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Epic Games finally puts out toothless statement on current events

Deleted member 3294

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Nooblet said:
They couldn't even directly say Black in their message and specifically mention the race that's at the centre of all this at the moment. Still it's something I guess.

Meanwhile COD is putting this before every single match during loading in their F2P game mode with 50 million users.
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And they wrote this statement
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lol Call of Duty is probably one of the last games/franchises to give props to for this.

guess it'll get racist gamers mad though so that's something at least.
 
NameUser

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How does Ben and Jerry's have one of the strongest statement? What a time to be alive, when a fucking ice cream brand has more ball than a publisher raking in billions, one with a large black player base.
 
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Chromie

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NameUser said:
How does Ben and Jerry's have one of the strongest statement? What a time to be alive, when a fucking ice cream brand has more ball than a publisher raking in millions, one with a large black player base.
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You're saying this as if it's an insult. Look into their history. Ben & Jerry's has always been great about this.
 
My Blue Heaven

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Jawbreaker said:
Hey, Valve/Gaben. Too afraid to scare away the white supremacist base that you've failed to do anything about? Where's your statement?
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Valve is notoriously laissez-faire about everything. They really only attempted to do anything about all the racist/hate groups on Steam after a news story aired everything out. I doubt we will hear anything from them and if we do I'm sure it will be as toothless as anything mentioned earlier.

Edit: Sorry, it was like multiple news stories over the course of 3 years I believe.
 
Nooblet

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trashtabby said:
lol Call of Duty is probably one of the last games/franchises to give props to for this.

guess it'll get racist gamers mad though so that's something at least.
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Not this time.
The very fact that their player base is a festering ground for racists means them addressing it before anyone else and doing so in a considerable manner (they even delayed their season to divert attention to these events and this message) deserves some prop.
 
nded

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NameUser said:
How does Ben and Jerry's have one of the strongest statement? What a time to be alive, when a fucking ice cream brand has more ball than a publisher raking in billions, one with a large black player base.
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Ben and Jerry (the people) are real ones and have been consistent in their support for progressive policies and reform for decades. You're right to be surprised that being bought out by Unilever hasn't defanged their company though.

 
Command & Conker

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Not a single company cares about anything except profits. Companies that have put out statements and/or matched donations have done so because they believe it will benefit them. They are not your friends.
 
Budi

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NameUser said:
How does Ben and Jerry's have one of the strongest statement? What a time to be alive, when a fucking ice cream brand has more ball than a publisher raking in billions, one with a large black player base.
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Ben & Jerry are dirty and smelly drug using hippies. And we need more of them tbh.
www.benjerry.com

Let's Be Blunt About Cannabis Justice

Legalization is happening fast, but it hasn’t done anything to reduce the racial disparities in cannabis arrests. This 4/20, you can help change that.
www.benjerry.com www.benjerry.com
 
Jonnax

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The bare minimum.

I'm somewhat expecting Valve to say less or nothing.

With how racist the gaming community is. The fact that you have people calling themselves the Master Race is so transparent.

Whenever you point out that it's a racist phrase, I feel you get as much pushback as the fuckers going all lives matter.
 
Chromie

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Altera

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Amauri14 said:
So they went with one of these:

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You know if they want to male a difference they should at least donate money instead of doing a simple "We care. See? Now buy our product.".
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Do companies need to announce if they donate money?

People are already trying to shame companies if they don't feel like they donated enough, which is setting a bad precedent, in my opinion. Everything helps.

See stuff like this, for example:

65hz8k8.png
 
Dabanton

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Oct 27, 2017
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NameUser said:
How does Ben and Jerry's have one of the strongest statement? What a time to be alive, when a fucking ice cream brand has more ball than a publisher raking in billions, one with a large black player base.
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Well Ben and Jerry as a company have been about that life since it's inception so its values are solid from the top down.

A lot of these companies are coming late to the party and it shows. Gaming companies, in particular, don't want anyone to look too closely as people will begin to ask as they should well why is your workforce so overwhelmingly white. With barely any black faces.

And no one wants that conversation I notice the thread on here discussing that earlier this week went what 3 pages. Whilst nonsense about ports of old games goes 28+ pages in a few hours.

Goes to show how performative some of the 'wokeness' is on here as well. No one wants to drag their fave companies to do better.
 

MrJolly

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Dec 21, 2018
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Mett said:
Yeah, same here. How is it different the the other companies posting similar sentiments?
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I'm not sure why we're expecting these kinds of messages from games publishers/corporations /celebrities at all? And when they do show support it's not enough?

Apologies if I don't understand, Nintendo's message the other other day came under similar scrutiny ... Shouldn't that pressure by applied to governments and politicians instead, the people who have the power to make change become reality?
 

Deleted member 3294

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Nooblet said:
Not this time.
The very fact that their player base is a festering ground for racists means them addressing it before anyone else and doing so in a considerable manner (they even delayed their season to divert attention to these events and this message) deserves some prop.
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Not when it's a game about shooting brown people that also serves as military propaganda.
 
Dabanton

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MrJolly said:
I'm not sure why we're expecting these kinds of messages from games publishers/corporations /celebrities at all? And when they do show support it's not enough?

Apologies if I don't understand, Nintendo's message the other other day came under similar scrutiny ... Shouldn't that pressure by applied to governments and politicians instead, the people who have the power to make change become reality?
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Because corporations 'own' politicians. If corporations put real pressure on politicians things will change very quickly.

Same with celebrities they act as entities that boost the message your trying to send.
 
SapientWolf

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JuniperAndSage said:
None of these statements matter when the companies are putting out games about cops and soldiers.
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They matter a lot, because those are the games that young, impressionable youth flock to in massive numbers. If there is any chance of true, long lasting change it will require the upcoming generation to pick up the torch from the previous ones and make it burn even brighter.
 
TubaZef

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Com_Raven said:
They don't actively court them, no. I also don't notice much action being taken against countless nazi/ SS-fetishizing user groups that have been there for years.

And I will say that Steam is the only gaming platform that has ever actively promoted a curator to me with a review calling Activision a "Jew company", which I certainly did not expect.
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also allowing things like these in their store:





 
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mreddie

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Oct 26, 2017
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Like everyone said, Epic, Valve and Blizz have connections to Tencent which could really blow back on them these toothless or no statements
 
UF_C

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aGuyInaBearSuit said:
"These fundamentals are above politics?"

What the fuck does that even mean?

Bitch those ARE politics.
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It a response to the many gamers that do not want politics in their games or gaming time. The response, in this instance and that of COD etc, is the that treating humans equally is not someone's politics, it's a human right.

it's good to see Epic Games acknowledging this and cutting off the argument, full stop.
 
LewieP

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Valve have got plenty of things you can criticise them for, but I don't think they're at all in the same boat as THQ Nordic, who actively courted the 8chan audience, including joining in with their racist jokes.

They are anarcho-libertarian, and I think hold a cowardly position of not wanting to properly moderate their platform unless there is enough noise made about it that it hurts their brand, or if it's to comply with the law. But they haven't actively gone out of their way to deliberately court a white supremacist audience. I would say that's the biggest difference between THQ and Valve's record in these regards.

I kinda think they're somewhat like facebook or twitter in that regard, where they have allowed this stuff to fester on their platform because it's convenient. I don't think that is the same as specifically and deliberately targeting that audience.

There is a meaningful distinction between Valve's imperfect record, and THQ's unthinkably poor judgement, at least in my view.
 
Grimmy11

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Altera said:
Do companies need to announce if they donate money?

People are already trying to shame companies if they don't feel like they donated enough, which is setting a bad precedent, in my opinion. Everything helps.

See stuff like this, for example:

65hz8k8.png
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Yeah I don't like stuff like this, All it'll do is discourage other companies for donating. I understand if they donate something pathetically small like a multi million dollar company donating $500 and bragging about it or something but to get shit and be shamed for donating $200,000 when countless other companies don't even say anything seems wrong.
 
Andri

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MrJolly said:
I'm not sure why we're expecting these kinds of messages from games publishers/corporations /celebrities at all? And when they do show support it's not enough?

Apologies if I don't understand, Nintendo's message the other other day came under similar scrutiny ... Shouldn't that pressure by applied to governments and politicians instead, the people who have the power to make change become reality?
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Part of it is that companies are the ones funding the politicians that could change things.
Also some companies are directly involved in it, like amazon that irc supplies the infrastructure for ICE in the usa.
Or how Zoom gladly shares data of basic customers with the police and fbi.
(reminder to not use Zoom to organise for protest, it puts you and everybody participating at risk Since they share all your data with law enforcement)

But to be honest, a part of it is also that people here are sometimes more than willing to use the guise of caring about something actually important to continue beating on things they dont like.
People on this forum generally dont like epic, so casting their response as weak and meaningless(while ignoring that valve, savior of pc gaming has said nothing at all) is just a nice opportunity to hate on epic some more, bonus points if they tie it directly to their lackluster support of their store, as if it has anything to do with their statement.

Ask yourself why there is a thread about epics statement, instead of one about valves absolute lack of any statement at all.
Its because its the popular thing on this forum to hate on epic, and this just provides one more bullet in the chamber.

aGuyInaBearSuit said:
"These fundamentals are above politics?"

What the fuck does that even mean?

Bitch those ARE politics.
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They are not politics at all.
They are fundamental human rights, and its only the people opposed to them that want to make them a political issue.
If it were a political issue, there would be arguments for both sides, and there really should not be a "both sides" for equality.
 
My Blue Heaven

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LewieP said:
Valve have got plenty of things you can criticise them for, but I don't think they're at all in the same boat as THQ Nordic, who actively courted the 8chan audience, including joining in with their racist jokes.

They are anarcho-libertarian, and I think hold a cowardly position of not wanting to properly moderate their platform unless there is enough noise made about it that it hurts their brand, or if it's to comply with the law. But they haven't actively gone out of their way to deliberately court a white supremacist audience. I would say that's the biggest difference between THQ and Valve's record in these regards.

I kinda think they're somewhat like facebook or twitter in that regard, where they have allowed this stuff to fester on their platform because it's convenient. I don't think that is the same as specifically and deliberately targeting that audience.

There is a meaningful distinction between Valve's imperfect record, and THQ's unthinkably poor judgement, at least in my view.
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Not actively courting hate groups is a pretty low bar. Valve shrugging their shoulders for 3 years until the problem couldn't be ignored anymore is pretty bad.
 
LewieP

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My Blue Heaven said:
Not actively courting hate groups is a pretty low bar. Valve shrugging their shoulders for 3 years until the problem couldn't be ignored anymore is pretty bad.
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Sure, they should absolutely be called on that. I asked if Valve had ever actively courted a hate group, because I didn't think they ever really had, but didn't know if there was something I missed.
 
Andri

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Grimmy11 said:
Yeah I don't like stuff like this, All it'll do is discourage other companies for donating. I understand if they donate something pathetically small like a multi million dollar company donating $500 and bragging about it or something but to get shit and be shamed for donating $200,000 when countless other companies don't even say anything seems wrong.
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I really dont get why everything always has to be a competition, even things like donations.
Yeah, lego donated 0.4% of its profits, while TPC only donated 0.2% of its profits.
Meanwhile TPC actually put the hashtag BLM in their tweet and said the words in their message, while Lego did not.

I dont think we should shame either of them even if there was room for improvement in both their messages.
If anybody should be shamed at all, it should be the companies that do nothing.

But to me at it matters that they donated at all, for both of them, and it matters as much as any other donation someone makes, because it shows they care, however much money they might donate, while most companies just dont care at all.
 
Eeyore

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LewieP said:
When has valve ever actively courted a white supremacist audience?
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A more appropriate question is, when has Valve done anything about the infestation of white supremacy on their platform? The default state should be expelling these fucks so when you ask a leading question like that, you're missing the point. By not expelling them you are encouraging them to continue their behavior. It's disgusting and a result of their libertarian takes on everything else. They don't have to say anything, their lack of actions on this subject clearly illustrates how important they think this is. They, as a company, simply do not care.

As far as Epic, I mean we know the deal based on how things went in Hong Kong.
 
Ploid 6.0

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Wow, by the time you posted your valve thread, another thread was right above it talking about Valve allowing racists bots to invade TF2. What timing.
 
Ababol

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LewieP said:
Valve have got plenty of things you can criticise them for, but I don't think they're at all in the same boat as THQ Nordic, who actively courted the 8chan audience, including joining in with their racist jokes.

They are anarcho-libertarian, and I think hold a cowardly position of not wanting to properly moderate their platform unless there is enough noise made about it that it hurts their brand, or if it's to comply with the law. But they haven't actively gone out of their way to deliberately court a white supremacist audience. I would say that's the biggest difference between THQ and Valve's record in these regards.

I kinda think they're somewhat like facebook or twitter in that regard, where they have allowed this stuff to fester on their platform because it's convenient. I don't think that is the same as specifically and deliberately targeting that audience.

There is a meaningful distinction between Valve's imperfect record, and THQ's unthinkably poor judgement, at least in my view.
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THQ made a stupid decision, apologised for it and that's the end of the story.

Valve ignored and keeps ignoring reports from anti-hate organisations that explain how Steam is a platform used to foster bigotry and recruit minors into extremist circles.

You can make excuses for them by calling them "anarcholibertarian", but their inaction is way worse than a single AMA on 8 chan. It's not even in the same league and if anyone is "courting white supremacists", surely it's not THQ Nordic.
 
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