Double Helix QA Lead Uses Anti-Gay Epithet To Lash Out At Game Media Sites
There's trouble a brewing over at Double Helix Studios (Silent Hill: Homecoming) where QA Lead Guy Selga has landed in hot water for calling gaming media sites "F*gs." The trouble started when Eurogamer was reported to have changed a review score for Grand Slam Tennis. Originally the outlet gave it a 5/10 and then after discovering that the Wii Motion Plus worked differently on Wii dev kits, went back and changed the score to an 8 out of 10. This apparently infuriated Selga, causing him to Twitter (this version is censored, the original was not):
"Eurogamer magically changes review score. All these f*gs are the same. F*ck #Kotaku, #Joystiq, #Gamespot, etc."
This is just sad and yet somehow not terribly surprising. Outbursts like this happen fairly frequently in the games industry albeit without the anti-gay slurs. For an industry that wants desperately to be taken seriously, there are a lot of folks working in it that have not yet reached a level that they deserve such treatment. It's precisely people like Selga that are holding the industry back. Perhaps some day these folks will learn to keep their mouths shut and not post their feelings to a social network where everyone is sure to see it and report on it. I spoke with Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski who responded with a Tweet of his own (His Tweet: "When you're a QA Lead at Double Helix climbing the corporate ladder, it helps not to call media outlets 'f*gs'") agrees:
"This industry is made up of lots of different people and organizations. If you're lucky enough to get on the inside, that tweet he wrote is almost the perfect example of something one should think long and hard about before posting."
I can only hope that swift action is taken against this employee of a company where I happen to know there are GLBT employees. I would be curious to hear their take on this.
Gaming sites called "f*gs" by Double Helix QA Lead [The Examiner]
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 25 June 2009
· Comments (27)
Other stuff like this: double helix, twitter
The similiarities between this tweet and that of an emo high school kid are astounding to behold.
I hope he gets punished for making his company look bad, if not for being offensive and disgusting.
I'm offended that we weren't included in his #tags. I mean, if you're going to be ignorant and biggoted, at least direct your idiocy to the proper places. But I guess I can't expect someone who actually uses that word to be smart enough to direct it correctly.
As for his actual complaint, none of those other sites have even reviewed the game yet, much less changed review scores for it. I'm just not sure what he's trying to get at.
This is the sort of thing that annoys the fuck out of me. I didn't trash his company's game nor hurt his feelings, and yet "fags" are all alike? Whenever a friend uses the term "gay" as a slur around me I stop them, and ask what whatever it is they're whining about has to do with ME. "Well, nothing." "Oh good, so you're just casually suggesting something you dislike is gay, like me, for no reason?"
I know there are a lot of less than socially aware people out there that feel that using the word "fag" or "gay" as the ultimite insult to masculinity but they've got another thing coming if they expect me to be in on the so called joke. I think long and hard about where to put my money when it regards this sort of thing. Its sub moronic.
I got a reply from Selga on Twitter just now:
"@Duckols Sorry. You're right, it was very irresponsible and childish of me."
Doesn't make it ok, just giving the update.
Sorry everyone. It was very childish of me. I am extremely sorry for how I said it.
Posters on Destructoid.com are spewing hate too. One thinks it's okay to call someone "f*g" because he didn't really mean in the "gay" way. These are the same people who mean gay as "bad."
I, for one, will not be purchasing any games made by Double Helix until this asshole is canned.
I'm with Eagle88 on this one Silent hill can remain silent in the closet as far as i'm concerned now.
I am reaching out to their corporate office regarding this. My experience in the past has been positive with video game companies responding to our concerns, but every company is different. =-)
I'll be sure to add another comment if I hear back or if we issue any sort of action alert to help Double Helix understand that this type of behavior is unacceptable.
Thank you to GayGamer.net for posting this and in doing so bringing it to our attention - please keep up the great work!
-Greg Varnum
Executive Director, National Youth Advocacy Coalition
It's still okay to get Shattered Memories because it's developed by Climax. :-)
Shame on GayGamer for - once again - taking things out of context and using this website to leverage action against items taken out of context.
Ever been on Xbox Live, or played a PC game online? The word fag is thrown around like the word "idiot" and "asshole", sometimes even with respect and adulation. Nobody can argue that saying such things can be and often is offensive, but to automatically jump to the 'anti-gay' argument is absurd and, to be fair, homophobic.
This guy is an idiot, but have you ever considered his point of view? How irresponsible, juvenile, and unprofessional these blogs and websites are? That his livelihood can be affected (certainly his developer bonus) by uneducated reviews that are lower than they should be? Why not advocate that instead of calling him a homophobe?
Again, he's a tool for saying what he said, but that doesn't excuse your judgmental and overly hurtful assumptions. The community already has an unfair opinion that gays are overly judgmental, quick to drama, etc. STOP proving them right, please.
Just STOP, OK? This is something I would expect from those idiots at Kotaku.
Figures that a straight guy (Super Duper) just wouldn't get it. Don't get me wrong, a number of my best friends are straight, but in the US, f*g is as offensive to many gays as n**&^r is to many african americans. So dude, chill the fuck out and take a lesson that that word is as off limits to you as a straight guy as the other word is off limits to me as a white guy.
Super Duper, you know what? Saying that XBox live is a regular prade of jerks droping the f and n bombs doesn't prove your point, it proves ours. There's a reason I and many other people I know don't play a lot of Xbox live games and you've touched on it. Creating environments where certian people feel like "idiots" just for existing isn't fun or funny. Using words to disempower happens all the time, but using words that disempower an aready disenfrahchised group? Thats the textbook definition of "slur". Comparing "fags" to "idiots" and "assholes" is not defamitory how exactly? And for the record "everybody else does it" is a really trite rationalization that never serves to make bad behavior right.
If we're to go back to the case in point, this guy's point of view had nothing to do with gaygamer.net or us until he made it so. I didn't rate his game negativley so I'd appreciate it if in the future he took his frustrations out on the right targets.
SuperDuper:
You can mean "Fag" in a nonhomophobic way, in the same way you can show a picture of the whitehouse with a bunch of watermellons in a nonracist way.
Please stop apologizing for homophobia.
Regardless of whether "fag" is necessarily a homophobic insult (it is), this kind of language is completely unprofessional, and Double Helix should think about why they have such a liability on their payroll.
Super Duper said:
"This guy is an idiot, but have you ever considered his point of view? How irresponsible, juvenile, and unprofessional these blogs and websites are? That his livelihood can be affected (certainly his developer bonus) by uneducated reviews that are lower than they should be? Why not advocate that instead of calling him a homophobe?"
I can almost see where you're coming from with this, but there are a few issues.
1. He was complaining about Eurogamer *raising* the review score of a game, which according to your reasoning would make a developer happy, not upset.
2. The game in question was Grand Slam Tennis from EA, which Double Helix had no involvement in, nor do they have a game that would be competing with it, so it isn't a review which directly concerns him nor his livelihood in any way.
3. He then lashed out at Kotaku, Destructoid, and Joystiq saying that they were all the same as Eurogamer, even though none of those other sites have reviewed Grand Slam Tennis yet, much less change the score of that game's review.
If he were an EA employee, and Eurogamer had lowered the score of the game, then I could understand being upset. But even then, there is no reason that he should be using that kind of hateful language. If he used it without specifically meaning "gay" then I see that as even worse, because regardless of what he means, the word still means that and will be interpreted by people that way. Anyone that loosely throws around words like that deserve whatever's coming to them.
Wait, seriously?
Who cares? People say stupid things all the time. I'm sure 99% of you have said stupid things you don't mean in your life.
You all have way too much time on your hands. Get off the Internet.
Hate to break it to you, Missy, but the world, quite obviously doesn't work that way. "You say something I don't like or can't comprehend , so get off the internet?" And you have the gall to make it sound like we're being the irrational ones. Nobody's wishing this guy off the internet, in case you hadn't noticed. We're simply stating that its not cool or fun to be called fags. I don't have to like being called a faggot by him or anybody else as much as I dislike being called a nigger on Xbox live and nothing you can say in two sentences of sub par non apology for absolutley stupid behavior is going to change that.
Though I think everyone agrees that the guy in question said a "stupid" thing, I'm finding it really odd the reaction of people on the other side of this non-argument.
Missy and Super Duper pretty much say "He said something stupid, but lots of other people do. and wait, you really shouldn't care."
Whats odd about this is, we're just having a discussion on a message board, about the topic, not protesting in the streets, not conducting an angry letter writing campaign. Just discussing the article. Its somehow our fault the guy decides to use the word fag? Its our faults we don't laugh it off? The blame in this case lies squarely on the moron with the twitter account and you're ridiculous if you think I'm going to feel responsible for it just by proxy of being gay. If he happens to get in trouble over this, it has nothing to do with me, or anyone here.
And "us people" have "too much time on our hands"? Do I come to your message boards and chastize you for having an opinion I don't agree with? Pot, meet kettle. And you forgive me if I fail to see how any of this is "our fault".
Let me set the record straight. I am not saying this man isn't an idiot.
I'm saying, there are more important things in the world to be concerned about than what some idiot says on TWITTER of all things.
I read the information on this site because it provides interesting information about video games. Not to dissect what some moron said on something as useless as his twitter page. It sounds exactly like what a bunch of other morons say on their twitter pages when they've had a few too many anyway.
Sure he is insensitive, but are people really talking about "boycotting" a whole company because of one stupid person's tweets? That sounds just as moronic.
All I am saying is, there is real news out there...the shit going down in Iran, the economy putting a bunch of businesses out of commission... that is worth more attention than this ignorant idiot.
And hey, if we're not gonna focus on world news, then for christ's sake, let's talk about video games.
"All I am saying is, there is real news out there...the shit going down in Iran, the economy putting a bunch of businesses out of commission... that is worth more attention than this ignorant idiot.
And hey, if we're not gonna focus on world news, then for christ's sake, let's talk about video games."
Ugh - this is a GAY site, asshat. We talk about homophobia in all it's incarnations. It does not detract from video games or Iran. You don't like, off to another post you go.
Missy, I have to ask you...
Why, oh why, would a website dedicated to gay players of video games want to talk about the war in Iran? If you want 'news of the world', then wouldn't it make better sense to go to a site that had...you know...NEWS OF THE WORLD?! I get bombarded by that information all day long. I play games (and visit this site) for a brief rest from those topics.
So, gaygamers...what's next on the agenda? Global warming? Whether France should ban the burka or not? Has NASA outlived it's usefulness? Should churches that promote political adgendas be made to pay taxes?
I'm not saying these topics aren't interesting or important, but if gaygamer.net started writing articles about them, I'd be like WTF?
Strangely, I do agree with you about any potential 'boycott'...the company has sent out more than one apology, and has been very GLBT friendly in the past. One incident by one employee shouldn't call for unilateral action...that does look a tad petty, at least to me. Let's at least wait and see how they handle it before we break out the knives, hmm?
Oops! I shouldn't have said "war in Iran"...I could have said "election in Iran" or "war in Iraq"...so sorry! I'm not totally oblivious to what's going on, but perhaps I should preview my comments a bit more carefully.
Quickly sifting through his twitter and personal website, it's just full of profanity. Not just only by name calling, but his whole attitude in general is totally unprofessional. Is this what Double Helix wants to be representative of?
There's no point apologizing because it's just totally uncalled for. No accidents, intentions are all there.
To Super Duper's reply, if "f*g" is thrown around as a synonym to stupid online, does it make it justifiable to use "ch*nk", "j*w", "n*gg**"? Because I'm pretty those words are used quite often on Xbox Live just as much. With the gay community getting this pissed off already, imagine the flak he'd get if he used "n*gs".
We've all learned to ignore anon name-calling trolls online, but from a professional representative? That's just going too far.
Also, just something that this guy really doesn't give a shit about his choice of words, here's something from his personal blog [http://www.guyselga.com/].
"Sure you could be a fag and eat a granola bar or whatever. But does that granola bar have a Raiders logo on it?"
"I guess im just weird like that. Do they need to make the can so faggy?"
I mean, come on, that ain't cool.
I know this is sort of old news by now, but I only recently caught wind of the news of Guy's tweet. I know Guy. I used to sit right across from him. He's actually pretty stand up dude, and this was obviously poor judgment on his behalf. I feel pretty bad for him, I know what it's like to say something stupid that you don't really mean, and have it bite you in the ass later. But I want to say that his views and comments are definitely in NO way representative of Double Helix Games. I would hope you continue to make your purchasing decisions for their games based on your normal buying habits.