Hey Supercell, What’s with This Anti-Semitic Garbage in ‘Clash Royale’?

This article has been updated with a statement from Supercell. Please scroll down to read it.

Clash Royale, by Clash of Clans makers Supercell, is sort of a big deal. The freemium app, a mobile strategy game that's technically free to play but has a suite of microtransactions options within it, launched in January 2016 and as of right now is making over a quarter of a million dollars in daily revenue in the USA alone.

Over 25,000 people download the game every day, to play against their friends and strangers alike in arena-based, card-directed turn-based combat. One option available to users of the app is to form clans, private groups whose members can play regularly against one another in friendly competition, while being watched by others from the same clan. These are, I guess, exclusive members clubs within an anyone-can-join-in experience, where cards can be exchanged between individuals to boost the clan's overall strength.

At least, that's what I can make out from the internet. I'm not going to start playing Clash Royale any time soon. Not least of all because of the outright hatred that's festering away within some of these clans.

An anonymous source from the gaming development world brought to VICE's attention the fact that there are currently numerous examples of anti-Semitic "speech" in the game, within these clans, which has come to light via its new Tournament feature. Says our contact:

"As a fan of the game I was keen to use the new feature, so I clicked on the first tournament available on Monday morning. I was shocked to see it was being hosted by a clan called 'BadNewsForJews'. When I clicked through to find out more, I saw that their clan description is 'The furnace is open; all Shmuels welcome for burning'. A quick search turned up nearly 60 examples of extreme, anti-Semitic clan names published in Supercell's game, presumably many long established."

VICE has tried to contact Supercell for a comment on this matter, via email and Twitter, but as yet the Finnish studio hasn't responded. Our source also provided us with screenshots of racist clans – 'Burn Blacks' for example – and others proclaiming that "Hhiittller (sic) didn't do anything wrong" and that another clan will recreate the "holla cost". If these are jokes, they're about as funny as a stubbed toe. (And seriously, I stubbed one of mine last week and it's still totally fucked, so that is not funny at all.)

These are just a small handful of the screens we've been sent, illustrating the hate speech amongst Clash Royale clans. The others get no better.

Instances of hate speech are punishable by up to four years imprisonment, if aggravated, under Finnish law. This can cover racism, agitation based on nationality or religion, sexual orientation or disabilities. It's unclear exactly where the responsibility for this hate speech lies – with Supercell themselves, with the users of the app, or someone else – but we've seen in the past that Twitter will step in to shut down what it sees as rotten accounts. In May, the social platform suspended rapper Azealia Banks' account after she directed a torrent of homophobic abuse at former One Direction singer Zayn Malik. It doesn't seem too far-fetched, then, that Supercell could do likewise with these Clash Royale accounts.

Update: Supercell has responded to this article, offering the following statement:

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