Is it just the sprite or is it built into the context of the game? If it's just a hidden sprite I'm surprised they wouldn't just play the rouge developer card and say it got snuck in while no one was looking.
Such an odd stance for a joke that doesn't really seem to make any sense.
Because the audience that matters most to them are the babies that called censorship, that says removing them would remove the game's "charm", and said that they were caving to 'sjws'. Those are the people they want to assure, message is loud and clear.