How the gaming industry reacted to #BlackLivesMatter

Leigh Milner has the latest. 

Black Lives Matter protests have been taking place around the world, after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

And the world of gaming has been reacting in different ways…

Infinity Ward has announced it will be trying harder to ban racist names from its Call of Duty games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, including permanent bans for repeat offenders. They’ve also released a message supporting Black Lives Matters, which shows every time you start up the game. 

The indie gaming website itch.io… which has featured on this podcast before, released a gaming bundle of more that 1 thousand 7 hundred games… which you could download for a minimum donation of $5... the money went towards funding the Black Lives Matter movement. In 10 days they raised more than 8 million dollars.

Rockstar Games shut down access to Grand Theft Auto Online, and Red Dead Online for two hours “to honor the legacy of George Floyd”... and many other games companies posted their own tributes… 

However, as we record this podcast… several indie developers have removed their games from Steam to protest against Valve's lack of support for the Black Lives Matter movement… with one developer... Julian Glander… saying "Over the past few weeks, Steam and Valve have chosen not to address the Black Lives Matter movement, failing to make even a broad and generic statement about racial justice" 

Finally, Sony delayed the reveal of the Playstation 5 originally scheduled for June 4th… saying they did not feel it was “a time for celebration”.