I mean... he IS the project.
I am also very upset by what this guy said, but it looks like nobody gives anyone a second chance here.
Tim (the main developper) is not Notch, not a white nationalist and not a gamergater. He said pretty bad stuff and still sometimes is a bit annoying with his "I'm not right wing, but...", but he's not evil either, and from what he says on Twitter, I don't believe the game will be "in a future where SJWs won the war, everything is falling apart !".
I may be wrong, maybe it will be a terrible cyberpunk game with horrible conservative views, but right now it does not look like it will be that.
To speak to the bolded specifically, even if he supposedly renounced his affiliation with the movement in the 2017 Waypoint article, his previous membership among the group is not in question. He defended the campaign repeatedly, he used the hashtag on his own accord, he retweeted their misinformation, and more. He was, loud and proud, a GGer in 2014 and 2015. I'm not interested in making a smear post so I'm not going to link anything, but there is plenty of documentation of his enthusiastic participation.
In the 2017 Waypoint article, he also takes the position that GG was hijacked by extremists, which is absolutely not true. This is an extremely dangerous and legitimizing narrative that should not be perpetuated. This is an outright fabrication of scenario. It is a lie that is easily and demonstrably proven false. It was a movement founded on misogyny and harassment. This is the actual, literal inciting incident for the campaign. It began to destroy one woman and then became an identity movement against all women and minorities. It was
always a harassment campaign. It was
always an extremist campaign. This is well documented and proliferated by its own participants.
There was never at any time any physical organization, mission, or intention to address journalistic ethics. This revisionism that people try to pass around is a lie that should not be tolerated. "It's actually about ethics in games journalism" was not a legitimate or compelling excuse back then and "for me, I was only in it for the ethics in games journalism" is not a legitimate or compelling excuse now.
I think its a fair question to ask how some supposedly decent people got involved with a hate and harassment campaign that sought to eliminate the influence of women and minorities from video games. Somebody asked Tim Soret this question and his answer seemed honest but also super lame. I agree with you that he isn't a GGer
today. But he sure used to be and his attempts to distance himself from that history have been weak. You can make of that what you will and your mileage may vary but Tim Soret said some vile things that contributed directly to a hate movement and "I only cared about some parts" and "I wasn't one of the bad ones" is hardly a compelling case for forgiveness.
I hope that he works out whatever his actual politics and beliefs are and I hope he fully accepts the seriousness of his older rhetoric. I wish him no ill will but I don't have any interest in his material either. Who knows what the most recent version of TLN is actually about. At one time he said it was an reactionary take-down about feminism and social services. Then he said it wasn't. Maybe his politics really did change. Maybe his game did too. But if I was a major publisher who was advertising this game, there'd be some assurances I was looking for. I don't get the impression Microsoft was confident in Soret's explanation. Neither are a lot of other people.
