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So naturally, she was going to be upset when seeing these two images from Color Splash put next to each other, one referencing "five guys" and the other a career-damaging #gate. Completely understandable. And days before her post, which was followed by several more expressing disbelief at what she was seeing, Gamergate-supportive website OneAngryGamer.net had posted that the game was parodying what Quinn had been through, rather than anything else – Watergate, or previous Mario series games in which Fun Guys (fungis, see) have featured, writer Billy D saying:what the fuck did I ever do to you, Nintendo, that y'all had to make my suffering into a fucking joke — teënage shirtbag (@UnburntWitch)June 22, 2016
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Eurogamer published the statement in full earlier today, which reads as follows:"As many have observed, when viewed in its entirety the Nintendo Treehouse: Live segment for Paper Mario: Color Splash from E3 includes two jokes separated by commentary and gameplay that have no relation to each other. One joke has to do with Watergate, while the other is a nod to the Fungi Fun Guys from Mario Party 8."It was brought to our attention today that these two jokes have been spliced together and misconstrued as a crude reference to an online hate campaign. While we typically do not speak on localisation matters, we feel the need to confirm that these jokes are not linked in the game and were never intended to be linked."Nintendo firmly rejects the harassment of individuals in any way and was surprised to learn that its gameplay was misinterpreted in this manner."You can watch the Color Splash segment of Nintendo's E3 2016 Treehouse stream on YouTube here. The "five fun guys" remarks come in at around 22:30, and "Shufflegate" at 23:32. The two screens are part of the same scene, sure, but they don't happen in quick succession. Until you put these two bubbles of text together, beside one another, the connection to said "online hate campaign" simply isn't there.Conclusion: hateful people on the internet deliberately placed screen A with screen B to freshly distress someone who's had more than her fill of bullshit. Those people are bad people, amongst the worst people. Also: yay, a new Wii U game. One that a totally different bunch of dickheads don't want.Read more gaming coverage on VICE here, and follow VICE Gaming on Twitter at @VICEGaming.New, on Motherboard: How Big Can Los Angeles Get?