How gullible I am? Not nearly as much a you are mad about it. So what now? You'll gonna rally in streets bacause of some AMA? You have too much spare time?
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THQ Nordic holding an AMA on... 8chan (UP: website linked to multiple mass shootings) READ THREADMARKS
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Well, yes, big companies giving visibility to child porn hubs does make me angry. I'm such a horrible person.
But please, do continue defending child porn. Makes you look real smart.
I hope he goes all in and brings up the content they contributed to and everyone involved. Knowing Jim that should be a decent bet.
Can't speak for others but the issues I personally have with the article are, mainly:
- No mention of the THQ representatives' joking responses to presented with homophobic and pedophilia-related images and memes. Indeed, no mention of the latter's presence at all.
- No mention of the overwhelming proof invalidating THQ's claim of it being a fuckup by a single PR person out of ignorance, like evidence that multiple people, including higher ups at THQ, were involved in the AMA, and the very tweet announcing the AMA being obviously aware of the controversy that it would spark.
- Implied acceptance of THQ's apology as sincere, as a result of both of the above lapses in providing the full picture, and the article ending right after presenting the apology with zero additional commentary.
- I'm also not buying the "nobody knows who THQ is and that's why we put 'video game publisher' in the title" excuse for one millisecond, sorry.
This is not what we've come to expect from Kotaku on these matters. It's not too late to update the article with the relevant information, but it's a really bad look when a thread by a fan in a message board is far more informative than an article on a dedicated professional videogame news site. To say I'm profoundly disappointed would be the understatement of the year.
I never understood why others get so pissy about others not wanting to buy a game.
I hope he focuses not so much on how this was stupid as on how insincere their excuses after the fact have been.
User banned (2 weeks) Inflammatory drive-by posting and trolling. History of related infractions.
Does THQ financially support 8chan (advertising, funding, etc) or did they just have a AMA on their site? If it's a one time thing, I'd be willing to turn a blind eye. Though, I don't really know anything about 8chan.
You're willing to turn a blind eye to the content they posted on the AMA itself? The posts with homophobic slurs and requests for underage sexualized girls in their games?
Oh some outrage youtubers have made vids on this... Defending Nordic. That Quartering dude made a whole video brushing off the entire situation as faux Assjaywuwoyyu outrage and how it actually made the company way cooler. Beyond vile.
You think having an AMA on a site that hosts childporn (it has a toddlercon board ffs) besides an alt-right site and GG site would be okay for any company?
You can not dismiss this is ignorance. There is no legitimate reason to believe otherwise. The were greeted with "Heil Hitler", posted under banners advertising child porn anime, and consistently interacted with posters throwing around biggoted language.
You cannot say 'they didn't know beforehand' as an excuse for their behavior because they it was plastered everywhere as soon as they got there AND THEY REMAINED. You cannot say this is one person's fault because multiple people were in on it, including the upper echelon board members.
Labeling this as mere idiocy completely diminishes the the ongoing malicious bigotry they were conversing with and deplorable imagery they were surrounded by. That's not idiocy, that's contentment with malfeasance.
Stop. Defending. This. Behavior.
Stop. Dismissing. This. Incident.
It does not matter, surely your opinion is as valid as that of those who know more about the subject. Go deep.
/s
Posting a link to a site that aggregates child pornography is not something I would turn a blind eye to, but that's your business.
You know, you could have read the first page of this thread to at least have an idea what 8chan is before posting such a dumb post.
Good job I posted a summary of what 8chan is about then.
New page, new reminder of who THQ Nordic are supporting for people entering the thread and somehow unaware of why people are mad.
Note that I say THQ Nordic, and not just "THQ Nordic's PR guy", because multiple people were taking part, including a member of their upper management, and their CEO currently seems okay with letting things blow over with no consequences. If you want to read more into what THQ Nordic actually did, please read this great summary: https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...read-threadmarks.102061/page-67#post-18334080
I'll also quote this great summary for good measure:
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/
1) The thread title tells you to read threadmarks. There you will find an excellent summary on this whole fiasco, including details explaining why 8chan is the worst of the worst. Putting in even the slightest bit of effort is not asking for much.
2) You know what I generally don't do? I don't normally wander into long threads and drop a hot take without having already informed myself of the basics.
3) No, you should not turn a blind eye on them for this stunt. They knowingly and with full intent went out of their way to directly link to and go on a banned website notorious for extreme racism, homophobia, white supremacy, doxxing and child porn to host an AMA with the regulars despite the fact they were inundated with messages on the lines of Heil Hitler and homophobic slurs. They knowingly dove right into the sewage and happily frolicked around in the shit and you expect reasonable people to buy that they did this out of ignorance and this was all just an ignorant error.
I guess anything can happen, but it seems there will be no consequences internally or externally. Especially given the positions of the people involved, a full housecleaning seems unlikely. I do hope posters mention their involvement in OT's to help me avoid accidentally giving them money. I just don't want anything to do with them.
after G*G* I just don't expect market consequences for anyone who enables or ignores this kind of behavior. Disappointing but I guess it is what it is
after G*G* I just don't expect market consequences for anyone who enables or ignores this kind of behavior. Disappointing but I guess it is what it is
Exactly, it's such a shame that some idiot higher ups decided to do this. :(
I'm sure they are making CGI trailers for Timesplitters to make everyone happy.
Impressive, and on a week that has brought two of his favorite topics, YouTube censorship and slagging off Nintendo, together in a neat package. Good stuff.
Maybe you should understand what 8chan is before you decide you're ok with it.
Not sure why you think you can make any sort of judgement call on something you don't understand.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that they'll pull a CD Projekt and eventually quietly fire at least the PR guy.
But that's no reason to quietly sit, wait and expect that to happen. Especially since THQ has done the opposite of indicate that they have any such plans. Or any plans at all, for that matter, beyond retaining radio silence on the matter.
When the CEO decided to make a comment to media, he pointed at the Twitter apology and said that's their comment.
That false, bad apology and the CEO's "eh..." is all they're going to say by the looks of things. Because they certainly want this to blow over from a PR perspective. There is negative reason for why people on the outside should let it.
But that's no reason to quietly sit, wait and expect that to happen. Especially since THQ has done the opposite of indicate that they have any such plans. Or any plans at all, for that matter, beyond retaining radio silence on the matter.
When the CEO decided to make a comment to media, he pointed at the Twitter apology and said that's their comment.
In that apology it's implied that the PR guy will stick around.
That false, bad apology and the CEO's "eh..." is all they're going to say by the looks of things. Because they certainly want this to blow over from a PR perspective. There is negative reason for why people on the outside should let it.
I just report em and move on. It's disingenuous as hell when people pop up in this long ass thread, skip the OP, then comment about how they don't know what something is.
This is the biggest question mark for me.
Reddit would be a bigger audience and AMAs on the site are common enough to have their own structure, format and norms.
The only thing I could come up with is that the person was legitimately a fan/poster/user of 8chan boards.
I did not. The behaviour in the AMA is absolutely baffling. But I explicitly stated that it was the action of a few people, not one person's fault. What I did say, however, that it was not the action of everyone working for or involved with THQ Nordic. Which I think is important when deciding whom to hold accountable for what happened.
The behaviour was definitely baffling. Especially in the face of what was going on in that AMA. But that does not rule out idiocy, because idiocy too can lead to baffling behaviour. I would argue that it does more often than not. However, I am not trying to explain what happened in that AMA, because it is beyond me, especially the joining of higher-ups and how this whole thing came to be in the first place.
I am not.
I am not. You, stop antagonizing me because I am not joining your level of condemnation. I think the people responsible should be held accountable. But I also think the people not responsible should not get caught up in the crossfire as well.
What is probably still more flabbergasting for me is that large parts of the gaming press treat this like "just a thing that happened". Like, even sites you would expect better from, especially because they had dealings with Gamergate in the past. Like, what in the actual flying fuck? If this gets passed without anything happening I don't want to hear any whining about the videogame audience being more right-leaning or "Gamerz having a bad reputation".
Kudos to Patrick Klepek though.
Kudos to Patrick Klepek though.
It's not that strange. This was a deliberate attempt to court the shitlord gamergate audience. A reddit AMA wouldn't signal that support because it's the thing everyone does.
And unless the pressure mounts to the point that they can't just try to ignore what happened, this will end up being a net win for them. If they can lay low they might be able to get the community at large to forget the "reaching out to a child porn hub" thing, while the people they wanted to court will absolutely remember their outreach to them.
They were possibly using this as a tool to recruit supporters.
That's how I see it, too. They knew what the place was.
If it was about reach, there were many other platforms that were not banned by Google for probable child abuse.
My level of condemnation is that this was not merely idiocy; it was wholesale acceptance of bigotry perpetrated by multiple people within the company, going all the way up to the leadership. They delved into it gleefully, surrounded themselves by it, and participated in conversations with it. Full stop.
Racism, misogyny, and other forms of deplorable behavior are routinely dismissed as "idiocy" or "mental illness".
Call. It. What. It. Is.
It. Is. Bigotry.
No one is blaming the entirety of the company, so your false equivalencies of such are misplaced. The actions of "a few people" that include the highest levels of leadership being at fault are absolutely worthy of condemnation targeting the company as a whole. That's precisely the responsibility of those in leadership positions - they represent their company. Condemning the company for its leadership's actions is not targeting "the people not responsible" or letting them "get caught up in the crossfire as well." It's the appropriate action against the company the leadership represents.
You say you're not trying to explain what happened, but you're going out of your way to diminish the reprehensible nature of embracing that website.
I'm probably reaching but don't white supremacist nazis kinda love Nordic themes and art, tattoos and such because you know white and blonde I presume. Maybe a connection there.
Please read my post to you where I tried to explain the whole event, then you might understand why people are angry enough at the whole thing to start coming across like that.
We've also had multiple burner accounts enter the thread with "I can't see the big deal guys", so people are becoming more defensive by default. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt so I put all the information you need right there: https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...ead-threadmarks.102061/page-106#post-18395789
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Doing it this way did lead to a Darksiders 3 screenshot to show up on the front page of Washington Post's Technology section. And most people reading this stuff probably default to giving the benefit of the doubt and don't care much about practicing ethical consumerism.
I'd like to know where we draw the line as far as entering related threads and posting 'disclaimers' about how THQ endorses and promotes racism and child pornography:
1. Will any game published or developed by the following companies receive said disclaimer?
- Black Forest Games
- Bugbear Entertainment
- Experiment 101
- Foxglove Studios
- Grimlore Games
- HandyGames
- Mirage Game Studios
- Pieces Interactive
- Rainbow Studios
- Deep Silver
- Including any game with the Sega or Atlus flag in Europe, as Deep Silver distributes all Sega & Atlus games in Europe
- Saints Row, Shenmue 3, Metro, etc.
- Anything published by Koch who is now wholly owned by THQ Nordic
- https://www.kochmedia.com/us/software
- KOCH MEDIA IS THE NUMBER ONE RETAIL DISTRIBUTOR OF DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCTS IN EUROPE"
This is a very murky subject. I don't think some of you are prepared for how far down this rabbit hole goes, if you are indeed serious about following through with boycotts and 'this game is related to a company that supports pedophilia' tags. I would expect consistency if that is the road you all would like to travel.
The lackluster response of the gaming press to this is ridiculous.
They jump up to defend companies from "entitled" gamers who have a negative opinion on a companies decision and write a dozen articles in defense of said company...
And when there is a company getting into the bed with a CP-site, they are mostly silent.
They jump up to defend companies from "entitled" gamers who have a negative opinion on a companies decision and write a dozen articles in defense of said company...
And when there is a company getting into the bed with a CP-site, they are mostly silent.