I'm honestly shocked. I never thought HeR Interactive would discontinue another one of their games. If they did, I always thought it would be Stay Tuned for Danger (STfD) due to the age of the game not working on new computers, but surprisingly it wasn't. It was Nancy Drew Ransom of the Seven Ships (RAN). I thought I would write a post about it and just talk about what I know about why HeR pulled the game from every retailer they could. So let's begin.
On Friday August 7th on the Nancy Drew Reddit page, someone shared a screenshot from Facebook showing an email where someone was asking about Ransom of the Seven Ships and why they could not purchase the game on their website. Honestly, I'm shocked and surprised that HeR pulled the game so quietly and acted as if the game never existed. Though Ransom of the Seven Ships is not my favorite game due to the difficulty in puzzles and how it frustrated me to no end, I never thought it would get pulled. If you want to read the Reddit article for yourself you can do so at: "Something I Just Saw On Facebook."
The reason the game was pulled was because of the character Johnny Rolle. Johnny Rolle has been lying too Nancy about who he truly is. Johnny Rolle's character was from Jamaica, he had an accent and wore a wig, but later on we discover that this was not his real identity after Nancy finds his Australian drivers license with the name John Poole. Which then leads him to removing his wig and have an Australian accent. None of these accents were created to mock or belittle anyone. After that, Nancy also discovers that John Poole is another fake alias. His real name was Dwayne Powers (the villain from game number 2, Stay Tuned for Danger (STfD)). Personally, I never played much attention to this when I first played the game and even now it doesn't affect me as there was no malicious intent when it came to these characters.
Do I think pulling the game was a good idea? Honestly, I never saw anything wrong with the game and even though the end game puzzles were difficult, I think pulling the game over this issue was a little too much. Looking at the reviews for this game, RAN was very well liked. On Amazon, Ransom of the Seven Ships has a 77% of the 5 star rating with an average rating of 4 and 1/2 stars. Over on the HeR Interactive website, there is an average 4 star rating of RAN as well. Overall the game is very well liked so it seems that pulling the game from every store wasn't a good idea since it was very well liked and from the research I have done there has been no complaints that I have seen.
In my personal opinion, I think pulling the game was a little much for HeR as the game was released over 11 years ago and I have never once seen or heard of any complaint about this game, except for the fact that the game was very challenging to play. Hopefully, HeR decides to reinstate it in the future as I know many of the fans will want the game to come back. I believe completely removing this game from their list isn't right. If HeR is concerned about this being an issue for players, they should instead put a warning in the beginning of the game.
Thank you everyone for reading. I'm curious when HeR will make a public statement about them pulling the game, will they pretend as if the game does not exist and have it drop off the face of the Earth, or will they bring the game back to online retailers. As of August 24, 2021 they just pretend that this game does not exist and have said nothing other than it was discontinued due to the game being found as offensive.
Sadly as of August 24th, 2021 you can no longer purchase the game from either Big Fish or though Her Interactive Digital River webpage (This is the page where the game would have been found). You could still attempt to find the game on Amazon or Ebay, or you can to the not so legal and look for a pirated copy.
Until next time,
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