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A few weeks ago, THQ Nordic made a poor choice. The publisher of Switch games such as de Blob and Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy decided to host a question and answer session on the website 8chan. For those not in the know, 8chan is a website that frequently peddles racist propaganda and encourages discrimination. The internet was collectively aghast, and several gaming outlets took them to task for it. THQ Nordic defended their decision, claiming not to have known about 8chan’s history. They did eventually apologize for the decision, but THQ Nordic’s official Twitter account also “liked” several posts that showed solidarity with the publisher. Since that day, I have gone back and forth about whether or not to give their titles any future coverage.
Last week, one poster on 8chan went on a violent rampage that left 49 people dead at a pair of Mosques in New Zealand. Several 8chan posters celebrated the event. While THQ Nordic could not have foreseen these shootings, nor could the developers working for them, they should have known the type of behavior they were silently endorsing. Today, as editor-in-chief of Nintendojo, I’m making the decision to halt any further coverage of THQ Nordic titles on this site for the foreseeable future.
This is not a decision I make lightly. Our readers come to this site to get the latest and greatest news, reviews and information on Nintendo-related games and products. That said, the Switch era has given us a plethora of games and publishers to cover. The eShop is so overfull at the moment that we are often forced to choose between which games to cover due to constraints related to time or cost. Covering THQ Nordic’s titles in the future would mean taking resources away from covering publishers that do not legitimize or excuse hate speech. I have no doubt that our site will still find plenty of other publishers and games to cover.
The coverage we have already given to previous THQ Nordic games will remain on the site. Deleting the reviews our team has conducted would be unfair to those who spent hours working on them and our readers that have used those reviews in order to make a decision on whether or not to purchase said games. As EIC, I am constantly looking for ways to improve Nintendojo and make it a more pleasant experience for the readers who continue to visit our site. Nintendojo is a site for everyone and I plan to keep it that way.
Thank you. These decisions are far from simple, but when it comes to violent discrimination, silence is endorsement. These aren’t problems that will go away if ignored, and I thank you for your decision not to ignore them.
Unacceptable elements of humanity have frenzied and run amok lately, too often without consequence. It’s up to each of us to create consequences.
Thank you for the kind words. This was not an easy call to make, and we do not hold anything against other outlets that will continue to cover THQ Nordic. But it was a chance for us to make our voices heard and, as a group, we feel it’s the right one moving forward.
First, let me say that the vile atoricities committed in New Zealand are inexcusable and cannot nor should not be defended. The loss of life from this event is a tragedy regardless of ones political views, nationality, or religion.
That said, I respectfully disagree with your reasoning. Companies interact with fans all the time. Sometimes that interaction is on a platform that other individuals use for hate speech. This is unfortunate, but unavoidable. Any company that has interacted with its fans through Twitter or Reddit has also used a platform that is routinely used to spread the worst kinds of speech imaginable. Does that mean we should boycott every company who has held an AMA on Reddit or responded to a tweet on Twitter?
THQ Nordic should not have used 8chan as the platform they interacted with their fans on. A cursory search should have been done to make sure that the company would not be hurt by its association with the platform. It was tone deaf and ill advised, something that THQ Nordic has admitted to now that it has been made aware of the nature of 8chan.
All I ask is that you don’t punish the readers of Nintendojo who look to this site for the excellent coverage it has given games in the past and will continue to give games in the future. Don’t punish them because of the appalling decisions of individuals and the flawed decisions of companies.