[You will have to figure this out on your own. The conceit is elaborated upon in the piece.]
To whom it may concern,
We here at Capcom have studiously observed the reaction to our hit game Resident Evil 5 and would like the opportunity to respond.
Most importantly, our hit game Resident Evil 5 is not racist; rather, it is a provocative artistic work of entertainment that touches upon serious earthly plights sans the obfuscation of prosaic fantasy. And to alter a vision as intensely profound and creative as the one found in our hit game Resident Evil 5, would be to cease the existence of all our principles of corporate social responsibility.
As it is a provocative artistic work of entertainment, we feel that there is no need to apologize; however, there are some people that are offended by zombified Africans, so we will be offering premium downloadable content for our hit game Resident Evil 5 that offers a virtual apology that we think will allay any irrational discomforts.
This premium downloadable content, priced at 1600 Microsoft Points, is exclusively for the Xbox 360 version of the game, and will be available for later this spring. This content is not just for the offended; it is an utter bargain of a collectible for zombiephiles as it offers a unique and compelling insight into the canon of Resident Evil. And it is a collectable because we are releasing only 500,000 pieces of this digital content.
To those that wonder why our public relations team has been so quiet, it is because we no longer have a public relations team. Due to the global financial crisis, we had no choice but to lay off all public relations employees in early 2007—and after they were laid off, the employees were unfortunately kidnapped by clandestine German ninjas affiliated with a multinational pharmaceutical corporation. When we discovered them again, they were affected by viral mutation and died soon thereafter.
Following this tragedy, we briefly brought on a Western public relations professional who suggested that we take a proactive approach by making both characters in the game African and help to start a game development program at a university in South Africa. Both these ideas sounded expensive and counterproductive, so we fired him and exclaimed, “Never come here again—we can do this ourselves!”
We did it ourselves. It was an absolutely empowering experience for Capcom employees to learn valuable communicative skills. These contrarian accusations that Capcom employees are incapable of carrying out these responsibilities are disgusting and hurtful.
To those who suggested that our Western subsidiaries could localize the game to be less jarring to Western audiences, the truth is that these branches do not actually exist and anyone has claimed to be an employee or representative of a Western subsidiary is actually a former model. And to our knowledge, models cannot develop games.
Lastly, we have no responsibility to this medium of gaming because we have not claimed to have such a responsibility, and thus we do not have a bear the burden of being a representative or advocate of gaming.
Should we be a mirthless behemoth determined to cash in on interactive exploitation rather than agents of a greater social change? We believe not—and our hit game Resident Evil 5 can speak for itself.
Yours truly,
Capcom
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