The PC Gaming Show that was scheduled for Saturday has been postponed a week, PC Gamer announced last night. It’ll run June 13th instead, specifically to “make space” for the now daily protests against ongoing police brutality running in every US state and multiple other countries around the world. Here’s the statement:
“Like you, we have found it hard over the last week to focus on anything other than the demands for justice and the justifiable anger that millions of Americans are expressing. Right now, we want to make space for those speaking out and demonstrating about how to end the systemic oppression and police brutality experienced by black people. In support of that movement, we are postponing the broadcast of this year’s PC Gaming Show by a week to Saturday, June 13. This year’s event represents the collective work of hundreds of passionate, committed, supremely talented developers whose vision we’re excited to help share.”
Meanwhile, Epic Games has delayed Fortnite’s update, attributing that decision to the protests as well.
“Recent events are a heavy reminder of ongoing injustices in society, from the denial of basic human rights to the impact of racism both overt and subtle against people of color. We’re acutely aware of the pain our friends, families, team members, players, and communities are experiencing. We believe in equality and justice, diversity and inclusion, and that these fundamentals are above politics. The team is eager to move Fortnite forward, but we need to balance the Season 3 launch with time for the team to focus on themselves, their families, and their communities. The live event The Device will be delayed to Monday, June 15, and the Season 3 launch delayed to Wednesday, June 17. We know this delay comes on the heels of another one, and we appreciate your patience and understanding during these difficult times.”
On Monday we began chronicling the gaming studios and organizations that were speaking up in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests that have erupted up in the wake of multiple killings of black Americans by police.
Among the companies standing in solidarity with the movement are Sony, Microsoft, Bungie, Digital Extremes, Activision Blizzard, Daybreak, Bethsoft, Standing Stone Games, Ubisoft, Riot Games, Humble, Cloud Imperium, Echtra Games, Electronic Arts, Improbable, Nintendo, Square-Enix, PAX, Amazon Games, Little Orbit, Niantic, and NCsoft West. While some of these companies have been accused by gamers and journalists of merely paying lip service to a hashtag, others are donating significant sums of money to community service and legal aid organizations, including Black Lives Matter and the NAACP.
Following the memorial, we hope you will join us in further honoring the many victims of America's racial injustices by supporting their families, black-owned businesses, those marching on the streets, and coalitions through the organizations listed here: https://t.co/yIQu2R1pJb
— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) June 4, 2020
We have made a $25,000 donation to @Blklivesmatter in support of our previous statement.
We are also in the process of updating our player systems to better protect against hate speech and racism, including zero-tolerance chat policies. https://t.co/Uv7WDBssdw
— WARFRAME (@PlayWarframe) June 4, 2020
— SEGA (@SEGA) June 4, 2020
#BlackLivesMatter | read more at https://t.co/ZuLnGglfZ8 pic.twitter.com/sgbIl1XybU
— Jagex (@Jagex) June 5, 2020
More important voices than ours need to be heard, and now is the time to listen.
We are postponing our upcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands livestream planned for June 9, and will share more details about the expansion in the future.
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) June 5, 2020
This is the biggest internal conflict i’ve ever felt in my life.
The biggest issue to date is that people/companies issue statements (and include their nice donation brag) that they stand ‘behind’ BLM or any other movement. But none of these people/companies ever really push beyond simply standing ‘behind’ such movements and try to lead the way to finding solutions or helping.
It would be great if all Police had body cams, active at all times, as well as being monitored by 3rd party Organizations during any altercations or random checks.
Better training and actually reviewing Police Officers more often, monthly, by 3rd parties that can question reports and get answers instead instead of things being brushed aside.
Sure it may take some money to get things rolling but material costs are nothing compared to a persons LIFE.
There are some understandable issues with say investigations and evidence etc but as long as any 3rd party reviewers have Clearance and job training to handle that information (like in the Military background checks and you are trained with what you can and cannot say) then that becomes a non-issue.
I guess I just think Police need to be monitored much more closely. They need to be reminded at all times that they are there to Serve the people and communities not harass them.
Oh yea but on the topic of the games shutting down and stuff… at the end of the day it does nothing to help more then it grabs attention in a big headline.
You’re looking at this wrong. The Police has absolutely no obligation of protecting and serving anyone. It’s not even in their constitutional job description.
If you’re stabbed, they have no obligation to help you.
The US Police doesn’t need to be monitored. It needs to be completely destroyed and from it’s ashes, a new design of police to be built.
Yes… and if that system isn’t monitored then you will achieve nothing.
And you are looking at what some Police are doing vs what they are supposed to be doing.
I’ll repeat: The police are not obligated to protect nor serve anyone. They’re not obligated to help you.
They are doing EXACTLY what they are supposed to do: Be a suppresion force. That’s their function. There’s a reason why the US force was militarized over the years. There’s a reason why they use Civil Forfeiture cases to literally steal money from their citizens legally. This is all Lawful.
The problem isn’t the cops. It’s the entire system and the entire force. There isn’t any ammount of monitoration that will chance that, unless we start treating cops like prisoners, which, considering how prisons are in the US, it won’t change a thing.
Let me use an MMO analogy: There is no ammount of feature creep that will make a broken game good.
There’s a specific company i wanna mention:
Hi-rez.
I don’t know what the fuck is going on with Hi-rez, that it seems they took the people being skeptical of their support seriously and seem to be touchy about it.
Yet, for some reason i didn’t see anything about monetary support to any charities or the like, only in-game speeches and twitter support. I may be wrong here.
If anyone from MOP is interested in going after that, i’m highly interested in trying to understand what is what.
Edit: Isaiah answered.
I’ll always be skeptical of Hi-rez, but it doesn’t really seem they’re that bad. They do have a terrible record of actively banning people who use racial slurs tho.
Ooh yeah, I saw Chisam tweet support, yesterday or the night before, but it wasn’t on the main Hi-Rez accounts, so I didn’t loop it in. Not trying to get individuals hassled.
Ah, for sure. I just thought it was strange, so i just went and asked.
There’s a relatively controversial situation going down right now: F.dot, the former caster, posted a picture of SoloorTroll ( a SPL pro ) saying the n word in discord. And now, the thread because a spot for pros saying that. I’m expecting a lot of public apologies.
I love F. Really do. But he’s a friend of dmbrandon. I don’t think he has the moral highground here.
Oh man, Rockstar, so fucking brave. So bold. Lead us into the woke future, Rockstar.
Man, I know many of the folks working on these initiatives probably care and are coming from a good place but like…shutting down online for 2 hours to support the protesters? That’s some weak-ass shit right there, and most players will probably not see the message and just blow up their support feeds with “WHY ARE SERVERS DOWN? ARE SERVERS DOWN? WHERE ARE SERVERS? I WANT TO PLAY!”
This isn’t “doing something”. This isn’t supporting anyone. This isn’t making space for anyone. This isn’t raising awareness. This is a marketing stunt so that people hopefully don’t forget that Rockstar cares, too.
Precisely. I’m not on the videogames cause violence bandwagon by any means, but taking down your crime simulator to pay respects to a victim of police violence is laughable.
Stick with the sincere but maybe cynical public statements, thank you.
I would rather they just shut the fuck up, and show a bill of them donating to charities for like 1 billion dollars.
That would send a huge message.
Heck I’d be cool if they just paid their fucking taxes!
Don’t remember me.
Hope folks don’t just give ActiBlizz and others a pass for showing their hypocrisy over the Hong Kong fiasco last fall. It is fascinating though how many corporations, big tech companies, online personalities, etc are coming out to declare their allegiance or support for BLM.
Based on the last thread here and the twitter threads… I don’t think that’s happening. Some of these companies, fine. Blizz and Riot have to do much more to earn trust.
Well that’s good at least that folks don’t have goldfish memories during a time where emotions are high and can easily cloud facts or so on.
Actually, it’s one of the best threads. They’re getting imploded with criticism.
Sadly, the same can’t be said for Riot. I guess sexually harassing people is still allowed in the gaming community.
To be fair it’s a pretty low standard to be held to. There’s nothing risqué in coming out to support such causes.
Now if you started demanding instead of supportive messages they stop doing business in countries where such injustices occur and threaten to boycott their products until they do so…wait…hrm…uh oh…
I mean, you’d think there’d be no blowback for denouncing racism. But this is the internet and there most definitely is.
The Internet is like any tool. If you wield and use it like a weapon for causes you think are just and righteous expect others to do the same but they likely will have different ideas on what is just and righteous.
I was talking about the part where you were implying there was no blowback for supporting BLM. I’m well aware monsters lurk in the dark corners of the internet. That was my whole point.
Oh I didn’t mean to imply anything, I was directly saying there will be no measurable impact of any blowback for supporting BLM. No business is going to see their bottom lines hit because they threw out a supporting statement. There is no risk in that decision.
Now as you pointed out, there’s certainly still blowback out there from people on the internet, no argument from me on that point. However my response is that the only reason you see that kind of response is because people have weaponized social media platforms for causes they feel are just and righteous. It’s only natural that others will try, however clumsily and ineptly, to also wield social media as a weapon for their own causes and agendas as well.
If there’s no measurable impact on social media, then what exactly is being weaponized? Not following this.
Anyway I agree with you that the people who would be mad about video game companies denouncing police brutality and racism are also going to keep buying video games that let them shoot shit all day long and cosplay in military porn games. The really big companies are relatively insulated from any repercussions from the bad things they do, let alone the good things from the bad people. It’s why the asshats target indies and journos instead.
True.
Makes sense.
Also worth noting: The pointless puff statements from most companies were literally just that – https://kotaku.com/game-companies-say-they-re-supporting-black-lives-matte-1843882888
Amusingly, EA is one of the ones leading the way in putting their money with their mouth is. They’re shit in a great many ways, but they’ve been strong supporters of social issues within and outside of their workforce for years, putting every other major publisher to shame. But because they had some really, really, really bad MTX for Battlefront 2 they’re totes the worst company in the US.
Delaying these is the right call, both selfishly (fewer eyeballs) and morally (it’s just wrong right now).
That piece is linked in the old report! EA’s contributions pale, honestly, next to companies like Niantic. Amazon did more, too, but of course Amazon is worth gobs more. I kinda hate that it’s been turned into a “who’s donating the most” competition, but these orgs can use the money, so net positive?
It’s not just donating money, though EA is doing plenty of that. It’s additional thing like adding that extra paid day off to dedicated to volunteering and the other quiet work they consistently do (their efforts to support LGBTQ+ rights inside and outside the company have been pretty laudable).
I don’t want to turn this into a competition to see who gave more, and that determines who “cares” the most either. I’m glad any of them are putting any amount of money where their mouth is.
My post was more to point out how completely hollow and empty the words of most of those companies are as they’re not backed with action, while continuing to poke fun at the “EA IS LITERALLY THE WORST AND THEY RAN OVER MY DOG!” crowd that votes for EA as the worst company in the US year after year.
Sorry GD, I didn’t mean you were doing that – I was just remarking in general that it’s a temptation, especially when all the studios are stacked up against each other in a list, to compare. :D The Kotaku piece kinda verged on that, especially with the list of studios that hadn’t spoken up. Clearly a temptation even for me.
In the last thread, Real had what has to be the most diplomatically worded post I’ve ever seen about how bashing these companies for performative wokeness misses the point that five years ago those companies wouldn’t have even done that, as anyone who remembers most studios’ cowardly behavior during goobergobber knows. I’ll take those net positives!
True, but i still think these are token achievements. Like GD said, puff statements.
It’s telling for instance, that MLK died considering that his ideal of reintegration was actually not enough for his utopia of a equalitarian society. Hence why he said “Rioting is the voice of the unheard”. And that the civil rights laws passed in 1968 were also only more in-depth version of the laws from 1964. So, there are people right now on Twitter saying that 1968 was a token achievement ( which i agree, considering what is happening right now ).
Didn’t take your post that way at all : )
Unfortunately, I take a far starker view of the situation.
5 years ago, I agree, they would have likely been silent.
But their voices are raised now not because the companies have changed and are risking PR backlash for leadership, but because consumers and the public have changed, making this a far less risky play and one that can come with far greater benefits. They get more support for tossing up a rainbow logo during pride month nowaday than not, so they’re gonna toss up that logo because that’s the smart business decision from the company.
I agree that it’s a net positive at the end of the day, but I think that net positive comes with some extremely heavy caveats meaning that these companies that are doing the bare minimum with a social post aren’t worthy of praise in the slightest.
Note: I’m talking about the companies as entities, which includes their executive leadership, not the regular rank and file folks with my comments here. I’m sure, for example, Daybreak has plenty of staffers who care deeply about and have actively been supporting these issues. I don’t believe Daybreak as a company, or their executive leadership, give much of a shit about it.
Completely agreed.
To me that is a testament to people using social media tools against companies who don’t toe the line where those were no where near as potent tools 5 years ago. If you hurt or threaten anyone/companies long enough they will say whatever you want them to say even if you want them to say something good.
Seems foolish to mistake that for progress when even remotely looking into the dealings of these companies and authoritarian governments such as China and the companies associated there in (TenCent) show their priority has been and always will be profitability and everything else is just lip service when convenient.
Totally. I feel like people are willing to give a pass not because it’s progress, but because it has tangible benefits, even tho these benefits could be waaaaaaay bigger if this wasn’t for clout but for genuine worry.
I do too, but if it makes them pump extremely high ammounts of money that goes towards black neighboorhods, schools and reformation of the police, which is what we ACTUALLY need, i’m happy.
I’m also happy that the cop that killed Floyd got his penalty changed. Let’s see if they can make it more harsh.
I don’t think that will happen (it doesn’t meet the definition of 1st degree). But other states can charge some of the other police involved in other recent killings.
Depends honestly. There’s a lot of discussion about him having known him before, and you don’t need time to elaborate a plan to premeditate, something something.
There’s a lot of small nuances, and i’m hoping they can nail him for the largest ammount of time behind bars.
Now, if we could also get the trigger happy cops that gundown parents when people go swatting, i would be extremely satisfied.
Niantic is the one actually going out on a limb here, and way out on a limb, frankly. The police will remember this and the next time pokemon or one of their more popular products results in a crowd of people in a park they will explode at Niantic with a torrent of criticism.
On the other hand, if they’re doing this out of pure marketing purposes (which they most likely are), it isn’t an entirely bad thing if equality and a just society are benefiting from it. We would have a lot more to complain about it if they targeted the anti-woke crowd instead.
I still don’t trust them and I wholly question their sincerity and motives. And so should we all, IMO. But if they’re helping the world to be a better and more hopeful place in doing so, I’m not going to stop them either.
It’s a real troublesome call to make though. /le sigh
Agreed, but I don’t want to set the bar that far underground for them. These companies should be better than that.
All you’re benefiting from is a fresh coat of white paint to cover up the rot underneath. Systemic issues run deeper than a few charitable donation write offs can address.
Of course it isn’t…but as I said, I’m not going to stop them from doing the right thing here.
Personally though, I hope they do far more. In fact, they need to do far more. And as well, step outside of their bottom line thinking.
The only reason they exist is bottom line thinking.
It’s like trying to make a lion a vegetarian.
Then you seem to be complaining about something you knowingly can’t change…
Best. Emoji. Ever.
Not really complaining about something as much as to point out it being pointless in hoping for something that can’t change.
I never said anything about hoping for something to change that can’t. Rather stating what I would like changed regardless whether it would change or not. There is a difference.
I mean, i don’t think it’s really hopeless. Maybe right now, but we could set the ground for new companies to be founded under the umbrella of more healthy relationships between co-workers and workers and suits.
Isn’t that how the entire crowdfunding thing started? Wanting to get away from corporate greed that forced games to be completely whacked by shitty monetization and catering to the lowest denominator?
I’m a New World delay away from winning corporate sympathies BINGO.