‘Glorious’ PC gaming brand drops that bad joke it’s been clinging to for years

Making a snide reference to one in all historical past’s most well-known genocidal regimes is distasteful even for an irreverent comedy internet collection. However that’s sort of the purpose: just about each episode of the much-loved Zero Punctuation evaluation present accommodates at the least one joke we couldn’t reprint in PCWorld. Basing a complete firm round mentioned joke isn’t simply distasteful, it’s actively damaging to a model. And but the “Superb PC Gaming Race” did simply that since its founding in 2014. As of yesterday, the corporate will merely be known as “Superb,” a far much less cringe-inducing moniker and a long-overdue change. It’s about time.

In the event you haven’t been lurking in the dead of night corners of the net gaming group for the final decade, right here’s the context. “Superb PC Gaming Grasp Race” is a phrase coined on an episode of Yahtzee Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation present means again in 2008. (The video is incredibly Not Safe For Work, if you happen to couldn’t take the trace.) Croshaw used a fleeting reference to Nazi racial superiority propaganda to satirize the attitudes of PC avid gamers who appeared down on consoles for his or her lack of {hardware} energy and management choices. It’s price mentioning that the joke is clearly insulting the individuals who truly maintain that angle… a indisputable fact that whizzed proper over the heads of a very thick part of the PC gaming world.

The Escapist

An web meme was born. For 14 years some PC avid gamers have proudly worn a little bit of appropriated Third Reich terminology as a badge of honor, whether or not or not they really understood it as such. Croshaw and The Escapist gaming web site would possibly share a few of the blame, since selling T-shirts based on the meme wasn’t precisely encouraging folks to be mature about it.

The Superb PC Gaming Race firm (be aware the hardly tasteful omission of “Grasp”) based in 2014 is probably probably the most egregious and oblivious instance of the meme. The model borrowed the yellow coloration scheme of the unique video and a few of the extra frequent imagery that had advanced on the time.

It’s one factor to make use of an insensitive joke within the depths of a Reddit argument. However truly naming an organization after it, while you intend to promote actual merchandise to actual folks, is extremely off-putting. Talking as a tech author, I’ve usually hesitated to cowl and suggest the corporate’s merchandise due to the model’s insufferable name and livery. “It’s an web joke” is a reasonably paltry response when somebody asks why a gaming keyboard makes use of an explicitly racial phrase related to ethnic cleaning. The corporate has been minimizing the racial points of its model for years, merely shortening quite a lot of its model names to Superb. However it’s nonetheless clung to the model like a wart. In the event you ask somebody what the abbreviation for the favored “GMMK Pro” means, you’re in for an ungainly dialog. The net retailer continues to be hosted on the horrible URL “PCGamingRace.com.”

Review Geek

As of April nineteenth, the corporate is now merely “Superb,” and it is going to be phasing out the branding on current and new merchandise. A greater URL is within the works. Displaying extra consciousness than it did eight years in the past, Superb tactfully omitted any reference to racial imagery in its latest press release.

The title was lengthy and fairly bizarre, but it surely drew consideration inside a crowded business dominated by some huge firms… As we’ve grown, we’ve additionally matured, and memes moved on. Our group has expanded to just about each nation on the planet, and consists of folks from all walks of life.

The corporate’s revised Superb emblem nonetheless refers back to the Fabio-style lengthy hair imagery of the meme, which might have been dropped for a extra clear break from the unique juvenile branding. Even so, it’s a sound determination that’s lengthy overdue.