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Colin Clark

The video game sphere encompasses multitudes. And while we can easily turn away from some of the never ending flow of bigotry and hate that come out of the dregs of the culture, every once in a while, these pathetic hate-mongers affect people’s for real lively-hoods, and when this happens, it’s our prerogative to fight back. From gamer-gate in 2014 to the recent backlash against Sweet Baby inc. this year, right-wing incels have proven their love to do everything in their power to insure that the focus of media stays centered on cishet white men. And when it’s not, they cry about it.

The newest target of their vitriol is the Godot Engine, a free, open source, 2D and 3D game-dev engine used to make hits like Dome Keeper and Brotato among others. The team at Godot tweeted last week about their pride in the engine’s use in LGBTQ+ games, and the backlash from the terminally online came swiftly. They have started review-bombing Godot on their Steam page.

With an overall review rating of Very Positive, to a recent review rating of Mixed, the damage has been done. The people review-bombing the engine consistently have less than 30 minutes in the engine, just enough to be able to post a review. They cite Godot being “woke”. These losers have nothing better to do that spew hatred and bigotry. They’ve been influenced by the right-wing, and so called “role-models” like Andrew Tate, and they believe anything that isn’t centered on their culture and themselves is “the woke mind virus”. They view our mere existence as a queer community as a threat, so they cry about it online.

In instances like this Steam and other review congregates should step in and rectify the situation. We have the ability to block players in game, but they’re attempting to mess with real people’s real life income, and it’s our responsibility to do our part and counteract these reviews. If Steam won’t step in, then we can also open the app for 30 minutes and leave a positive review. I’m not one to put personal stake into companies or corporations, but when the cause is justified, it falls to us to fight back against bigotry and hatred whenever and wherever we can.

The correlation between being neurodivergent and being queer has become all too apparent, with a mountain of studies showing a link between the two – one study showing that gender queer folx have a three to six times higher likelihood of being autistic. When we fight for our rights as a neurodivergent community, we also fight for the rights of ourselves in the queer community and vice-versa. Unless we are all protected in who we are and how we express ourselves, none of us are protected. Intersectionality comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s on us to make sure we practice accordingly.

“Now,” you say, “doesn’t that mean these men have a right to express their views as reviews on Steam?” Apparently, Steam thinks so. But that also means our voices have a right to be heard. Whatever the opposite of review bombing is, it’s our turn to enact. If all it takes is 30 minutes of “play time” to be able to review Godot, then why not fight fire with fire? We won’t stand down, and we won’t let hatred win. If you see this kind of backwards vitriol out there, be sure to report it, and do your part to counteract it. It’s easy, but it takes all of us.