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Valve Changes Artifact Card Name Due To Unintentional Slavery Allusions
Valve has steadily been revealing cards for Artifiact, their Dota 2-based card game and the first Valve-developed game in a number of years. Two days ago, they revealed a card called Crack the Whip, which some interpreted as an unfortunate though very unintentional reference to slavery. It is important to note that there was no mass outrage about the card, but rather a lot of surprise at no one noticing the allusion. Much of the concern was based around how the streaming and playing communities would react to it being played.
This card packs a big punch immediately and then keeps on punching. When you play Crack the Whip, it triggers once right after it’s 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/qXflFpdOZb
— Artifact (@PlayArtifact) September 26, 2018
Some fans tweeted collar-tugging responses to Valve and some discussion of the card occurred on social media, but there was no organized campaign to change the name of the card. Valve noticed how it came off and announced today that Crack the Whip has been renamed Coordinated Assault and presumably carries the same description.
We changed the name of Crack the Whip to Coordinated Assault.
— Artifact (@PlayArtifact) September 28, 2018
Valve has not given an other comment other than that the name has been changed. Artifact releases on PC on November 28, with mobile releases coming in 2019.
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