How can THQ Nordic be held accountable for the 8chan AMA? (READ OP)

[Hecht]

Thread rebooted. What should have been a discussion about how to hold THQ Nordic accountable for its actions instead, by the inclusion of a binary poll, devolved into infighting and recriminations. There is generally broad agreement that the people involved should lose their positions. Total boycotts are not necessarily the only way to express disgust with a company.

This thread is for constructive discussion about ways that THQ Nordic can be held accountable. Please do not attack other members, who agree with the same goal, for preferring different methods.

Thank you to Kemono for collecting the below info, from the previous thread:

THQ-Nordic: "Nothing to see here." Image credit: Ars Technica

Here's a little reminder if you've slept under a rock or your internet was out or something like that...

Earlier this week, THQ Nordic held an Ask Me Anything on an image board of ill-repute, answering questions from a community that feels rules of any kind are shackles. It was a site that was blacklisted by Google due to reports of child pornography and, within the AMA itself, featured links to drawn underage pornography, homophobic slurs, racial slurs, anti-semitic slurs, and basically any kind of slur you can get your mind around. THQ Nordic's head of PR, Philipp Brock, happily matched the tone and tenor of the questions being asked with his answers before professing ignorance of what the site was about.

https://www.gameinformer.com/opinio...d-itself-accountable-and-thq-nordic-proves-it

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And here're some loverly era-threads:
thq-nordic-holding-an-ama-on-8chan-mainstream-press-now-covering-washington-post-brings-the-heat
its-time-to-put-the-gaming-media-on-blast-for-how-poorly-they-have-handled-the-thq-nordic-situation
the-industry-refuses-to-hold-itself-accountable-and-thq-nordic-proves-it

And here's a wonderful summary about this whole mess from our own lovely L Thammy :

Spoiler

Summary of the topic up to now.

To provide background as to 8chan. 8chan as an anonymous message board modeled on 4chan, but meant to be less restrictive than 4chan. As 4chan already restricts very little, in practice what this means is that 8chan is a 4chan clone with a focus on child pornography / pedophilic content.

Spoiler: Potentially disturbing

From Wikipedia:



Additionally, 8chan has a large Neo-Nazi presence, and was the host to Gamergate supporters after 4chan banned them. Blatant anti-semitic, misogynist, and racist posts are extremely common. Additionally, things like doxxing and swatting; the list just goes on.

Because of this, Google has removed 8chan from its search listings. Instead of finding the website, your search results will result in sites like Wikipedia that just tell you what the website is. This is important to note, as if someone interacts with the website, it raises the question of how they even found it in the first place.

THQ's official twitter announces that they're performing an AMA on 8chan's gaming board, /v/:

THQ also notes that they were approached by the gaming board's owner, a Mark (the identity has been guessed at being Mark Kern of Red 5 Studios, a noted Gamergate supporter, but I don't think it's been definitely proven). Cue The Room jokes.

Mark promises to handle the "nasty stuff", which presumably suggests that THQ is aware of the risk of posting on a child pornography supporting message board and wants to avoid legal risks or something along those lines. At any rate, them acknowledging "nasty stuff" tells us that they know it's a possibility here.

Getting a little ahead of ourselves, but they also like a tweet calling criticisms against the AMA on 8chan - again, a site largely defined by its attitute to child pornography - as "sensitive", suggesting a flippant attitude to the whole situation.

We can see a similar attitude expressed in the Linkedin of their PR and Marketing Director, Philipp Brock.

After speculation that maybe this was a hack or a fake, a journalist at PC Games Insider reaches out and confirms that this actually is THQ Nordic.

Some comments from Imran (news editor at Game Informer).

Looking at the activity within the AMA itself. But before you even get to the thread, you have to go to /v/, which was currently advertising a board devoted to pictures (perhaps illustrated) of children at the top of the page. Note that "shotacon" refers to attraction to young boys while "lolicon" refers to attraction to young girls, and "shota" and "loli" to the children themselves.

This would be seen both when posting the thread and going to reply to it.

Spoiler: Potentially disturbing

Note that while 8chan is an anonymous message board and any user can put in any name, there are ways to identify users. I believe IDs are generated on a thread by thread basis and mapped to a certain IP address, but I confess I don't know the specifics of it. In this case, we can see that all of THQ's users are given an ID of 159bc1, which identifies their posts as coming from the same place regardless of what name they put in, perhaps a single company IP being subnetted to multiple users. Additionally, they are given a ## Reporter tag by the board's manager to confirm their official status.

One THQ Nordic name we see is Philipp, the aforementioned PR and marketing director, Philipp Brock.

We can see Philipp assuring an 8chan user that the company will not appeal to social justice. He does not have the ## Reporter tag here, but he does have the 159bc1 ID.

Another post where Philipp tells the user that they've already got "big tiddie lolis" - again, underage girls. Here we have both the 159bc1 ID and the ## Reporter tag.

Spoiler: Potentially disturbing

Here Philipp makes a joke. No ## Reporter tag, but he does have the 159bc1 ID.

Another THQ Nordic name involved is Reinhard. Here we have Reinhard ignoring slurs posted in the AMA. Both the ## Reporter tag and the 159bc1 ID are present.

Spoiler: Potentially disturbing

Reinhard also responds to a homophobic post saying that the image might be from one of their games. Again, the ## Reporter tag and the 159bc1 ID are both present.

Spoiler: Potentially disturbing

Reinhard appears to be Reinhard Pollice, Business & Product Development Director at THQ Nordic. Bear in mind that we're now dealing with a major player within the company, not just someone low on the PR rung.
http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/board-and-management/

When reached to for a response, Reinhard puts the blame on Philipp.

Another member of THQ Nordic is Fabian. His identity is not confirmed. However, he does have the ## Reporter tag and the same 159bc1 ID.

In another post, he says that he has no idea why they picked 8chan as the venue. Again, he has both the ## Reporter tag and the 159bc1 ID.

Meanwhile, 8channers are whining about ResetEra, because what else would a forum with a big Gamergate continigent do. Other questions contain the sort of content (racism, nazi imagery, etc.) that is expected from this website.

Spoiler: Potentially disturbing

Philipp ultimately provides an apology.

Note that the contents of the apology claim that the issue was due to lack of due diligence and understanding. Also remember that this is a website that is unlisted by Google, that they had spoken the board owner previously and specifically on the topic of "nasty stuff", that they had clearly seen questionable content during the AMA itself, and that they had liked a tweet that claimed that critics of the AMA were just sensitive. The claim made in the apology doesn't match the evidence.

In an interview, Philipp claims that he continued the AMA despite the offensive content because he was overwhelmed.

In another, he defends one of replies in the AMA.



Waypoint reached out to the CEO of THQ Nordic who declined to comment, instead referring to Philipp's apology.

Waypoint also reached out to THQ Nordic's actual developers, who are upset at being tied to this marketing attempt.

The story is picked up by various websites. This includes gaming websites (Gamesindustry.biz, Waypoint, Gamasutra) but also more general publications like (Newsweek, Variety)
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...olding-ama-on-imageboard-known-for-child-porn
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/art...ebsite-banned-for-suspected-child-pornography
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...osts_AMA_in_a_notorious_internet_cesspool.php

https://www.newsweek.com/thq-nordic-ama-8chan-games-twitter-mark-1345068
https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/thq-nordic-holds-ama-on-8chan-1203150074/

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[sambills]

honestly im not playing anything they put out anyway. easiest boycott of my life

 

[Border]

I would say buy whatever games you want from THQ/Deep Silver's currrent slate. No need to punish developers for an egregious publisher fuckup, especially when they're linked to THQ through difficult to break contracts and didn't have any knowledge of this fuckery when they signed on.

Any developers that sign on with THQ/DeepSilver from this point forward though, skip their games and let them know about it.

 

[Seafoam Gaming]

Developers who work with them for physical releases of their digital games going with other companies instead, or if it's too late to pull out then simply buying the digital version to support the dev directly or a used physical if must. That and some press sites refusing to accept review copies until they take serious action. (like I will, even though my site is small and they never really given me much more than PR news updates because of that)

I think the notion of boycotting everything with their logo on it is idiotic especially considering the many many devs they bought and how none of them have anything to do with this shitshow so having them suffer is not the way to handle things especially if in the case of titles like Giana Sisters, you can just buy it digitally from those developers directly instead of the physical THQ version. I'm pretty certain some devs won't be too happy and will break away when able, but it's not worth cancelling and losing years of hard work over either

 

[MrNelson]

Already said it in the last thread, but I'll say it again here:

THQ Nordic is on my shitlist alongside Warhorse (ironically recently purchased by THQN), and Gearbox. They're getting nothing from me until the people responsible are shitcanned and an actual apology is given, not that "oh we didn't know~" bullshit they're serving up right now.

 

[ASaiyan]

I'll gladly say it again: I cannot and will not buy anymore THQ Nordic product based on the way they continue to handle this. They need to take the most basic corporate actions of redress and repentance – directly apologizing for the AMA, directly rejecting 8chan and all of its offensive and illegal content, and firing the employee(s) responsible – for me to forgive them. For as long as CEO Lars Wingefors holds the inscrutable and indefensible position of refusing to take even these basic actions, he is not getting any more of my money.

 

[Gundam]

If you buy from THQ, buy used. Let some other people be okay with THQ's pro-pedo buffoonery.

I myself will generally stay away from anything THQ, used or new. "Punishing developers", please.

This wouldn't be so difficult if THQ would just rectify their shitty mistake and issue a proper apology, and publicly fire the people directly responsible for this shit show.

 

[Timewarp]

This is how I plan to ignore their content on Steam.

Steps to Ignore THQ Games on Steam: https://imgur.com/a/pNlgwde
Update: Added direct url: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/THQNordic (click cog icon, and choose "ignore this creator")

So I had already decided to boycott THQ Nordic games, and this thread just reminded me to take some steps to make that easier.

Steam gives the ability to selectively ignore content from creators. Quick and dirty steps here: https://imgur.com/a/pNlgwde

Anyone else have some tools, or measures we can personally take to hide/delete THQ Nordic content from our storefront, and social media feeds?

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[Fruit]

Just going to post this from the last thread to help with perspective of people effected by what 8chan allows and what THQ-Nordic has enabled.

This was the reaction to the previous thread on this topic by the above individual.

 

[Deleted member 8791]

The fact they continue to fuck up by not making a more hard firm response days later means I have to take some stance. Thankfully I don't really play much they put out but if they announce a new TimeSplitters, I'm not sure how to react. My lil bro wouldn't care about this and demand to play it day 1. Hopefully the management have taken more serious actions in response to this by then.

 

[kamineko]

I'd only buy used. Might not even do that.

 

[SENPAIatLARGE]

I'll buy a Deep Silver game with no qualms because I feel that they are tangentially involved with the whole affair. The farther removed a company or development studio is from THQ, the less I feel a need to submit to any boycott.

 

[Patazord]

I think the notion of boycotting everything with their logo on it is idiotic especially considering the many many devs they bought and how none of them have anything to do with this shitshow so having them suffer is not the way to handle things especially if in the case of titles like Giana Sisters, you can just buy it digitally from those developers directly instead of the physical THQ version. I'm pretty certain some devs won't be too happy and will break away when able, but it's not worth cancelling and losing years of hard work over either

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Pretty much this, boycotting games is not the solution, it's going to suck if peoples lose their job because of those shitty higher up.

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

I'm going to say what I said in the previous thread and add to it:

The message I'm getting from some people here is that victims like me don't matter. That it doesn't matter that there's a likely chance, no matter how small it may be, that THQ promoting a site known to link child pornography has led to more people getting access to the videos of me being brutally rape as a child. They will suffer no repercussions and I will get to suffer the reality that a video game publisher reopened old wounds and increased the chance of distribution of those videos.

I feel sorry for the devs, but for people thinking about them, how about you think of the victims of child abuse in this case. Because it's not just about the children who are currently being abused to produced this sick stuff, but it's also adults like me that had our wounds reopened and fear the chance of the videos of our young self being abused being more accessible and distributed to more people because of this shit show.

Someone is going to get hurt at the end of the day, you have to make a choice on who in that matter. Do you hurt the devs who had nothing to do with this or do you hurt the victims by showing them that this stuff is okay by still supporting them at their current standing, that will likely lead to other companies doing the same thing because, and let's face it, outrage marketing is all the rage right now and companies never get hurt when they do this shit?

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There's no ethical consumable under capitalism, that's the reality of our current system. Someone is going to get hurt at the end of the day by what THQ did and consumers have to decide on who that is, the devs or the victims. What they did was wrong and those responsible should pay for it, but since higher ups seem to want to push this under the rug and feel like they can get away from it, it's up to consumers to do something about it if they want to hold the company accountable.

Just going to post this from the last thread to help with perspective of people effected by what 8chan allows and what THQ-Nordic has enabled.

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Thanks for bringing this up, I want people to see from the prospective of a victim on how what THQ did affects them.

 

[ASaiyan]

Quoting myself from another thread. This is how I plan to ignore their content on Steam.

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Thanks for letting people know about this feature. I just added them to my Ignored list.

Also used the "Report" function, which probably won't do anything, but hey, worth a shot. I'm pretty sure 8chan violates the Steam ToS.

 

[Border]

Shenmue 3 is the only THQ game that interests me at all, and I've already paid for it.

I suspect it will probably be quite some time before they publish much of anything else that I really want to play. Unless Bungie somehow partners with them for publishing duties on Destiny.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

It's the sort of snafu you'd think would spread to their business partners. I would hope that their attention gets grabbed by this. I know Microsoft is absolutely aware.

 

[nekkid]

I'm interested to see how the industry reacts. Ori for Switch is something that springs to mind.

 

[ASaiyan]

It's the sort of snafu you'd think would spread to their business partners. I would hope that their attention gets grabbed by this. I know Microsoft is absolutely aware.

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I mean, they literally had a license deal with some properties from a children's TV network. I have to imagine some very angry and horrified calls have been going out. And the idiot CEO Lars Wingefors is probably not picking them up.

 

[Deleted member 5853]

Firstly, I would like to see them fire Pollice and the other folks who participated in it. At the level you are at in the company, you should have enough experience to fucking google the site """someone""" has set up an AMA for. Seriously, if you are this incompetent and downright stupid, you don't deserve to be a high-level executive. If you're the damn intern that suggested this, you deserve to be fired. If you, at any point, looked at this idea and thought "this might be okay", you deserve to be fired because it tells me you're too goddamn stupid to google 8chan and see the top link referring to child porn.

Secondly, regarding developers, there's no real way to hurt THQ's wallet without hurting the devs. The developers of "Biomutant" have no choice with which publisher to work with. Neither do the people working at any one of the many studios owned by THQ Nordic. To boycott the games is to assume THQ will link the AMA to their lowered sales and take proper action towards those toxic elements. Odds are, they won't do that. They'll just pass the buck along to the devs and say "Biomutant", "Wreckfest", et al. failed because of the market and yada yada yada. To hurt THQ Nordic is to hurt the developers who got dealt an incredibly shitty hand by this AMA.

So, in the end, all I can do is boycott the company and hope THQ gets pressured into firing all those involved in this debacle. It's easy for me because 1) nothing was really coming my way from THQ and 2) there's a very very good chance Microsoft & Nintendo are going to can their deal with THQ over this because Nintendo really doesn't want the association with child porn. If the deal continues, then I hope Nintendo, Microsoft, and THQ get hell for it. I, for one, would love to see how the big N deals with questions regarding 8chan. The other thing that I can hope for is that Pollice and co. never ever lives this shit down. You don't link to a site with CP on it and escape with your reputation intact. Hopefully, THQ realize their massive fuck-up and do right by us. But, we're the minority so its just as likely they'll drown us out and have a good ol' E3 celebration with no one questioning them.

 

[Secretofmateria]

I guess im confused as to what we want, do we want them to own up for what they did and apologize via , or do we want them to go under for
This. Also what action could they take to show they are truly sorry? Like a charitable donation to a pro lbgt organization or an organization that helps victims of pedophelia.

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

I guess im confused as to what we want, do we want them to own up for what they did and apologize via , or do we want them to go under for
This. Also what action could they take to show they are truly sorry? Like a charitable donation to a pro lbgt organization or an organization that helps victims of pedophelia.

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My only want is for the people responsible for this to be fired, they knew what they were doing and gave a fake apology pretend they didn't know better. After that, I don't really care what people do, I'm never touching their games again even if their CEO apologizes for it to me personally. THQ reopened a lot of old wounds by basically promoting 8chan, and picking up one of their games would likely remind me of the shit I suffered.

 

[DrazilKaj]

If people are seriously expecting everyone to boycott THQ's games and pressure all platforms to delist them, they're living in a fantasy world. Boycotts have rarely worked. With these types of stories, people immediately go in the reactionary road of thought rather then the logical one. Is anyone who buys and plays any of their games from now on instantly a pedo-sympathizer because they dared not boycott? There are countless devs under THQ Nordic's wing that had no idea about this and people just want to throw them all under the bus for no good reason.
The best course of action should be to at least pressure the company to fire those responsible for organizing this 'AMA'. I refuse to believe someone just said okay to 8chan and didn't go into it completely blind and not knowing what it was. Someone needs to take the fall, but boycotting the entire company isn't the answer.

 

[TheIlliterati]

My opinion doesn't mean much. I voted to never buy their games again if they don't deal with the folks responsible. But I mainly rent through Gamefly, and I have no qualms about playing them through there anyway, so its kind of moot. My main logic problem is that I don't personally know what to do if nothing is done. I can easily say that future developers signing up with them are suspect and boycottable, but what about future deals with Sony, MS, etc? Would I boycott those major companies too? I know I wouldn't if I'm honest. And it's looking more likely that nothing will be done.

 

[Nanashrew]

Everyone responsible should be fired. I also don't plan on buying anything from THQ.

 

[Bricktop]

They need to fire the people responsible, make a public statement, and move on. This isn't the world ending issue that some people are making it out to be, but it's not something that you can just ignore and it will go away either. A few fuckheads messed up and they need to go so that the other 1,100+ employees can get on with the business of making games without this hanging over their heads.

 

[MrNelson]

Someone needs to take the fall, but boycotting the entire company isn't the answer.

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So what is then? As a consumer, the only way to get them to listen is to speak with your wallet and stop buying the games they publish. They've already shown that they are ready and willing to just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened, and a lot of the gaming press isn't putting their feet to the fire regarding this massive fuck up.

 

[ASaiyan]

Boycotts have rarely worked.

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Boycotts have literally worked since their invention. And they continue to work today.

Do you think the Montgomery Bus Boycott, or the boycott of apartheid South Africa, "didn't work"? Do you think economic sanctions do not significantly hurt offending nations? Do you think people haven't forced companies to apologize and take responsibility for offensive acts before?

 

[samred]

Hecht please credit where you got that source image, since my Ars Technica coworker designed it by hand, as opposed to lifting it from some other forum.

edit: thx!

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

If people are seriously expecting everyone to boycott THQ's games and pressure all platforms to delist them, they're living in a fantasy world. Boycotts have rarely worked. With these types of stories, people immediately go in the reactionary road of thought rather then the logical one. Is anyone who buys and plays any of their games from now on instantly a pedo-sympathizer because they dared not boycott? There are countless devs under THQ Nordic's wing that had no idea about this and people just want to throw them all under the bus for no good reason.
The best course of action should be to at least pressure the company to fire those responsible for organizing this 'AMA'. I refuse to believe someone just said okay to 8chan and didn't go into it completely blind and not knowing what it was. Someone needs to take the fall, but boycotting the entire company isn't the answer.

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It's an answer because we've seen that the games media is not going to put enough pressure to do anything and THQ's partners are shrugging it off and hoping it goes away. Nothing is going to happen until it effects their bottom line, and as I said before, someone is going to suffer at the end of the day rather it be the devs who had nothing to do with it or the victims of child pornography like me who not only have to live with the reality of what happened to us but also will have to live with the reality that there's a chance that even more people have access to videos of us being raped as children, allowing more distribution of the stuff, all because of how THQ promoted and linked the site for almost a day. Even worse is that there is a good chance another company is going to do a similar thing because THQ Nordic is seemingly getting away with it and outrage marketing is hot right now.

 

[Bishop89]

So what is then? As a consumer, the only way to get them to listen is to speak with your wallet and stop buying the games they publish. They've already shown that they are ready and willing to just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened, and a lot of the gaming press isn't putting their feet to the fire regarding this massive fuck up.

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Voting with your wallet also means that the innocent employees might be out of a job if they don't make money off their work.

 

[Mechaplum]

Cancelled my biomutant preorder, and have no other games from them that I'm buying hoping to stay that way.

 

[Nanashrew]

I refuse to believe someone just said okay to 8chan and didn't go into it completely blind and not knowing what it was. Someone needs to take the fall, but boycotting the entire company isn't the answer.

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Oh believe it. Their actions in the AMA speaks volumes and it comes not just from their PR person, but also their board member Pollice. This is a top down affair. 8chan is one of those kinds of sites that you need to be aware of to know it exists because it is a delisted site from Google. And there are tons of resources and information to pull from on just the first 3 pages of Google. It is 100% completely braindead EASY to find information about what kind of hell hole 8chan is.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

Boycotting them is really easy. They make video games, a form of entertainment and really not something you actually need.

That said I'm not about to go nuclear on those who don't. Much like I don't go nuclear on those that doesn't buy into BDS.

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

Voting with your wallet also means that the innocent employees might be out of a job if they don't make money off their work.

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Not voting with your wallet means you may make victims feel like their experience doesn't matter and make them feel worse than they already are. You can look at some of my posts above and the other thread to see how I feel about this entire thing as a victim of child abuse and pornography. I already posted that I'm frustrated and sadden by how people acted in the previous thread, it's always about the poor devs but never about the victims of the shit 8chan links to such as child pornography, I feel that's something people need to add to the conversation going forward.

 

[Sal_S]

Gonna quote myself and reply to Mahonay since I couldn't before and the thread is now closed

Cmon guys, Activision Blizzard laid off 800 just last month. No one's boycotting them, nor are their games selling poorly.

If you truly care about the developers and want them to succeed, search what it is they want from you and try to support them directly.

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My point is that buying a game isn't supporting a developer, it's mostly going to the publisher, otherwise 800 or so employees would still be at Activision right now.
Saying "I'm going to keep buying THQ games to support devs, not THQ itself" is BS. You just don't care about the issue enough and shrug it off as if you can't do anything about it.

I doubt you'd get an answer, but maybe email the studio you "want to support", tell them that THQ fucking endorsed a site with child pornography and you cannot support that, but you love the studio's games and their developers.

 

[Brinksman]

This is a watershed moment where enthusiasts can attempt to define the repercussions for a publisher's conscious adjacency to child pornographers et al. You can set the repercussions from your side at zero, post an excuse, and anticipate complacency around pedophilia in future, or call bullshit on THQ Nordic.

I mentioned as much in previous threads, but since the media hold so many of the cards, it would make sense to draw up a comprehensive list of publications and individuals who treated this story with the level of seriousness it deserved, and be absolutely sure to promote them over their peers in future for doing so. Each outlet's handling of the matter says much about their priorities, and those who covered it worth a damn should be tangibly supported for sticking their necks out.

 

[Blackage]

I feel like this is going to be the equivalent of "The North Remembers" for Era, regarding THQ going forward.....I firmly believe nobody is getting fired or held accountable at least in the short term. That's not to say down the line somebody might fuck up again and a 2nd effort might engulf them.

Rest of the net doesn't care, gaming media covered it for a day and a fraction of that followed up with stronger condemnation, not sure much else will come out of it.

 

[Bishop89]

Not voting with your wallet means you may make victims feel like their experience doesn't matter and make them feel worse than they already are. You can look at some of my posts above and the other thread to see how I feel about this entire thing as a victim of child abuse and pornography.

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There just needs to be a way to put pressure on the ppl involved, to get them fired or whatever without potentially affecting the livelihoods of everybody else is all I'm saying.

 

[Yukari]

Boycotts have literally worked since their invention. And they continue to work today.

Do you think the Montgomery Bus Boycott, or the boycott of apartheid South Africa, "didn't work"? Do you think economic sanctions do not significantly hurt offending nations? Do you think people haven't forced companies to apologize and take responsibility for offensive acts before?

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I Think Boycotts work or not depend on how much people care about it.
And THQ Nordic case look like not much.

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

There just needs to be a way to put pressure on the ppl involved, to get them fired or whatever without potentially affecting the livelihoods of everybody else is all I'm saying.

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The other means to do it isn't working. The games media is being soft on this and have basically moved on and THQ's partners are just ignoring it and not even commenting on it. At this point, the only way to effect their bottom line is the consumer.

 

[Nanashrew]

The best way to support developers is to further urge them to unionize so that these workers can have a voice and apply pressure to those who would align themselves with nazis and pedophiles.

It should also be the duty of journos to help give them a voice to reach outside the company and to the public at large.

 

[LiquidSolid]

All we can do is avoid their games and keep bringing it up. Any time THQ Nordic comes up in a thread, particularly when there's an announcement or news, make sure to call them something like "THQ Nordic, the pro-paedophile publisher" in the title or OP. Never let them or anyone else forget it, it should permanently tar every single thing they do from now on.

I've already gone through my wishlists on Steam and PSN and removed all THQ Nordic games from them and will make sure to avoid all their games in the future (though I will still get Shenmue 3 since I ordered it via Kickstarter and I doubt any of that money went to THQ Nordic). I'll also only buy Sega games digitally since they distribute Sega's physical games in PAL countries.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

I don't think it's comparable with the recent Blizzvision affair. Laying off employees is often unfair and/or disguisting but legal and sadly common, endorsing a depublished website full of nazis and pedos is not.

It could harm the image of the company and all their entities on the long run. Because of individual sabotage and collective vandalism, now all their possible releases and public events are subject to be defaced and disrupted.

 

[Hecht]

Hecht please credit where you got that source image, since my Ars Technica coworker designed it by hand, as opposed to lifting it from some other forum.

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Done, sorry 'bout that.

 

[Deleted member 283]

I'll just quote myself from another thread about the conclusion I've come to on what I feel should happen next. I'm not happy about the answer I've come to, and wish such things weren't necessary, and I also know I have no right to ask such a thing, but nonetheless I can think of no other way of effectively forcing THQ Nordic's hand at this point:

Something I personally wish in regards to this, since it's unfortunately clear that THQ Nordic is trying to just sweep this under the rug at this point, would be that video games media would personally use this as an opportunity to really flex their muscles and use what little influence they have here. Completely refuse to cover or review any games that fall under the THQ Nordic umbrella until those responsible are terminated. No reviews, no pre-release content or stories, no re-hosted trailers or screenshots, just flat-out nothin' till those responsible are gone.

Like, y'know how certain publishers blacklist certain parts of the gaming press and all that? Like how Bethesda blacklisted Kotaku for how they leaked information regarding Fallout 4 before it was formally unveiled? Just do that, but as a unified mass, right back at THQ Nordic to do what little they can to make sure they ditch these people.

Of course, I understand why that won't happen. Because it's basically a prisoner's dilemma type of situation. And so, even if any individual site has the idea to do something like that, they start to worry that even if they reach out to other sites and get them to say their on board as well, the worry would be that those other sites might not be telling the truth and might not follow through, and so in the end they'd just be losing traffic to the sites that do cover it, and everyone ends up having those same fears of each other, and so nothing ends up happening at all because lost traffic becomes the primary concern.

And then of course you also have the "think of the developers" argument, and of course it's true that it fucking sucks that so many innocent developers are caught up in this whole mess when they have nothin' to do with it at all and are no doubt just as frustrated by it as anyone. But as far as that goes, protests unfortunately don't come without risks, as that what gives them power to begin with and that's clearly what THQ is counting on here, for people to just think about the developers and be too afraid and hesitant to do anything because they very understandably don't want to even risk hurting completely innocent individuals.

But god damn, would I like to see that happen. I understand perfectly why it won't happen. I get that, as I've explained. But damn would I still love to see the blacklisting tactic thrown back at a publisher's face for once, for a situation that most certainly deserves. It get why it won't. But I really, really wish it would. Of course, to be clear, I ideally wish none of this would have happened in the first place, and failing that, since it did, I wish THQ could have just gotten rid of those people on their own without needing any motivation or incentives but since it seems like both of those are done and gone, that would be the next best scenario to me, and though I perfectly understand why it won't happen, I wish games media would find the courage to take that step.

Edit: And just to add on to this, I know that I'm just a complete nobody and as such, it's easy for me to say things like this, precisely because I'm not the one who has anything on the line here, so it's real easy for me to say. And that makes me feel really guilty just by even bringing this kinda stuff up and makes me tempted to just delete this. But at the same time, that's what it's really about, just feeling so powerless, when I see a situation like this that's wrong and having no power to fix it myself and so just wishing the people that did have power, however little and risky it is to use that power, to nonetheless use it to do the right think and try to make a difference where people like me cannot. And I know that itself isn't exactly my place to ask such a thing, since I have no right to ask that of anyone, but I don't know what to do in these situations other than to just try and well yeah, I'm definitely just ranting now and not sure if I'm even making sense anymore, so I'll leave it at that.

Click to shrink...

 

[Isee]

It can not unless you manage to make them accountable for violating a law.
They promoted a link to a forum thread with "fictional CP".
Possession of fictional CP isn't forbidden in most EU countries, but sharing, making it available and promoting it (up to 5 years). Did THQ break austrian/eu law here? Maybe, a lawyer needs to look at that.

For the rest: It's a decision everybody needs to make for themselves. THQ is dead to me. Other people have a different view, but if CP isn't a clear line not to cross than I don't know what is.

 

[Deleted member 8593]

This keeps coming up but the argument that you're "punishing" the devs for the actions of a few by not buying their games is just a poor attempt to try to rationalize giving money to a company where top-level people actively engaged with a webpage that prominently features child pornography, white supremacy and various other illegal activities. The exact same logic can be applied to many other products where management messed up the development of a game yet I don't see people have any qualms about skipping bad games.

People applying selective morality on a topic where actual underage children have been damaged is why discussions about this topic have been an absolute shit show. It's worthless for me to discuss this even in the first place because it's not a genuine argument anyway.

 

[Gundam]

The best course of action should be to at least pressure the company to fire those responsible for organizing this 'AMA'..

Click to shrink...

Yeah if only there was some way to do that

 

[Deleted member 42641]

Protect Ms. Galaxy at all cost and pray that THQs games keep flopping