Game journalists have developed a nasty habit of attacking game developers over political opinions on social media.
Recently an IGN journalist went after the Tekken producer for making a joke about SJWs. Now Polygon co-founder and current editor at The Verge Chris Plante has attacked games developer David Jaffe for saying that Hillary is more dangerous than Trump.
A reminder that Jaffe is a specific evil and you don’t have to buy his shit https://t.co/gxvkTlqUZe
— Chris Plante (@plante) July 26, 2016
I feel terrible for the folks making Jaffe’s new game, watching their hardwork torpedoed by a deranged asshole
— Chris Plante (@plante) July 26, 2016
This totally professional ad hominem attack followed a series of tweets by Jaffe lamenting Clinton’s corrupt nature and how she will be “psychologically” damaging to the country.
Jaffe formerly worked on the God of War franchise and is currently developing Drawn to Death.
I think there's a valid argument to be made that the lesser of 2 evils is Trump. EVEN IF Trump is the next Hitler, Hitler was a specific
— davidscottjaffe (@davidscottjaffe) July 25, 2016
evil that was defeated (at way too great a cost, sadly) and can be defeated again. Hillary potentially represents a systemic, chronic evil
— davidscottjaffe (@davidscottjaffe) July 25, 2016
And it’s not like Jaffe is some kind of conservative firebrand opposed to Plante’s values. Jaffe is as SJW as they come, even castigating a bunch of teenagers at prom for perceived sexism in a Facebook photo.
As a comicGeek,I so want 2 love this prom picture.But it's so grossly unaware of how sexist it is that I just can't. pic.twitter.com/n0H4Ni13Mg
— davidscottjaffe (@davidscottjaffe) May 8, 2016
Nonetheless, someone who writes about video games professionally should not be personally attacking someone who makes the games he writes about. And especially not for longwinded, perhaps wrongheaded, political opinions.
Check this guy out. Guy's a supposed journalist who doesn't even bother to engage with a person w/a differnet view. https://t.co/knC9bCcQZF
— davidscottjaffe (@davidscottjaffe) July 26, 2016
But it should come as no surprise that a co-founder of a site such as Polygon, which has drifted so far from apolitical coverage of games it may as well be Salon, is capable of such behavior. Just add it to the million other reasons why game journalism sucks.
Vox Media did not return a request for comment.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks.
Update: Plante apologizes.
@davidscottjaffe hey, I want to apologize for the name calling. I strongly disagree with you, but calling you names was stupid of me.
— Chris Plante (@plante) July 26, 2016
