Ion Fury Devs Accused of Transphobia for Opinions and Criticisms Posted to 3D Realms’ Public Discord

Voidpoint, the developers behind the recently released 90s FPS homage video game Ion Fury, have come under fire after comments made by team members criticizing transgenderism and social justice ideology were discovered on the 3D Realms Discord server.

The comments were first brought to attention by a user on the ResetERA forum who claimed to not “want potential scumbags to be supported” and claimed that the screenshots provided were proof of the rampant transphobic beliefs held by the developers. The quotes presented by ResetERA were attributed to numerous devs on the 3D Realms Discord server, as a blue-colored username on the server signifies that a respective user is a member of the Ion Fury dev team. However, the views held by the Ion Fury devs were not as dire as ResetERA had depicted them, with many of the cited comments criticizing the more radical and hypocritical elements of social justice-based progressivism:

“Terminx: there is no feminist slant in this game though

Terminx: some of them are f****** nuts.

I’ve heard stories of them getting pissed at people on twitter and tumblr and “doxxing” them and trying to get them fired from their jobs and s***

What kind of crazy person decides to ruin your life because they disagreed with you on the internet?

Like what the fuck

Terminx: something I don’t really understand about the social justice stuff is that they have stuff like the “slut walk” which I thought was about the right to not be harassed for how they dress but then if you portray women dressed the same way you get shit for it

Mblackwell: most SJWs are just angry people of any gender, sex, race, nationality, and age

Daedolon: the whole sjw concept is getting upset on behalf of other people

Someone says retarded and they jump in to claim it hurts someone

Because complaining on the internet feels good man”

Though the devs do comment on transgenderism, these comments appear to be discussing transgender topics and, again, criticizing radical elements of transgender discourse:

Terminx: @Sanael yeah if you’re trying to decide your child is trans at birth you have mental problems and probably shouldn’t be a parent

Daedolon: yes but mutilating a perfectly healthy body WHILE you have depression and other big mental issues won’t [cause suicides]?

Daedolon: [In response to the decision by the World Health Organization to stop classifying transgender individuals as mentally ill] does it mean that trans people just choose to be trans and there’s nothing in their heads?

Not sure if legit

The ResetERA thread lead to forum users and supporters taking to the Steam page for Ion Fury and attempting to change the overall review and rating score of the game by leaving negative reviews which cite the alleged transphobic beliefs held by Voidpoint. However, this campaign was met with a counter-campaign of users rushing to leave the game a positive review in order to spite ResetERA, which ultimately left the game reviews at Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive.

Hendricks266, another member of the Voidpoint team, would later respond to the backlash, claiming that the initial quotes lack context and noting that, while not on the level of bigotry faced by marginalized groups, the organized mob of ResetERA was “still bad”:

Hendricks 266: I don’t really agree with “letting others have their opinions”. If you’re a bigot, that is inherently bad.

The problem is that construing us as bigoted is a lie. All of the images shared in that thread have been stripped of their context that may help others understand what the one-line posts may mean. Also, not all of our team are native English speakers which can lead to additional confusion.

[…]

Hendricks 266: I don’t agree that it’s on the same level as bigotry. It’s still bad, but at the end of the day the harm we devs face as a result of this mob-type action is nothing compared to what marginalized groups face on a day-to-day basis.

The claim that the quotes lacked context was also echoed on Voidpoint’s official Twitter account, in response to users repeating the initial ResetERA accusations:

Ultimately, Voidpoint would issue a statement to Game Informer apologizing for the language used by their team and noting that they will be patching Ion Fury to “remove all unacceptable language.”

“Members of Voidpoint’s Ion Fury team have made sexist and transphobic comments, and included homophobic language in Ion Fury. We recognize these statements are insensitive, unacceptable, and counterproductive to causes of equality. We unequivocally apologize both for these comments and language as well as for any pain they have caused the gaming community, particularly women and members of the LGBTQ community. We take full responsibility for any damage that has been done to the relationships we’ve worked so hard to build.

Moving forward, Voidpoint will institute a zero-tolerance policy for this type of language and all employees and contractors will undergo mandatory sensitivity training.  As part of our efforts to contribute to the work that must be done to further support these communities, we are donating $10,000 from Ion Fury’s release day proceeds to The Trevor Project.  We are also patching Ion Fury ASAP to remove all unacceptable language.”

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