WUNRN
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My Minx Online Game - Poking Fun or Offensive?
26
January 2010
A new online
game aimed at pre-teen girls encourages players to buy orphans as “virtual
fashion accessories”, administer contraceptives, and select from a range of
character statuses including “preggers”, “horny” and “looking for rumpy pumpy”.
The My Minx
game, developed by British firm Blighty Arts, requires players to choose
highly sexualised features for their “minx” alter egos (including breast and
waist size) and clothe them in revealing outfits and lingerie.
Once a “minx” has been created players can choose their “orphan accessories”
from a virtual orphanage populated by children based on so-called “celebrity
orphans” including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s children Pax, Maddox and
Zahara.
The orphans’ characteristics are racially stereotyped: Cambodian Maddox is said
to be fan of eating cockroaches while Ethiopian Zahara’s favourite
food is “guinea pig”; and Monglian Jamiyan, modelled on Ewan McGregor’s
daughter, apparently enjoys eating rats.
Players can go binge drinking, clubbing, pull men and then decide whether or
not to take the morning after pill – and with players as young as seven-years
old it is understandable that parent groups including Parentkind have expressed
disapproval.
Blighty Arts claims on its website to “create artistic well researched and
engaging on-line entertainment [with] a guiding set of principles that drive
our business and influence our actions.”
The company’s director Chris Evans told The Telegraph: "It is nonsense to
suggest our game is a bad influence on young …We should let them grow up making
their own decisions about the
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