No you didn’t misread the headline, that’s meant to read exactly like that! Bit sensationalist? No not really! It’s happening! Depression Quest is developed by Zoe Quinn, a game that allows ‘you play as someone living with depression. You are given a series of everyday life events and have to attempt to manage your illness, relationships, job, and possible treatment. This game aims to show other sufferers of depression that they are not alone in their feelings, and to illustrate to people who may not understand the illness the depths of what it can do to people.’.
After resubmitting her game to Steam for the Greenlight initative (go give it your support by the way) Zoe came under fire by 4Chan users with the original poster posting. “she is the one responsible. Of course a woman would never relate to anyone here. She would never be a truly depressed person. Can someone mail her a rant or a link to this thread? God i hate that c*nt.”
Other posts claim ‘all females are sluts’ and that the game ‘is nothing more than exercise in attention whoring’. It didn’t stop there as the harassment campaign gathered momentum Zoe ended up having to change her phone number after she received sexually harassing phone calls and this isn’t the first time Zoe has had to face this torment as her first attempt to submit on Greenlight also met with the same sickening treatment.
Zoe is targeted not because of her game or it’s message but because she is a woman and while many people have reached out to her to offer support and advice just as many are telling her to keep quiet and ‘stop feeding trolls’. The problem with keeping quiet or ignoring trolls is that they often escalate, they deem their behaviour to be acceptable and they go unpunished fpr berating and bullying others. There is an ugly underbelly to the gaming community and it’s not going away, we have to sit down and talk about it like grown ups and start to do something about it because sticking our fingers in our ears and keeping quiet just isn’t working!
*Image taken from IndieStatik
Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!
