Valve changes the name of the artifact card to avoid racist connotations

Valve has revealed new Artifact cards on its Twitter feed in the past few days, including one called Crack the Whip. "When you play Crack the Whip, it fires once right after it's played," wrote Valve. "If you play an untested Grunt next to the whipped hero, it will trigger again and the Grunt will receive the bonus."

It's quite innocuous – "cracking the whip" is a fairly common and widely used phrase – but the map text has made it a totally different thing. "Crack the whip," he says. "Modify a Black Hero with" After playing a black card, give this hero and his +2 + allied neighbors that turn "."

This card immediately wraps up a big shot, then continues to do so. When you play Crack the Whip, it fires once right after being played. If you play an untested Grunt next to the Whipped Hero, it will trigger again and the Grunt will receive the bonus. pic.twitter.com/qXflFpdOZbSeptember 26, 2018

The "black hero" refers to the color of the cards: as we explain in our guide artifacts, cards and heroes are chosen from four possible colors: red, green, blue and black, each with its " personality "and its possibilities. . But commentators on Twitter have very quickly pointed to the potential (and, let's be honest, obvious) racial connotations of the map text.

"Having a card called" Crack the Whip "that says it's changing black heroes is not a good look at it, especially out of context," a m said. Another highlighted that "the association of" black "with" whip "can easily be misinterpreted / misrepresented", and could very easily be used "inappropriately" on platforms like Twitch. There was also memes– no surprises there – and suggestions that the text of the map, although certainly not intentionally racist, was evidence of a lack of diversity at Valve.

Valve did not respond to criticism on Twitter, but he took to heart the suggestion of several people that everything could be easily corrected by a name change.

Crack the Whip has been renamed Assault Coordinated.September 28, 2018

We thank Valve for acting quickly to correct what was obviously a stupid and avoidable mistake, but as several commentators have pointed out, addressing the circumstances that led to its adoption would be an even more important and meaningful step. I have contacted Valve for more information and I will update it if I get an answer.