Gamer Girl was supposed to be a full-motion video (FMV) game developed by Wales Interactive and slated for release in September but appears to have been dropped by the publisher in the wake of growing backlash from the streaming community. All promotional material for the game has been pulled from the publisher’s website, the Google drive press kit, and from the publisher’s YouTube channel, though at the time of this writing, XboxViewTv still had the trailer up on their channel.
Gamer Girl sought to—according to the publisher—“raise the issue of the toxic environment which can often appear online behind the anonymity of a username.” Players were going to “moderate” the stream of fictional professional streamer ‘Abicake99’ as well as give advice to her as she deals with various types of harassment from her followers. Real-world female streamers were not happy about the premise of the game and took offense to the notion that anyone would make a game out of the very real trauma that can be inflicted by stalkers and fellow content creators.
According to gamesindustry.biz, neither Wales Interactive nor FMV Future—a core partner in the game—made any announcement of the withdraw, and simply removed all content related to the game’s release. Before the sudden removal, Wales Interactive attempted to defend the game by mentioning that it was developed to help raise awareness of a real problem, was co-written by lead actress Alexandra Burton, and consulted real streamers who shared their stories with the developers while the game was still in production.
Wales Interactive and FMV Future were reached for comment by a reporter at PC magazine regarding the decision to pull all marketing material, but it appears that they have yet to respond. This raises more questions as to whether the game will actually be released or if it has been decided to just let it fall away before there is more damage done to the overall reputations of both companies.
The concept of Gamer Girl could have gone one of two ways, but never shall the two meet. One the one hand, you could create a sort of interactive Blair Witch Project type of horror game in which you are following (and dictating) the decisions of the main character as they traverse their own personal hell, or you can make a statement on real abuse and what to do about it. Wales Interactive, based on the trailer, made a decision to mix the two concepts and of course, it comes off as insensitive profiteering instead of the thought-provoking commentary that they apparently think it is.
Gamer Girl—in pure theory—could be an important game and could start conversations about the abuse the women face in from anonymous creeps and fellow creators when they are simply trying to work, just like anyone else. However, this kind of game needs to be handled very delicately. It looks like Wales Interactive missed the mark on it. Hopefully, there is another side to all of this, but based on everything we have available, it may be best if this one falls to the wayside.
Source: Gamesindustry.biz
