Last January Deep Silver found themselves in a bit of Internet hot water after announcing that the Zombie Bait Edition of Dead Island Riptide would come with a 31cm-tall statue of a mutilated female torso dressed in a UK Union Jack bikini. The publisher quickly apologized for the marketing decision, and claimed that they “sincerely regret [the] choice”. Fast forward three months, and Deep Silver’s disgusting bloody half-naked female torso statues are currently sitting on retail shelves in both Australia and New Zealand.
So much for the apology.
The existence of the Zombie Bait Edition statues were initially made by Twitter users, and they have since been confirmed by Deep Silver parent Koch Media to be available for purchase in “extremely limited quantity”.
For the record, here is Deep Silver’s initial apology to the international gaming community for the Dead Island Riptide Zombie Bait Edition:
“We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide “Zombie Bait Edition”, the collector’s edition announced for Europe and Australia. Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector’s Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.”
“For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original Dead Island.”
“We sincerely regret this choice. We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver’s entire international team today. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.”
Apparently, Deep Silver’s feelings of regret over the contents in the Dead Island Riptide Zombie Bait Edition should not have been taken as a sign that the SKU had been canceled. At least we can rest easy knowing that they will never let it happen again…