Australia – Anti-Defamation Commission launches campaign to have ‘vulgar’ game pulled from shelves

The Rudest Game You've Ever Played
Varsa Kilstoff has defended his game, which is marketed towards “terrible people”.(Supplied)

The Anti-Defamation Commission has launched a campaign against an Australian-made card game that makes light of the holocaust, rape, incest and people with disabilities. 

The game, sold across Australia and New Zealand as The Rudest Game You’ve Ever Played, was first sold in 2019 and markets itself as a game “for terrible people”. 

The game is similar to the well-known Cards Against Humanity and involves players matching prompt cards together to form unlikely, often comedic, sentences.

The person whose sentence is deemed the funniest is the winner of each round. 

Among the cards are statements about rape, incest, necrophilia, the holocaust and child abuse.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich labelled the game “vulgar and exploitative”.

“When this game was brought to my attention, I felt like I was kicked in the stomach,” Dr Abramovich told Jonathon Kendall on ABC Victorian Mornings.

“What made these [game] creators think that rape, murder, paedophilia, racism, the extermination of six million Jews and others is a punch line, is funny, and is the subject of a game is beyond me.”

The game is distributed in Australia by A&O Distribution Wholesale, a New South Wales-based company specialising in Australian-made games.

The game’s creator, Varsa Kilstoff, said he had never received a complaint about his product. 

“This product is designed to allow people to make fun of absolutely anything,” he said.

The game has been removed from sale from a number of online retailers including Dick Smith and Kogan.com this week.

The Anti-Defamation Commission launched its campaign against the game the same day it celebrated the Victorian government’s move to legally ban the Nazi salute and other gestures and symbols used by the Nazi Party.

Cards within Mr Kilstoff’s game include references designed to make light of Hitler, “torturing Jews” and the use of gas chambers in World War II.    

Mr Kilstoff defended his game, stating he had experience of many of the things featured in his game, including Jewish culture.

He said the campaign against his game was “disappointing” as Dr Abramovich had not contacted him personally.

“The product itself doesn’t do what Dvir was saying it does, it is literally a bunch of statements,” he said.

“All of them are just things that happen in the world.”

Dr Abramovich said denigrating any group was always wrong, and never funny

“This is the cheapening abuse and the trivialising of the Holocaust at its worst,” he said.

“Words are bullets, and this game is nasty.

“And look, I appreciate the value of humour. We give games and entertainment a lot of leeway.

“But they have crossed every line possible.”

The game remains available for purchase in a number of online game stores and large-scale retailers in Australia and New Zealand, including Harvey Norman.

Its website has two five-star reviews and states the game is appropriate for people aged nine and over.

Harvey Norman was contacted for comment.

Mr Kilstoff said the game sold thousands of units each year. 

Dr Abramovich said his organisation would continue to campaign to have the game removed from all sale outlets in Australia.

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