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Whore of the Orient game faces Human Rights Commission complaint

The upcoming title from Team Bondi has been called an ''attempt to disgrace Chinese culture, history and traditions''.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
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Nic Healey
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The trials and tribulations of Team Bondi continue, with upcoming game Whore of the Orient under attack for its use of the words "whore" and "Orient".

(Credit: Team Bondi)

The Age is reporting that Jieh-Yung Lo, a documentary film-maker and the deputy mayor of Monash Council, is seeking for Team Bondi to either change the name of the game or cease production altogether. Lo has said that he plans to take his claim of racial vilification to the Human Rights Commission.

The original Team Bondi reportedly sold all of its assets and intellectual property to Kennedy Miller Mitchell — the production company owned by George Miller — in August 2011 before entering administration. Miller registered a new company, Team Bondi Interactive Entertainment, in February this year.

On 21 June, the NSW Interactive Media Fund run by Screen NSW (PDF) awarded AU$200,000 to "KMM Interactive Productions a partnership between Team Bondi ... and Kennedy Miller Mitchell ... to help develop Whore of the Orient, an open-world crime drama set in 1930s Shanghai".

Contacted by The Age for comment, Screen NSW said that it doesn't "proscribe subject matter" when funding projects. It also noted that "whore of the Orient" is an old nickname for the city of Shanghai.

Lo said that the use of the word "Orient" was:

Very similar to the N-word for African-American communities. It's a 19th-century racial-colonial conception and it's especially painful for older people in the communities.

Lo said on Twitter that he believes "the word 'Orient' should be banned from public usage".

It's unknown whether the complaint has yet been filed with the Human Rights Commission. We'll update as more information comes to hand.