This week, Epic Games‘ founder and CEO Tim Sweeney made headlines following a keynote at D.I.C.E during which he said that video game companies should divorce themselves from politics.
“I think we’re seeing a lot of controversy around political censorship of social media, pressure from foreign countries on domestic companies about discourse, and to get through that, we as companies need to divorce ourselves from politics and say that that is for individuals to engage in. And we as platforms should be neutral,” said Sweeney.
A number of websites, publications, and folks in the industry criticized Sweeney’s remarks, claiming that he implied politics should be left out of video games in order to increase sales by appealing to the masses. Sweeney has since taken to Twitter to clarify his comments. He denied implying that video games should be neutral, and said that he meant that any political messaging should only come from the people creating the video games, not from corporate overlords.
Sweeney tweeted:
Here’s one of the key views I shared at DICE. If a game tackles politics, as To Kill a Mockingbird did as a novel, it should come from the heart of creatives and not from marketing departments seeking to capitalize on division. And when a company operates an ecosystem where users and creators can express themselves, they should should be a neutral moderator. Else the potential for undue influence from within or without is far too high.
Sweeney then took aim at an IGN tweet, urging people to read what he actually said rather than provocative headlines.
