Daniel Klein, a senior game designer at Apex legendsHe was recently fired from his job at Respawn Entertainment after Screenshots surfaced from old blog posts and public conversations showing the developer makes both sexist and racist comments.
These pictures, what came to light last month, contain derogatory remarks about women and people from Africa. In one, Klein is seen to refer to the XX chromosomes (a biological term traditionally used to denote female gender) the “idiot chromosomes”. Another shows him talking about his African neighbors as if they were animals, saying, “If you feed them, they’ll come back and shit all over the place.”
Small accepted that these screenshots were real on July 27th and apologize for their content while also indicating that the comments are from 2007 additional research
The news of Klein’s dismissal was spread yesterday afternoon by the developer himself who was publishing a long twitter thread explains the situation and again apologizes for his earlier comments.
“I’ve put so much energy into becoming a better person since then, and right now I’m just very depressed because I feel like I can never make up for who I was,” wrote Klein. “I said racist and sexist things, not because I believed any of them deeply, but because I knew I could get a reaction from people. That doesn’t excuse anything I said; The effect of my words was the same regardless of what I believed. “
Klein, who was previously called League of Legends Designer at Riot Games, had a contentious relationship with the Apex legends
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When contacting Kotaku for comment, Klein agreed with this theory.
“The horrific, bigoted statements I made in 2007 are entirely mine and I am disgusted by the younger me for making them,” Klein said via email. “But I also have no doubt that they came to light because someone was looking for things to hurt myself with. EA was aware of this allegation and I specifically asked them to ensure that these strategies are used against other employees in the future. “
Kotaku reached out to Respawn parent company EA about Klein’s termination and whether or not these contextual circumstances were taken into account, but did not hear anything prior to publication.
Video game companies large and small are understandably on high alert after the release of California’s Sexual Harassment Lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. Ubisoft leadership that was itself involved a similar scandal only last year, are still there criticized of workers for their inactivity. Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor recently reduced its role from creative director to author at the same time, news was spreading about the “toxic” environment he contributed to Went home Studio.
“I wish they had taken a risk and kept me,” Klein added in his email. added Kotaku, “but I can’t ask anyone to take that risk.”
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