Games Industry Shows Solidarity with Black Lives Matter
While there are influencers and companies who remain neutral or silent in the face of increasingly visible police brutality (I say increasingly visible because it’s never stopped, we just have social media and smart phones) against Black U.S. citizens, tech and games companies are speaking up in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
While the Trump administration declares martial law on Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies and the Alienware brand gave a statement to his team members on the murder of George Floyd and corporate responsibility. In his statement he says:
This has been an incredibly difficult time in America - troubling and sad. The murder of George Floyd is an atrocity. We all stand in horror, grieving as a nation alongside his family and his community. To see a man killed, a life ended cruelly and senselessly is something that will haunt me forever. But for people of color of communities all over this country and around the world - that footage is not a surprise, it is all too familiar. The fault lines of our society are laid bare. From the devastating and disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 to the devastating impacts of police brutality, the long standing racial injustice in America that began 400 years ago is impossible to ignore. And the people who have been ignored are now demanding to be heard. We are listening.
Astro Gaming was one of the first companies in the games industry to say something while donating $15k to We Love Lake Street as well as raising funds for small businesses on Lake Street in Minneapolis, MN.
Twitch, the top games streaming platform also released a statement on Twitter to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the Black Twitch content creators, calling for the Twitch community to “stand up for Black lives whether it’s through your time, treasure or talent.” YouTube also posted a statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter, pledging $1 million “in support of efforts to address social justice.”
Other video game developers calling for fighting racial injustice include Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Naughty Dog, Playstation, Microsoft, Insomniac Games, and EA Sports, while other brands simply retweeted those sentiments.
Though it’s an admiral sentiment for major companies and brands to post grand statements of solidarity with Black Lives Matter, some of these brands, like Twitch and YouTube have a history of rewarding racist users of their platforms. YouTube’s statement of solidarity comes as a slap in the face to the Black community after giving known agitator of racism Pewdiepie an exclusive contract to stream on their platform.
And Twitch still has not implemented an auto-ban for users who type the word “nigger” in their platform. Twitch is riddled with users who think racism is a joke and mere trolling and, as such, frequently harass Black content creators by entering their chat, mine included, to call them all types of racial slurs. One of my earliest experiences as a Twitch streamer was being harassed by user who came into my stream to tell me to “show me your nigger tits”.
Larger gaming communities, like that of Activision Blizzard also struggle with reeling in and addressing racism on their platforms. Overwatch and World of Warcraft, in particular, are riddled with racist usernames, guild names, and people who harass others by acting out racist scenarios for fun. One incident, in particular, included WoW players who transmogged their characters to gear that resembled the Ku Klux Klan and paraded around Ironforge.
Way too many people, in particular, White males, believe racism is fun. And part of the reason for that is no one is holding them accountable for bad behavior online in addition to them simply being far removed from racism. Games companies have, for far too long, avoided having that difficult conversation about addressing racism and actually putting into action ways to combat it. Instead, they fail to differentiate racism for mere trolling and shit-talking. People think that standing up against racism is a “political act” when, in actuality, it’s not politics; it’s basic human decency.
While we are appreciative of the game industries’ words of solidarity, we need more than words. We need action.
