This Was Never About Anything Other Than Hate

On July 23, in response to the ongoing backlash against a Black lead character in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows, developer Ubisoft released a lengthy statement. The responses on X (formerly Twitter) were exactly what you’d expect: racist images, slurs, and calls for historical accuracy in a video game series that has always been steeped in science fiction. An unpublished community note (a feature frequently used by users to “add context” to posts) reads “Assassin’s Creed N***** Squire.”

A fledgling but ferociously loud group of gamers will tell you the Assassin’s Creed Shadows backlash is about respecting Japanese culture or refusing to accept “woke ideologies” that are being “forced into their games” by consulting groups who hold no real power. But just like in 2014, during the first full-throated iteration of GamerGate, this was never about anything other than hate.

The internet is a powerful place, an in-between world in which imagery and rhetoric can be weaponized to such an extent it bleeds into real life (“from the wires to the weeds,” as the 2022 book Meme Wars says). In 2014, a misogynistic movement demanding “ethics in games journalism” broke gaming containment with such ferocity that politicians took note. Steve Bannon, the former chief political strategist for President Donald Trump, told author Joshua Green that he “realized [former Breitbart technology consultant Milo Yiannopoulus] could connect with these kids right away…You can activate that army. They come in through GamerGate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump.”

Harnessing that power forever changed the landscape of mainstream politics. Many believe it directly led to both Trump securing the election in 2016 and the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021. Part of what ensures this “army” remains active is consistently feeding them things they should be outraged about—for Trump and his ilk it was a veritable laundry list of perceived problems that only he could fix: immigrants (“rapists”), taxes (a break for billionaires), transgender people (a Title IX rollback), abortion (ban it), and more. There is always something to be up in arms about, always something to ensure you are scared, angry, concerned, and ready to do whatever it takes to get him re-elected.

The reactionary right wing movement in gaming that has reared its ugly head yet again is no different, and it’s happening right now for a reason. Sociocultural issues are reaching a fever pitch in an election year, and just like ten years ago, political ire is bleeding into popular culture, where it has been seized upon by those looking to take advantage of naive, impressionable young men who are shunned in public but lauded (and even loved) online. There are countless studies and stories proving that the radicalization of male youth has been propped up and perpetuated by the internet; go read them, as they’ll convince you far more effectively than I can. But what I can say, especially having faced this ire ceaselessly for months, is that this kind of movement is fueled by nothing but hate.

It’s a special brand of hatred, as a sort of backwards-logic boomerang careening through the air on its way back from progress. Since its inception, gaming as a cultural space was largely dominated by white boys and men—you had to have a certain amount of wealth and free time to even partake in it, and those were not readily available to marginalized groups in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Marketing and the designs of games aimed at boys increasingly fueled the widespread perception that this hobby was exclusively for them, to the point where many girls with an interest in it were met with parental resistance and cultural shunning. I myself only forged ahead in gaming after my parents refused to keep feeding into a “boy hobby” because I could afford to buy an Xbox 360 with my summer job money, and my story is not unique.

Eventually, a substantial number of women, queer folks, and minorities got jobs in the video game industry as developers, social media managers, community organizers, journalists, and more. The rise of indie games opened up the floor for more unique approaches to game development, more diverse schools of thought, more genre-bending titles that defied definition. Largely thanks to the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, bad actors were held accountable for perpetuating antiquated ideologies or antisocial behaviors against marginalized folks in gaming. It was a fight to get to even a somewhat level playing field, but it felt like we had nearly gotten there.

But that’s when the reactionaries come in. A rumor first spun in the darker corners of the internet gains traction and jumps to the mainstream and all attempts to debunk it are met with accusations of conspiracy. It gains more traction. Elon Musk posts about it. The men who were first ringing the reactionary bell see dollar signs thanks to the monetization of virality perpetuated by Musk, by YouTube, by Facebook, and they want more. More eyeballs equals more money, and you can’t get eyeballs if you’re not stoking the flames of hatred—people need to stay angry, stay scared, stay uncertain of their future, so that they can continue to look to you for answers—except you won’t provide any. Your goal is to ensure that rage continues, and solving those problems means robbing the fire of gasoline.

So, this week it was Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Before that it was a content warning added to a Capcom game. Before that it was the perceived failure of Flintlock. Before that it was a female lead in a Star Wars game not being hot enough. Before that it was a Black lead in a Star Wars show merely existing. Before that it was the way characters in Concord looked. Before that it was a trans voice actor in the Final Fantasy XIV expansion. Before that it was Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disneyworld. Before that it was Lara Croft’s jawline. Before that it was Dungeons & Dragons’ orcs going woke. Before that it was gameplay strategies in Elden Ring. Before that it was romance options in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Before that it was Jean Grey in the upcoming Wolverine game. Before that it was trans flag cosmetics in Call of Duty. Before that it was “DEI” wording in a Nintendo job posting. Before that it was a woman journalist reporting on the workplace environment at the studio behind Black Myth: Wukong. Before that it was “removing the butt” from The Boys’ Firecracker in Warzone. Before that it was politics in Helldivers 2. Before that it was “race-swapping” comic book characters. Before that it was (another) jawline in the Perfect Dark remake. Before that it was female custodes in Warhammer. All of this manufactured rage has been rammed down the throats of impressionable young people in just the last 45 days alone.

There will never be a shortage of hate for them to spread. The only way forward is a full-throated denouncing of bad actors in the video game space from the biggest names in the business, the largest companies in this industry—not a bizarre, ham-handed statement that will lend credence to their baseless bullshit, that implies that their arguments are rooted in logic when hate itself is illogical. As Aftermath’s Gita Jackson wrote: “Racism isn’t a logical position, so you cannot defeat it with logic. Facts just don’t matter to a racist, especially not the tedious kind of racist who makes their home in video game culture. There will always be a new hair to split.”

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