? Maybe do some voluntary work in the community instead? Maybe go and live in the actual ghetto seeing your sister selling herself for the crack cocaine that fuels your three-year old nephews rampant addiction? Just a thought...

Please feel free to take a cursory look at The Pimp Game’s website at ThePimpGame.com . Beware though, it may give you an irrepressible urge to smash in your monitor in disgust and utter dismay. We did when we logged in to find that, of course, it's not as free as it looks - there is plenty of scope to purchase add-ons using real world cash.

Oh – and a tip to the game’s designers – hoe is a garden tool, ‘ho’ is urban slang for a prostitute.