ESA condemns industry death threats

It should come as no surprise to anyone, that while there might still be a lot of arguing back and forth about what the recent GamerGate debacle is about, who's fault it is and if anything of use will actually come of it, that the legitimately scary death threats being sent out to some people are not supported by anyone. People have been driven from their homes, forced to pull out from public speaking events and even had to worry about close relatives being targeted – and now the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has released a statement condemning the actions of those few, threatening individuals.

“Threats of violence and harassment are wrong. They have to stop. There is no place in the video game community-or our society-for personal attacks and threats,” it said in response to a GamesIndustry communiqué. 

The ESA is made up of a number of industry groups, including developers like Epic, Capcom, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive and publishing giants like Nintendo, Microsoft, Blizzard, EA and many more. Considering its prominence in the industry and as a big representative of it in the US especially, it will be interesting to see if it takes a firmer stance and attempts to paint gaming in a better light than a vocal minority have as of late.

A lot of gamers of course would rather the whole GamerGate fiasco would just go away. Clearly though some people aren't done with it yet, as the latest round of commentary about it comes from the fact that Anita Sarkeesian was forced to pull out of a talk at Utah State University after someone threatened the “deadliest school shooting in American history,” stating plans to shoot Sarkeesian herself and everyone in attendance.

The police were asked to perform a firearms check of those attending, but due to concealed carry laws they said that it wouldn't be possible.

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KitGuru Says: Whatever stance you take on the whole GamerGate… thing, I think we can all agree that threatening to murder a bunch of students because you don't want someone to say something you disagree with, makes you the bad guy.

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