Death threats causes PAX pullout, Dontnod on publisher sexism, and news bits

Hello and welcome to a particularly fun edition of my daily news piece. Let’s start with death threats.

Giant Spacekat is an indie developer set up in Boston, Massachusetts since 2011.  The studio was cofounded by Amanda Warner and Brianna Wu. The latter of those women has been the epicenter of targeted harassment from various corners of the Internet as of late. These forms of harassment include the release of sensitive personal information about her, revealing her personal address online, a large number of rape and death threats, along with spam images of deceased mutilated animals.

Because of these various vile attacks, the company has decided not to attend PAX East (March 6-8) to showcase its games. They released a full statement, but here is a snippet that anyone with a soul should  find difficult to read.

As threats have recently come to encompass Brianna’s family, and appear to be escalating, Giant Spacekat has made the decision to prioritize its family, the employees, and their safety. Specifically, we have chosen to withdraw our presence from the Pax East 2015 Expo Hall, due to a concern that in a crowd of such a volume expected at Pax, the safety of our team can not be guaranteed.

Of note, we are in no way trying to imply that the PAX teams have been uncooperative regarding security requests, nor are we trying to imply that PAX is unsafe, or that the admirable efforts of the volunteer Enforcer team would be inadequate. This is a company specific decision, made out of precaution.

Wu and various members of the Giant Spacekat team have commented they will still attend PAX for press meetings and panel appearances – it’s the public showing of the studio’s games and faith in the human race that are regretfully lost here.The early parts of Heavy Rain-like Revolution 60 by Giant Spacekat is available to try on iOS right now for the low, low price of free.

Speaking of Revolution 60, a game with a female protagonist at the core of its narrative, the creative director at Dontnod, Jean-Maxime Moris, once again spoke out on the struggle of having female leads in their games. Dontnod are the developers of 2013’s Remember Me, and the recently released Life is Strange – both titles put players in the shoes of a female protagonist. In the past, Morris commented that SquareEnix were the only company happy to accept the original vision of Life is Strange – with a range of other publishers demanding they rejigger the game to include a male lead character before they would offer publisher support.

Moris has once again brought up this touchy subject in the recent issue of Edge (Issue #277). When questioned in an interview how a conversation usually goes when a publisher demands the inclusion of a male lead character he had this to say.

It’s always the same thing. You meet a [business development manager] and then that guy takes it to a committee and comes back with feedback. What usually happens is that the guy you meet first comes back and says, “We love it and we’re ready to seriously consider it, but there is just one thing…” It’s as straightforward as that. I think its like everyday racism – it doesn’t sound like it is the worst sexist remark they could make, but it’s there and it’s just proof that this type of thinking and behaviour still prevails in the industry.

News Bits

• Pokemon Shuffle is now on the eShop to grab for free. It is a free-to-play game microtransactioned to hell and back.
• Project Cars was set to launch in March, but will now be released April 2. Ian Bell of Slightly Mad Studios pulled out his PR phrase book and says… “these extra days will allow us to provide the best game experience that our fans deserve. We assure you the wait will be worth it when the game does arrive early April”.
• According to the fine folks at Videogamer,  characters from the Predator series will be made available as DLC for Mortal Kombat X. That’s still just a rumor though.
• There is a small EU PSN sale happening right now, with reductions on Vita/PS3/PS4 games. Tomb Raider Definitive Edition on the PS4 leads the sale – for £11.99/€14.99. The two Danganronpa games are on sale on Vita too. A bunch of games also have a 10% additional PS Plus discount if you subscribe to that lovely service.
• World of Tanks is coming to Xbox One. This is great news if  you love tanks, but it  may not be the game for you if you dislike tanks.
• There is a free Hotline Miami digital comic on Steam right now ahead of the games release
• Another Assassin’s Creed Unity patch has tried to make the game less of a hot mess – and also unlocked previous companion app exclusive content for all. Read the patch notes.

Come back tomorrow for more news – maybe we’ll talk about less loathsome subject matter – like broccoli and bunnies.