Running MobyGames has its ups and downs. I have to say one of the more interesting aspects of my "job" is reading the occasional bizarre email that gets sent in. The combination of one million visitors a month and a public email address and phone number means that we more than our fair share of nuttiness. Once we got a touching letter from an 8 year old boy to Dave Mirra. Another time the New Jersey Poison Control called to ask us what the active ingredients Xenophage are. Recently someone sent an email threatening to sue us over our Custer's Revenge game entry. Some highlights from the email:

Custer's Revenge: This game incites racial hate, genocidal murder and rape of First Nations people. Remove this game from all sales and promotion. Considering lawsuit against any promoters of this game. Requiring that you contact me with a plan of action to cease and desist immediately!

and

I understand Free Speech and such- but this game is an outright violent racist rape game and I hold the makers, purveyors, and trade pimps responsible for the fact that such attitudes create the fact that 70+% of all violent crimes (including murder & rape) against Native Americans come from "Other" races- FBI statistics. So MobyGames must by default be condoning the use of the game. If it was your spouse on the game... what would you do?

and

Just because it is "perfectly legal" does not mean it is moral or right i.e. slavery once was such. We can revisit slavery with proper instruction- we don't need to experience it again. We are requesting that this game be dropped from list and mentioned only as a racist relic of a more insensitive recent past.

In my opinion the first statement is quite a stretch. I've never played the game so I am not the last opinion on the matter. The second statement is the one that cracks me up the most. The person writes, "I understand Free Speech and such" then goes on to prove that they in fact do not understand Free Speech. Lastly they go on to state what MobyGames is doing is perfectly legal. Any possible concern over a threat of lawsuit has been greatly diminished by the statement of the writer that MobyGames is within its legal rights. Normally we just ignore these types of things. However, the writer did ask me a question. "If it was your spouse on the game... what would you do?" Other than file for divorce for having lied to me about her violent and pornographic past? Well I would definitely email anyone and everyone who came up in a Google search. After that maybe drool on myself and talk to the underwear gnomes.

lol u and ur underwear gnomes

Did ppl really call and asked about the Xenophage ingredient?

And you really gotta love how ppl use the "If you don't stop saying what I don't like to hear, I'll sue you" threat...well I suppose it's a step forward in replacing "shooting" with "suing" huh?

Yeah, some kid ate part of the box, and the box said something like "Warning! Don't eat this box". It was obviously a joke, but the mom freaked out and called poison control. Poison control went to google, searched for Xenophage and found mobygames and called us up thinking we made the game and knew something about this poisonous cardboard.

lol

man kids will put almost anything in their mouths huh?...cept brussel sprouts...i heard those things are like kids-repellent

But I like brussel sprouts! Gimme brussel sprouts, now! Buuuuuuuuuhhhh! :)~

I think this story deserves trivia entry. Priceless!

Muahahaha. Good one! You're sick dude, in a very good way though! Regardless, thankfully the 1st Amendment is what makes the States interestingly unique und diverse, politically. I feel sorry for the bloke who wrote that email though, if he went to law school - he (or she) would totally freak out after understanding the blunt truths of the social system.

Thankfully, we don't have free speech in my country yet. The local neanderthals haven't evolved very well in progressive and independent thinking. Thank god....:p

Thats pretty funny stuff :)...

Custard's Last Stand is in bad taste, but its also a horrible game in general.

There are adult themed games that are much more explicit and tasteless. I guess the blocky pixels service as a rorshach test for the idle minds. They look at it long enough and they'll pretty much anything.

But I love custard! It's yummy!

(ducking)

Kidding... I knew you meant "Custer's Last Stand."

That letter may have been influenced by the recent AAID boycott (article at joystiq.com) against GUN.

As much as I dislike this particular game, totally agreeing that it is violent and disgusting, I think this guy doesn't get the point. We do not promote this game, we just document it. We say that it exists, nothing more. If he wants he can sue the developers of the game, but what does a game documentation site have to do with this?

Take it this way: the guy's nuts. I mean MobyGames didn't make the game, is not directly selling it and ...that's all. If that guy will sue you, I wonder which will be the charges... (assuming that I wrote well, since I'm not from an English speaking country)

"For documenting the game and doing something perfectly legal, you must from now on post on the site every silly e-mail you receive from people gone mad." :))

Has anyone told this guy about IMDb? He'd have a field day with the movies on there!

We can also point out to him that there are some dirty words in the dictionary.

Try. He'd sue Webster.

It's a shame he didn't just click the Write a review for this game link. Instead he seems to have something similar (though not actually commenting on the gameplay at all) and putting it all in an e-mail format.