Oh dear. After a nightmarish two or three weeks’ worth of bad publicity, steering clear of further controversy would have been a smart move on the part of the gaming industry.

Games haven’t been viewed in the best possible light recently, what with Sony being dragged into a dispute with the Church of England, PC game Law & Order: Double or Nothing being removed from shelves for including a picture of murdered British toddler Jamie Bulger just hours before his death, and Manhunt 2 being… well, you all know the story there, by now.

However, just as the dust was settling on the Daily Mail’s keyboards and things looked as though they may return to normal, French publisher Ubisoft now finds itself in potentially hot water. The company has had to pull Nintendo DS game Mind Quiz from shop shelves in the UK after it was discovered the game uses a term likely to be considered derogatory by the disabled.

Mind Quiz, essentially Ubisoft’s attempt at aping Nintendo’s extraordinarily popular Brain Training games, was released in March 2007. Alas, its brief spell on shop shelves looks like it will be coming to an abrupt end, after a Belfast woman contacted BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show to complain about the insulting term, which users are called if they don’t perform well in the game.

As you’d expect, Ubisoft’s public relations department has since switched into damage limitation mode, with a spokesperson for the company promising the title will be removed, and apologising "to anyone who was offended by the game."

"As soon as we were made aware of the issue we stopped distribution of the product and are now working with retailers to pull the game off the market," said Ubi’s man. "The game was developed in Japan, and we unfortunately did not pick up on the offending word in our quality assurance. We are currently working with the developer [SEGA, incidentally] to find a way to rectify the issue."

The complainant 's three-year-old son had suffered from brain damage, before passing away just before last Christmas. And, no, we won't reveal the term in question.