Why oh why

Why did I have to find out about this?

Alert reader Shadow of Doom (not his real name) texted me over XBL to check out the controversy surrounding the upcoming Dead Island Riptide release. It didn't take much Googling to spot the cause: a limited "Zombie Bait" edition contains a zombie – erm... bust, of sorts.

VideoGamer.com summed it up nicely on Jan. 15th:
"Deep Silver has announced Dead Island Riptide's Zombie Bait Edition, an Xbox 360-exclusive collector's edition featuring a steelbook, a pair of weapon and character skins - and a 31cm statue of a decapitated girl in her bikini."

But before you go whipping out the Fry gifs, check this out: according to joystiq, later that same day the company posted a public apology via Twitter, allegedly in reaction to overwhelming negative response to the gruesome/tasteless/awesome statue.

The curious thing is that I haven't been able to find any such backlash on the interwebs. Curiouser still, the apology doesn't explicitly say they will recall the allegedly offensive prop, let alone stop production. In fact, the "apology" seems to imply the American market doesn't have a sense of humour for these things, and it was only meant to be release in the U.K. and Europe.

If this is true, then why did they produce 8,000 units with a stars-and-stripes bikini, available for 120 Euros from Austria? Maybe to make the North American Rigor Mortis edition seem like a bargain at $79.99? Was this a sincere apology, or elaborate publicity stunt?

Here's the French version, if that sheds any light on the mystery.