One of those need feedback from other people moments...

[baratron]

The new Pokemon game features a character called Professor Oak, who is a Pokemon researcher. You are a kid who's been sent out to make notes on as many species of Pokemon as possible. Every so often, you contact Prof Oak to tell him how you're doing. If you've collected enough Pokemon, he sends one of his helpers out to give you an item. The helpers are, for some reason, referred to as Professor Oak's Aides.

So I posted the following message on a game help board:
Title: Professor Oak's Aides...
Content: Where can I find the Aides for Amulet Coin and Exp Share? Oak says he's sent Aides to me, but I dunno where he sent them!

I received the following reply:
You can only get Oak's Aids if you become really good friends with him. I'm not sure if you have to be a girl or not.

[Poll #364174]

I was pretty upset by that reply, so marked the message for moderation - but the only way to do that was to tick a box, I couldn't actually give feedback on why it was offensive. I'm assuming the moderator either didn't get the Aides --> AIDS switch, or thought it was perfectly acceptable humour. I'm wondering whether or not I should kick up a stink about it.

Further context is that I'm already pissed off with GameFAQs for refusing an FAQ of mine (that got accepted by two other sites!), so I might be biased. Hence I need cluing in from others.

One more question: would it be more, less or equally offensive if he'd written: You can only get Oak's Aids if you become really good friends with him. I'm not sure if you have to be gay or not.?

Comments

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should have said Player charaters. (as opposed to NPC's)
Either way it desturbs me.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. Yes - the player character is a child, around 10 years old. Whatever way round, the 'joke' involves implications of paedophilia, which is pretty distasteful (understatement of the year there!).