10 DUMBEST Video Game Controversies That Went Too Far

2. Portal 2's Adoption Jokes Offend One Man

Portal 2 co-op
Valve

Portal 2 is a fantastic title that all gamers should play, but because some people will find a way to complain about absolutely anything, even a near-perfect game like this found itself mired in the most unusual of controversies.

See, while playing through the game with his adopted daughter, Neal Stapel was taken aback by a particular line spouted by the robot Wheatley - a line that poked fun at the protagonist for having no parents.

Anyone who's played the Portal games will know that they're stuffed with dark humour that isn't meant to be taken seriously, but even so, Stapel took the ridiculous step of contacting a local news station, who subsequently ran a story on the matter.

The internet responded by calling this "the dumbest video game controversy yet", and though Stapel did admit that not everyone would find the line offensive, the fact that the news report shows his daughter happily playing the game demonstrates how much of a non-issue this whole thing was.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!