Of Penny Arcade

Normally I confine the blog to matters of AGS, but this is important and possibly some who read this blog have opinions on the matter.

Penny Arcade is a web comic. Not one I follow regularly, but they achieved some fame in the adventuring world by having a couple of somewhat-adventurery games created by Hothead Games (they who used to employ Ron Gilbert).

Also Penny Arcade expo (PAX) has become a popular place for games to be presented with attendees like AGSers Deirdra Kiai and Dave Gilbert.

It's a long story what has happened. In short: Penny Arcade offended a rape survivor and then mocked them and fans of the comic made death threats to the people who said this was bad. It has all escalated and got very nasty and Penny Arcade have made a number of grudging non-apologies, of which the last was the closest to an actual apology.

The problem isn't really the original comic, its the response and the rape culture that surrounds it, belittling rape as a joke, using it a a metaphor. To maybe give some idea of the deal: its would be like a politician calling a Jewish person a Nazi.

Over on IGN there's a blog from a presenter at PAX who has decided not to go because of this. I think there will be perhaps a very different atmosphere at future PAXen because of all this, and I'd encourage anyone who looks at Arthur's article to consider their own position if they are thinking of attending PAX.