A 9-year-old softball player from suburban Chicago has persuaded Chuck E. Cheese to make changes to an MLB-licensed arcade game after it mocked her favorite sport while she played it.
Marie Marcum just wanted to enjoy herself during a school fundraiser at the pizza place, ESPN writes, when a failed attempt caused the game to utter, “Hey, there’s always softball!”
The taunting bothered Marcum, who has played softball for years, so much that she decided to write a letter to MLB, which has its logos displayed all over the game. Her mother, Lisa, posted the letter on Facebook, where it’s already received a significant response.
“It made it seem like baseball was better (It’s not),” Marcum writes in the letter. “It was trying to say that if you missed, you should just go play softball … It made [me] feel that I wasn’t good enough.”
Both Chuck E. Cheese and the game’s manufacturer, Innovative Concepts in Entertainment, have already responded by stating they’re going to make changes. Chuck E. Cheese says it’s turning off the audio on the game at its locations and asked the manufacturer to remove the problematic clip “to support everyone’s love of play.”
MLB said it hasn’t received the letter from Marcum yet but told ESPN it has plans to reach out to the family.
“I’m just so proud of her,” Lisa said of her daughter.
You can read the full letter from Marie on the Facebook post.
