Just Another Extremely Normal Day in the Video Gaming World

It’s definitely not every day when a video game publisher has the shimmering galaxy brained idea of hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on 8chan, of all the godforsaken places on the internet. But that’s precisely what the geniuses at THQ Nordic did this afternoon, after enthusiastically teasing it on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/THQNordic/status/1100449137294786561

It didn’t take long for the saner users of the social media platform to call them out on having a friendly Q&A session on a forum that hosts child pornography, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other grotesque crap I’d rather not mention here. The community was created to host and members content banned from 4chan — 4chan! — of all places.

When it started, several people assumed they must have been hacked, because no company would willingly associate themselves with a community blacklisted from Google’s search results due to objectionable content. This hypothesis started fizzling when codes were being provided in the AMA thread, and vanished when gaming press members confirmed that the company’s PR approved of this. Amazing.

It was bad enough when gaming companies took a cowardly approach to addressing harassment issues among gaming communities, something they once again did for a conveniently-timed Washington Post article about the problem. But it was mind-blowing to see one an organization that wasn’t an indie studio embrace a community stuffed with some of the worst people on the internet by far.

https://twitter.com/THQNordic/status/1100456177031356416

After realizing how badly they screwed the pooch, the company posted a series of tweets apologizing for the entire idea. Everything’s going swimmingly when you have to convince justifiably-befuddled onlookers that, actually, you don’t support white supremacy or pedophilia. They also claimed this was done without “due diligence to understand the history and the controversy of the site.” Like, get real here; there are quite a few reasons to think this is total crap.

All it takes is a quick search to see what 8chan is all about. Even though the site is banned from Google, the first result upon searching for it with their engine is a Wikipedia article explaining its origins, which is why it’s tough to believe they didn’t know what they were getting into. It’s hard not to open a thread on the board without knowing exactly why it exists, something I absolutely don’t recommend doing. Two of the PR specialists for THQ Nordic were also enthusiastically addressing comments about not making games appealing to anyone who likes social justice issues (abbreviated as “SocJus”) and, uh, stuff about “big tiddie lolis.” The thread they posted in started with someone uploading an image of a naked little anime girl and someone saying “Heil Hitler.” Really, fantastic stuff all around.

To no surprise, Waypoint’s Patrick Klepek reported that developers are pissed off about this. Even after the “apology,” they won’t be okay with working for a company that cozies up with neo-Nazis and pedophiles, but they may not have any other job opportunities.

In a normal industry or in a normal time, we would have already started hearing about a company cleaning out the PR department following such an intensely inane move. That we haven’t says a lot about them and how they think their intended audience will react. It’s nice that THQ Nordic has inherited their predecessor’s penchant for PR disasters, but this is a new low.

Today in "Places we didn't expect to hear the Sonic 2006 soundtrack": https://t.co/BKN5abp0gt

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) February 26, 2019

P.S. In another very normal incident: The Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account had a cozy tweet to address newly-elected Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro, who used music from the disastrous Sonic the Hedghehog 2006 reboot for a propaganda video. Bolsonaro, by the way, is a noted racist and homophobe who’s openly expressed his desire to return the country to a murderous military dictatorship, and has wasted no time oppressing Brazilian minorities since assuming the office. This is quaint compared to THQ Nordic’s stunt, but still, it’s another nice acknowledgement of the great times we live in.