Nintendo, We Thought You Were Better Than This #NintendoCowardice
The day Nintendo of America surrendered to neo-nazis and GamerGate
Before the North American English language localization of the Fire Emblem Fates games on February 19th, it was announced that it would modify a few of the features from the original Japanese version. A minigame where players rub the faces of game characters for affection would have less… tactile interaction. Also in the original Japanese games, the player gives a lesbian character, Soleil, a potion that makes her see male characters as female, enabling her to have romantic relationships with those male characters. In the west, we’d see that as something of a “gay conversion therapy” potion, which is utterly homophobic. So, that part of the games was also modified.
Hopefully, I don’t need to introduce GamerGate to you. If you do need an introduction to what GamerGate is, the best explanation online is here on RationalWiki.
While you’re at it, check out the RationalWiki page on The Daily Stormer. Yep, they’re neo-nazi white supremacists.
In the search for fresh neo-nazi recruits, The Stormer has actively sought out GamerGaters, so at this point there’s considerable Venn diagram overlap between the two groups.
Alison Rapp worked for Nintendo of America. She worked in marketing. Contrary to popular belief, she had no influence in how Fire Emblem Fates (known in Japan as Fire Emblem If) was localized.
When news spread on the Internet about the changes between the Japanese games and the North American release, GamerGaters congregated in places such as 8chan (a forum board that knowingly hosts lots of child pornography) looking for a woman to blame for “censoring” Fire Emblem. The Daily Stormer joined them. (Again, a lot of Daily Stormers are GamerGaters and vice versa, that damn Venn diagram overlap!)
They found Alison Rapp. They also discovered that she wrote an essay on Japan and child pornography back in 2011.
From Kotaku’s Patrick Klepek:
Over time, as it became obvious that Nintendo was removing some of the sexualized content from their games as they brought them to America, angry gamers looked for someone to blame and started pointing fingers at Rapp.
Those efforts intensified even more in recent weeks with the discovery of a college essay she wrote in 2011 while attending Augsburg College. It’s called “Speech We Hate: An Argument for the Cessation of International Pressure on Japan to Strengthen Its Anti-Child Pornography Laws.”
It’s a provocative essay about a deeply sensitive subject and is more nuanced than its detractors portray. Rapp outlines a deep cultural divide between Japan and other countries, pointing out Japan’s traditions of sexualizing young people and its free speech traditions while contrasting them with Western efforts against child porn and what she saw as imperialist pressure by the West to get Japan to change its child porn laws.
Rapp, clearly a respectful fan of Japanese culture, distinguishes between exploiting real-life children and the creation of fictionalized sexual material. At no point does she defend or advocate for the abuse of children, and in fact argues for stronger laws against child exploitation.
And there’s the irony that these hateful bigots get furious when Japanese game localizers like Nintendo of America, Marvelous USA, and Atlus modify games to remove references to sexualizing children, such as making a sexy character who was 14 years old in Japan 18 years old in an English language release.
It’s parallel to how MRAs who believe raping women should be legal will cry “Muslim men will rape our pure, innocent women!” to justify their Islamophobia.
Alison Rapp has made a lot of posts on social media in support of feminism and other progressive issues. And she worked for Nintendo of America. Plus obviously, she’s a woman. So she became GamerGate/neo-nazi target du mois.
In addition to sending Ms. Rapp an overwhelming volume of online harassment, they demanded that Nintendo of America (NoA) fire her. Well, guess what? Yesterday (March 30th), they did just that.
Of course, NoA denies that Ms. Rapp was fired due to GamerGate’s/Daily Stormer’s campaign. There are probably PR and legal reasons for that. Here’s NoA’s statement:
Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo’s corporate culture. Though Ms. Rapp’s termination follows her being the subject of criticism from certain groups via social media several weeks ago, the two are absolutely not related. Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race or personal beliefs. We wish Ms. Rapp well in her future endeavors.
Of course I and many other people on Internet believe that’s bullshit, and rightfully so.
The worst aspect of #NintendoCowardice is that this only encourages hate groups like GamerGate to continue their efforts to ruin the lives of women in tech, women in journalism, LGBTQ people, and the men who defend us.
Here’s what I wrote in my petition to NoA President Reggie Fils-Aime:
GamerGate is an organized online (and offline) harassment campaign that started in August 2014. It was initiated by Eron Gjoni, the ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn. Zoe Quinn is a game developer. Mr. Gjoni was very abusive toward her. In reaction to her breaking up with him, he started a mass online campaign to slutshame and defame Ms. Quinn.
It snowballed into a movement that targets women in gaming, women in journalism, the men who defend them, and LGBTQ people. This phenomenon has been extensively covered in English language media around the world for about a year and eight months now. Ms. Quinn currently has a book deal with a Simon & Schuster imprint, and a Hollywood film deal based on the yet to be published book.
My name is Kim Crawley, and I was a GamerGate target. Many people have been a lot more harmed by GamerGate than I was. Nonetheless, I suffered from a loss of paid work in a situation similar to what happened to your Nintendo of America former localization department employee Alison Rapp. I write about information security. I’m also an avid video game consumer, and have been since 1989, when I got a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas.
As GamerGate causes harm to real people via information technology, GamerGate is an information security problem. Feeling angry about what GamerGate has done to many women (and some men), I wrote an information security article on the matter for the InfoSec Institute back in February 2015. GamerGaters got together, overwhelmed InfoSec Institute decision makers with nasty emails, and InfoSec Institute did a cowardly thing. They dropped my contracted writing gig. I had written for the InfoSec Institute since 2011.
I haven’t received anywhere near as much media attention as Ms. Rapp. I’m glad, because that sort of attention attracts more and more harassment and other such harm from GamerGate. Nonetheless, I understand Ms. Rapp’s situation firsthand.
So when your public relations department tells the media that you didn’t fire Ms. Rapp due to GamerGate’s harassment, I don’t believe your company. Not one little bit. When corporations and institutions fire GamerGate targets due to the harassment they’ve received, they make GamerGate feel like they’re winning. It only encourages them to target more marginalized tech and media people in the future. What your company did has made the internet less safe for women, LGBTQ people, and the men who defend them. It makes the internet less safe for progressive people and people with empathetic values.
NINTENDO OF AMERICA IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ENCOURAGING A TARGETED ONLINE HARASSMENT CAMPAIGN.
If you were to offer to rehire Ms. Rapp, I wouldn’t blame her if she said no. Why should she trust NoA to take a stand against online harassment in the future?
You must do the honorable thing. Formally apologize to Ms. Rapp, in writing and to the media, and change NoA’s corporate policy so that what you did to her never happens in the future. So, Nintendo of America is a company that acts in the ways online harassers want them to. By firing Ms. Rapp, you have and will continue to attract a lot more negative PR than if you ignored GamerGate and defended her.
I and all of the people signing this petition have been harmed by GamerGate or care about someone who’s been harmed by GamerGate.
So, you’re probably mad. You probably want to do something.
Here’s what you can do:
- Contact NoA directly through their web form. Tell them that backing down to GamerGate and neo-nazis is outrageous, and you won’t buy any more of their consoles, games, and accessories until they apologize for firing Ms. Rapp and change their corporate policy so that this never happens again.
- Follow through with your Nintendo boycott. That’d make you more effective than GamerGate, who often call for boycotts but then buy the products they’re boycotting anyway.
- Sign the petition I started last night (March 30th.) Share it on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks. Email it to your friends. I’m writing this a mere twelve hours after I started the petition, and we’re at 127 signers already. Please use this hashtag: #NintendoCowardice.
- Recommend this article (click on the heart, thank you!) and share it on your social media, #NintendoCowardice.
Another GamerGate target who has dealt with corporate PR has advised me that it’s very unlikely that NoA will apologize, as that’d open them up to more litigation. Nonetheless, if we can’t get NoA to apologize, we can publicly embarass them for firing Ms. Rapp. That’d put pressure on NoA and other corporations in the video game industry to no longer back down to hate groups like GamerGate and The Daily Stormer.
Hey, it worked for Intel.
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Here are some of many comments from the petition:
I’m signing this because Nintendo needs to apologize and declare publicly that women and LGBT employees aren’t disposable. Games don’t belong to hate groups.
- Clay Harrington
I’ve been a loyal Nintendo fan for over 20 years, but this incident has me reluctant to give you one more red cent. Whether Ms. Rapp’s firing was technically a result of the harassment or not is largely irrelevant (though for the record, I don’t believe for a second that it was unrelated). The fact remains that the harassment was going on for months and Nintendo was silent despite repeated press inquiries, until you had to save face for firing her, and suddenly you issue a statement denying responsibility, blaming the victim, and making her out to be a liar. This is shameful, not only in Ms. Rapp’s particular case, but because it sets a precedent that abusers can indeed get exactly what they want through harassment.
This has to stop. You were in a position to do something about it, and you didn’t. Instead, you found a reason (likely one delivered to you by her abusers) to fire her because she had become a liability. You took the coward’s way out.
I would expect this sort of behavior from most corporations, but somehow I thought Nintendo was better than that. Now I see that I was being naïve.
Please prove me wrong.
- Scott Hammack
I used to think Nintendo cared about women and minorities.
I’ve been proven wrong, today.
Fix that.
- Dana Addams
I’m signing this because even though I’m seventeen-years old, I know sexism and bullying when I see it. Nintendo is a huge part of my childhood, and I don’t want to see to remember the company as the one that set up for failure. The failure being that they ignored Allison Rapp’s hurtful harassment experience from the hands of GamerGate. I’ve never suffered from GamerGate, and I do not want to see myself and anybody else get harassed from them. So, by signing this petition, I’m hoping Nintendo will recognize their faults and find themselves in a path of redemption. I don’t want to leave them.
- AJ Asuncion
We can fight this!
