Political Firings While Making Games | Games ReCaP

[Music] First up, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is at the top of everyone's news feed in the past couple weeks. This happened on September 12th, 2025 during a Q&A session at Utah. There's a lot of media outlet reporting devs from Bethesda, Epic Games, and Sucker Punch facing firing for celebrating the violence with over 200 listed by Charlie tweets detected across 20 plus studios. The most notable one is Sucker Punch's Drew Harrison, who is a 10-year veteran character artist who was firing for posting, "I'll do it again 100 times stronger after posting how violence against fascism is justified." Sonia's employer stated comments celebrating violence are unacceptable. Duh. Also letting go of many other artists for a similar issue. All right, first off,

guys. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, no judgment, let the guy get into the ground a bit before expressing these opinions about how violence is okay. So it is bizarre in a time where every studio in the game industry is looking for excuse any excuse to like even looking at them wrong or using too much toilet paper in the bathroom. This is a very volatile time in an industry and they're firing and letting go and laying off people because they need to. This is the year where they're still cutting down and still figuring things out. And you guys are kind of Oh, not you guys, right? But like people in industry are volunteering as tribute, giving another easy layup for people to fire you over. And of course, inciting

violence or okaying violence or affirming assassinations is probably not the best way to spend your time right now. How about just let it simmer a bit before talking about this stuff? Now, it is ironic that we're still in cancel culture like that. I do not like because we went through a similar problem a few years where speaking your mind did have a lot of consequences and I personally have been in workplace where it was getting very difficult talking about anything political or expressing an opinion and it was just let's put your heads down and work and the maybe at a workplace it's not time for those type of things. Maybe that should

be a general rule. I don't know. But now we're just seeing the other side of it and it's still the same thing. It's cancel culture. So, I don't know how I feel that this is still happening. However, I do think it is pretty insensitive to the family of Charlie Kirk or his friends, to anyone that the guy just got killed on pretty much live stream that is available forever on the internet and freshly days after having to view people celebrating your dad's death or your husband's death. I just feel like that's a line you should not step over. And it is pretty insane that people are doubling down, right? So, here's a clip from Bethesda, which is bizarre. Why don't you watch it for yourself?

Nice place. You don't care much about these fascists, do you? So, this is the Bethesda's official ex account using Indiana Jones that was recently released and posting about Good Kitty. This happened like a day or two right after the event which was deleted quickly with no specific comment. However, the internet never forgets, right? People saved that clip and is being replayed. And this is just a bizarre. First of all, who are these social media marketers who is in charge of the branding of the company and is allowed to have this much access to post these ridiculous things that have nothing to do with the game that they're working on or future announcement or the culture. And it's literally a personal expression on a company account, which is not okay. And it's just not a regular

employee. It's you're the marketing manager. So, someone who was in control of this was posting this willy-nilly, making a statement, which I think at a workplace, it's pretty unprofessional. First of all, you're representing a group of people and obviously that post was not a collection. They didn't have meetings over it. The CEO didn't give the thumbs up and there wasn't a plan of action that led to that event. So, someone just saw the event, used the company account to post something that they thought was funny, an assassination on live TV basically, and thought it was basically okay. Like, how much of a in a bubble do you have to be to go through

this line of thinking, right? forget the fact that wherever you stand on the political spectrum, just the fact that someone died, right? Just stand by that and posting something like this and thinking that it'll be okay and that you're going to get high fives and thumbs up, right? Maybe you will in in some pockets of it, but not the majority or overall the whole company. Obviously, the whole company didn't agree. They immediately deleted it. Pretty sure that person's fired or at least reprimanded. And Microsoft had all types of problems across the board. Like this was happening over and over. Microsoft again as a reminder is the leader of laying off people for the last two years. So this is just like whack-a-ole for them where they're, oh great, another excuse to fire someone else. So, I don't understand how when

the industry is so fragile right now and the people who are lucky enough to hold on to their jobs are spending their time disrespecting the people who don't have jobs spending this time on the job to do these type of things and basically doubling down and proud about this, right? It is it's not the time, man. We're here to ship games. We're in a place where I'm not saying to shut up, but in a way I am. It's like you're working at a place to make games. So make the games, right? Inciting violence is crazy. Am I the only one on this? Inciting violence on either side is crazy. And as the company, you're really not leaving the company to say anything else really. They have to at least review the case. There needs to be some kind of consequence. The only thing the silver

lining I see is that there is a consistency right where about cancel culture right now where a few years it was really one-sided and now we're seeing the other side of it. At the same time though I do hate the fact that people in their own personal time expressing opinions are being reprimanded. But I think in this case is a little different because it's literally they're celebrating violence which is I don't think it's the road that anybody wants to go down for the sake of what we're trying to do here. Even Epic Games saw some of this action. Tim Sweeney, some of his staff did that same thing and he had to defend them by clarifying against incitement. He posted a couple tweets and basically highlighting how the first amendment and

he wasn't sure exactly how did they go against it, right? His employees and then had to double down. He had to correct it for damage control most likely to clarify that he's not for violence but he is about defending staff freedom of speech, right? Which again, it's like not the time, guys. It's not the time. Tim Sweeney, he's protected. He's a made man. He runs the whole damn company, so he's fine. But setting an example is important. And when the whole industry is reacting pretty clearly about people expressing their opinions about this in a negative way that maybe you want to step back and see the bigger picture here. Right? So there's a lot of backlash to this and

the Drew Harrison is definitely his name his ex handle is Drew punching Nazi till I die which is pretty consistent and I guess that's his stance stuck by it even when there was a lot of backlash to him saying those things he doubled down so there is a respect right he didn't back down eventually after He got fired. He still gave Sucker Punch no ill will. Still saying that it's one of the last shining light of the industry, but still unapologetically stand by what he says, which is admirable in a way, but without a job. And he has that stigma and he becomes a liability anytime he applies. No matter how good you are at character art, right? There's a lot of character artists around right now. So, it's just a bizarre way to set yourself on fire

and smile about it. I was looking at the facts here. There's 15,000 jobs in 2025 alone that were cut, right? So, a lot of these companies are using these type of firings, controversy that's brewing up to downsize, right? And it is interesting to see how a person like Harrison or these devs are proudly standing by their views. These events lead to immediate job losses for these individuals involved. Damage to the reputation and to the careers. There is a chilling effect whether you stand on the left or right side of the issue on free speech within studios. It's always been an issue on the podcast. It's one of the main reasons I've started the podcast at the very beginning. It's called GameDev Unchained, right? Because the job really was restricting in your personal time.

Hobbies or passion projects outside of work was really restrictive even to a lot of degree. Now it's become a bigger problem. It hasn't really disappeared. But added on to that issue, people's social media is really monitored nowadays, it's become a real thing that outside of the office hours that your actions and how you behave outside of work hours and office premises, you're handcuffed to the job, right? And there real consequences to it. So, it is a pretty controversial issue that I got to talk to Ray about on our round table. Is that supposed to bounce ideas off and what does that mean? With team experience heightened survivor guilt, the people who still have those jobs have morality dips, right? Obviously, all your friends are getting fired and companies face

potential boycots or backlash from gamers, delaying projects as talent is disrupted, right? Overall, game projects are going to be pushed back. But in the long term, over the next three to five years, devs will be able to start monitoring and curate their online presence more carefully. It is a slap on the wrist in some regard to, hey, this is becoming a real thing. You guys need to be more careful about your online presence and seeking roles and values. Align studios are shifting to indie work. So you know that opens up more choices for you guys to look at other options right if these companies don't align with your views which is restricting right now man everyone's out there trying to look for any job that will accept them now you have to limit the bubble of that to to preferences right in the short term I don't see that happening in the long term maybe you guys will have more choices later the industry will be able will could see

stricter social media policy standardized is something that will be more clear. Got to read those new employee docs, right? I'm sure by now a lot of those contracts that you guys sign doesn't just state your salary and how happy you are, but they're going to probably have some, if not already, measures for social media presence about what you can or cannot do. Definitely recommend you guys to look at that more carefully. But this risk talent drained to less regulated markets like eastern regions right the more restrictive North America is which is what we're seeing with restriction there are limitation right the eastern companies Asia in particular even some of Europe won't have these restrictions so they're going to be booming and innovating right we're already seeing this on that side and more on that later Ironically it highlights how

companies already eager to downsize find pretexts in these posts yet the proud to lose it stance from some devs could foster some resilient outspoken communities outside of corporate structures. So it'll be interesting to see what the next couple years look like as this becomes a bigger and bigger problem. the louder employees that stand by what they say. I wonder what they're going to do if they're going to go ahead and go into the indie market or form smaller companies on their own so that they are able to advocate for their perspectives and not have direct consequences. [Music] [Music]