BBC Video Game Commentator Wants a “Final Purge” of Gamers

Video Games

Games journalists want you gone. You probably figured that already, but they’re coming right out with it now. On March 22, 2024, the consulting firm Black Girl Gamers posted on X about starting a Steam curator similar to Sweet Baby Inc. Detected that would list the games they were involved in developing. Another X user commented (in a now-deleted post), saying that there already was one and providing a screenshot; the user also accused Black Girl Gamers of working with Sweet Baby Inc. Black Girl Gamers responded, saying they have never worked with Sweet Baby Inc. (which I’m sure is true; they’re effectively another Sweet Baby Inc., with their consulting services described on their website as “aiding studios and developers in their game/character development, consulting on go-to-market strategies, DEI recruiting strategies, influencer marketing strategies and more”). Then, the trouble started.

Jules Hardy is a TV presenter for the BBC and a radio personality on BBC Radio 1 and BBC iPlayer and has contributed articles about gaming and music to various newspapers and magazines. She’s also been a big critic of the “toxic” gaming community, having given a TED talk about “endemic online sexism;” she also writes a blog called Misogyny Monday, which appears to be made up of her posting negative comments she gets on social media and whining about them. Hardy reposted Black Girl Gamers’ response, and she made her feelings on anyone who doesn’t like Sweet Baby Inc. and its ilk – which, based on the last few weeks, looks like it’s most gamers – abundantly clear.

can we a agree that for round two of 'this' it can be the final purge of these kinds of gamers?
its 2024 I've been arguing about this for decades
can we have a last full detox of these dude so we can get back to the positive gaming community we have been creating https://t.co/9ODhH4S9kr

— Jules Hardy 🏳️‍🌈 (@itsJulesHardy) March 22, 2024

First, look at the ratio on her post (135 likes, 449 reposts, and 1,600 comments as of this writing) and tell me I’m wrong about the majority of gamers not being on her side of this. It was pretty clear from the collapse of Kotaku, the rise of Kabrutus and Sweet Baby Inc. Detected (335,944 followers as of this writing, and it jumped over 200 followers in the half hour since I last checked), the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and the enraged reaction from games journalists and the woker among gaming studio employees. But the rejection of a message like Hardy’s reinforces how much gamers dislike overtly political forces trying to hijack gaming culture. And they especially don’t like being told they can either conform or be “purged.”

And, once again, the language is revealing. Even if you disregard any violent connotations (which is more than someone like Hardy would do for anyone else, as evinced by the reaction to “bloodbath” this past week or so), a “final purge” and “full detox” suggest they want to force the majority of gamers out of gaming, which she calls “the gaming community we have been creating.” How is that anything but a complete takeover of another culture? She argues with people who point this out by saying she’s been here longer than them, but according to her Wikipedia page, she didn’t become a gaming commentator until 2009. This may be hard to believe, but video games existed before that. You can see a collection of her comments below, courtesy of the stalwart Grummz:

The blond haired, blued eyed BBC “gaming presenter” would like to talk to you about her “final purge” to the gaming problem.

She says she created gaming, and was here first and you have to leave now.

If not, she and her friends will bake pies out of you. pic.twitter.com/TGsPn8l1Lj

— Grummz (@Grummz) March 26, 2024

This is similar to Alyssa Mercante, the writer of that Kotaku Sweet Baby Inc. article and the angry person trying to get dirt on Melonie Mac, proudly declaring that she “infiltrated” the Sweet Baby Inc. Detected Discord. Their words are not chosen at random or with finesse; they consider gamers the enemy, they’re actively working to “purge” them from their own culture, and they wear that as a badge of honor. Grummz makes some good points about how this would, by default, collapse gaming culture itself; Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League proved that video games don’t survive on activism alone. But people like Jules Hardy and Alyssa Mercante don’t care about that. They are activists above all else, and they have no skin in video games surviving. They don’t make video games; they comment and “report” on them (or, more recently, make guides to them – I’m sorry, but I’m still laughing about that). If the industry collapsed, they’d write or talk about something else, and publications would see the destruction they left in their wake as a benefit to hiring them because they’ve gone full-bore into activism, too.

So, yes, Hardy sounds as awful as the rest of the crew trying to initiate GamerGate 2 while claiming it’s someone else (which they’re kind of right about because it was Dan Vasc all along). But the reaction to these declarations is more important. Their calls to (figurative) arms are being countered, and the culture they’re trying to conquer and destroy is standing up to them. RazörFist made a fantastic video, which you can see below, in which he said that their mistake was trying to take over gaming too late, and their attempts to seize it were too blatant and desperate for them to get away with. The jig was up at that point, and gamers were ready for them, or at least wise enough to their tactics to recognize them. Jules Hardy, Kotaku, Sweet Baby Inc., and whoever else crawls out of the sewer will keep making noise online, and gamers will keep pointing it out, calling them what they are, and cracking jokes at their expense while playing their favorite games. Just remember to buy hard copies.