The Xbox game that made Microsoft apologize to the Saudi Arabian government
In early 2003, Kate Edwards found herself sitting at the offices of newspaper Al Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, preparing to apologize on Microsoft’s behalf.
“Large room,” Edwards says. “Big round table in the room. No windows or anything. There was a couple of guards standing at the door.”
As she sat with two local Microsoft colleagues, she tried to remember what she’d discussed days before with international senior public relations director Ricardo Adame.
Edwards was the head of Microsoft’s geopolitical strategy team, a group built to keep — or in this case, get — the company out of trouble when its teams produced content that could upset people from different cultures. Disputed map borders. Misrepresented flags. Hand symbols that change meaning by territory. Anything that could trigger a backlash.
This week on Polygon, we’re looking at how cultural differences affect media in a special issue we’re calling Culture Shock.
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