This Friday, August 6th, EA and Respawn decided to fire Daniel Klein, the lead game designer, after discovering blog articles in 2007. On this blog, the then 27-year-old developer made racist and sexist comments. The news that the site has taken is inexcusable indeed. The former Respawn employee compares his neighbors of African descent primarily to animals that make poop everywhere. He also calls women “irrational” and thinks they have, I quote: “the chromosomes of weakness”.
Of bitter apologies and bitter regrets
Speaking on his Twitter account, Klein said:
I am embarrassed, sad, and angry at the youngster I am.
You may or may not have seen the terrible, fanatical things I said in 2007. I totally agree THIS guy should have been fired. Since then, I’ve put so much energy into becoming a better person. I’m just very depressed because I feel like I can never make amends for what I’ve done.
I said racist and sexist things, not because I believed in them deeply, but because I wanted to get people to react. This does not excuse, nor does it diminish the impact of what I have said.
Klein finally apologizes to his former colleagues at Respawn:
Finally, I am very sorry for the Apex team. It’s a puzzle she didn’t need. I know his plans for the future and I firmly believe that Apex has a bright future. There are so many cool things to come. I just wish I could work on it.
If this kind of unacceptable attitude has always been around, the recent scandals seem to have cleared the ground of victims and other witnesses. With the upcoming Activision Blizzard process, the pressure on studios and publishers should continue to increase.