As a matter of fact, it is indeed 8am "over there" and people are just getting back to work right now.
On the other hand, this took place at 7pm, so they likely did some overtime anyway. Guess Herr Brock did not get too much sleep that night.
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THQ Nordic holding an AMA on... 8chan (UP: website linked to multiple mass shootings) READ THREADMARKS
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On the other hand, this took place at 7pm, so they likely did some overtime anyway. Guess Herr Brock did not get too much sleep that night.
I think they bought all those IPs because they don't actually have a fucking clue what to do besides riding on the coattails of more talented people.
Ok, so, let me see...
THQ Nordic is not THQ. or THQ Nordic, as they would like to be called.
Their just a company that exists as a subsidiary of Koch Media to handle acquisitions, for whatever tax reasons or whatever Koch Media wants to seperate themselves from them as an entity.
So anything connected to Koch Media is thus a part of THQ Nordic. Because thats where their orders comes from, case in point the whole debacle regarding Metro on the Epic Store Recently, THQ Nordic even bought that scumbag Daniel Vavra's Warhorse Studio, and Vavra is a well known supporter of Gamergate and 4Chan.
Put that all together and..
I'll boycott buying ANYTHING from Koch Media because of this. Was excited for a few of their games, unannounced ones like Elex 2 as well. Now, they can go fuck themselves.
THQ Nordic is not THQ. or THQ Nordic, as they would like to be called.
Their just a company that exists as a subsidiary of Koch Media to handle acquisitions, for whatever tax reasons or whatever Koch Media wants to seperate themselves from them as an entity.
So anything connected to Koch Media is thus a part of THQ Nordic. Because thats where their orders comes from, case in point the whole debacle regarding Metro on the Epic Store Recently, THQ Nordic even bought that scumbag Daniel Vavra's Warhorse Studio, and Vavra is a well known supporter of Gamergate and 4Chan.
Put that all together and..
I'll boycott buying ANYTHING from Koch Media because of this. Was excited for a few of their games, unannounced ones like Elex 2 as well. Now, they can go fuck themselves.
Well..since i dont see any immediate firings or immense public apologies happening i think it is now on the devs employed by thq to take action. Otherwise let the downvoting and 'pedo supporters' campaign begin. Thats fun. The Trump era really does seem to be about pointing out the fact that once the big machine starts turning it seems a lot actually doesnt matter if you have the nerve to be awful enough without shame.
As a matter of fact, they actually posted a series of "apology" shortly after, but didn't bother to delete the original tweet.
Yeap, exactly this sort of a thing. I mean for news sites it would be a decent story to throw out in the morning.
I honestly am completely out of the 4 chan loop. I don't venture on the 'net much outside of Era and the few subreddits I follow.
I expected r/thedonald level of shit... but nothing like this, wow.
If the BBC or NYT put THQ Nordic and Child Porn together in the same sentence for everyone in the world to read, they are completely fucked and I see no way in which they aren't. Straight up mass exodus of companies jumping ship. Someone tell me I'm wrong.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
Thanks for this great summary... even if it is so, so disturbing to read. Really hope this fucks with THQs bottom line, I can't even imagine how they begin to approach the fallout from this.
Nope.
THQ Nordic AB is the bank account of an extremely wealthy man.
THQ Nordic AB owns THQ Nordic GmbH, the video game publisher based in Austria (whose senior leadership engaged in this stunt).
THQ Nordic AB also owns Koch Media, who owns Deep Silver and who knows what else.
Boycott THQ Nordic.
Koch Media is at your discretion. They're owned by the parent company, but they're run independently of THQ Nordic GmbH.
Devs can and in this case should change publishers.
They shouldn't associate themselves with leadership this vile and negligent.
Usually contracts would be an issue but THQ can't do shit to any that have a clause for forced separation for thq failing to preserve the developers brand on their behalf.
Even in most of the cases such clauses don't exist Thq can't do anything if there is a mass exodus because their legal fees don't scale against increasing number of defendants. Its cheaper to give up.
THQ buys a lot of the studios they publish. Hard to get out of that.
Good. I hope other business partners of theirs follow suit. Maybe it's too much to hope that they take drastic action but something needs to be done.
I can't believe that link is still up.
What. The. Fuck.
It's appreciated. Thankfully it's not exactly like I'm in the industry myself like the other people she's gone after, and, well, because of her so poorly picking those people when they're connected to people of some importance, I'm not exactly afraid of people I'd care about the opinions of buying into what she says.
Just very hard to think about someone spreading stuff that stuff about you to randos with no real way to deal with it, while often ironically saying it feels like people are spreading stuff about them, when like. That's just the results of spreading things about people, and them reasonably talking to others about it? It's truly bizarre.
How about the devs owned by THQ Nordic / their parent / their sibling companies?
Waypoint contacted Lars and he just directed them to the THQ's PR director non apology.
Why? Why is that link still up?
All of their apologies so far are completely hollow and meaningless as long as this tweet remains up.
Have they explained how they didn't do their due diligence despite saying that "Mark would take care of the nasty stuff"? I mean, being told there's nasty stuff would definitely cause you to look it up, right?
Well I wouldn't say the worst. Child porn is tied with nonconsensual human body experimentation and eugenics programs for what a company has done throughout history. They are all very damaging to human beings with irreversible long term effects.
After 14 hours having left the link up the apology is not credible. The official THQ Nordic twitter account has actively promoted a site that was delisted from Google for hosting child porn for over 14 hours.
THQ Nordic have promoted the dissemination of child porn for over 14 hours.
It is not credible that leaving the link up was a mistake at this point nor is the apology credible in any way while the link remains active.
THQ Nordic actively support and promote the dissemination of child porn
THQ Nordic have promoted the dissemination of child porn for over 14 hours.
It is not credible that leaving the link up was a mistake at this point nor is the apology credible in any way while the link remains active.
THQ Nordic actively support and promote the dissemination of child porn
So why exactly haven't major gaming websites like IGN, Gamespot and Eurogamer picked this story up? Is it another Gamergate where they're happy to look the other way and pretend it doesn't exist?
I've heard about oppression olympics, but atrocity olympics is a new thing for me.
Thank you for understanding, but is now too late i received a warning for "trolling" thanks to people here jumping the gun and putting words on my mouth anyway lesson learned
people on twitter are defending 8chan by saying "ah, the CP posted there was done by someone trying to make 8chan look bad!" without realising that, even taking the rest of the garbage website out of the equation, that AMA it'self has homophobic and racial slurs, pictures of loli's and someone saying heil hitler. like at some point your place is so fucked up that you're only defence is "yeah someone posted CP but we didn't like it or anything" sounds normal?
Hey I didn't say it was a good comparison, just explaining that there is a link there with regards to Twitter taking down child porn, especially given how they are now supposed to be removing illustrated and animated forms as well.
I suggest to all you to report the Tweet to Twitter saying it contains a direct link to a site hosting child pornography. With a bit of luck the account will get banned and this will harm THQ too.
Also no way you are a PR and decide to host an AMA on a site without even looking what the site is about, and a simple google search should give you an idea of what a shit hole that site is. They knew what they were going into. And this is fucking sad, because videogames are played by so many children, just imagine a 10-12 years old following THQ on Twitter, they see the tweets about the AMA, follow the link and they end in one of the worst places you can land on the Internet. This is so fucked up, even apologizing would be meaningless at this point, because they can't reverse the damage they did.
Also no way you are a PR and decide to host an AMA on a site without even looking what the site is about, and a simple google search should give you an idea of what a shit hole that site is. They knew what they were going into. And this is fucking sad, because videogames are played by so many children, just imagine a 10-12 years old following THQ on Twitter, they see the tweets about the AMA, follow the link and they end in one of the worst places you can land on the Internet. This is so fucked up, even apologizing would be meaningless at this point, because they can't reverse the damage they did.
Also, any gaming gaming outrage Youtuber who ignores this to continue talking about Anthem or whatever the hell can buzz of into ether.
At least I can count on Jim Sterling to talk about this.
They knew exactly what they were doing, and only an idiot would buy their claims of ignorance. They probably know there's no point in trying to keep up that particular lie.
IGN ran a story, as did Kotaku and Waypoint and Ars. Eurogamer is typically a day behind on news, so I expect they'll have something up soon.
gotta look at it form a channer perspective - actual CP is the only illegal thing on that list, they just have trouble relating to how normal people view things
that defense makes sense to them, cos freeze peach
it would be free positive marketing. of the big 3, i see it being them
yeah it's just like what's the point of even defending it at that point. just lean all the way into you being a piece of shit
Yeah, it is bullshit. One google "8chan" search would net you some pretty fucked up shit. It is not like they were uncovering some ancient text.
These motherfuckers did their research and went with it. They knew what they were getting into. I will not buy any of their games until EVERYONE who is responsible for this mess loses their jobs, and THQ puts out an apology. And even then, it will be hard to go back knowing fuckheads like Vavra is now under the mighty banner of THQN.
Because right at this moment, THQN is a video game publisher who supports cp and alt-right bullshit.
Is it possible for this to blow up enough for Microsoft not only to end their partnerships, but remove and ban their games from their platform, and for the other two to follow suite.
If I worked there I would be forcefully asking what is management going to do about it and point out why what they did so far only made things worse. But I also would get give them 18 hours to sort their shit out.
People directly working for thq should find it in their interest to help the company course correct and if the leadership still doesn't act swiftly then leaving should be considered. But the time frame they can leave will be slower than 3rd party devs.
one can hope
i think this is probably a bit extreme. i could definitely see them stopping active partnerships, but i don't think they would completely blacklist them
I forgot in my post: this show how the videogame industry is deeply fucked up.
Of course this case doesn't apply to everyone in the industry, but some of those people in order to make money don't hesitate to use a site known for hosting child pornography in order to get visibility and free marketing for their products, and fuck the collateral damage. Really, depressing and disgusting.
Of course this case doesn't apply to everyone in the industry, but some of those people in order to make money don't hesitate to use a site known for hosting child pornography in order to get visibility and free marketing for their products, and fuck the collateral damage. Really, depressing and disgusting.