The creators of the sex game Subverse searched for an influencer on YouTube to collaborate with them. They found Arch Warhammer: the strategy YouTuber is considered far-right. This led to difficulties.
What kind of game is Subverse? The page Kotaku calls “Subverse” one of the “most anticipated adult games of all time”.
Subverse is being developed by FOW Interactive for PC: it is a “Tactical RPG Shoot’em Up”. The game was funded through Kickstarter, where it raised 1.67 million pounds, which is about 1.86 million euros. This makes it the most successful “adult game” ever funded on Kickstarter.
On Kickstarter, the developers advertise that in Subverse players can travel through a fully explorable galaxy and are the captain of their own spaceship. They are supposed to recruit their crew from the “sexiest and deadliest waifus in the galaxy”. By waifus, they mean sexually attractive ladies in the world of anime.
The trailer for Subverse winks and hints that it is something like a sex parody of Mass Effect. The legendary RPG series Mass Effect from BioWare offered players the option to enter into romantic and sexual relationships with crew members. Apparently, Subverse wants to delve deeper into this aspect. Knick Knack.
Subverse is set to be released in the first quarter of 2021. Like many crowdfunding games, the release date for Subverse has already been postponed.
We didn’t even know he had said racist things
This is the controversy: To promote the game, the studio teamed up with the YouTuber “Arch Warhammer”. He has 234,000 subscribers on the platform and with his channel focus on “Warhammer/Total War”, he exactly addresses the tactical RPG community that Subverse aims at.
The YouTuber created a nearly 50-minute video showcasing an “exclusive first look” at Subverse.
The video itself is not the problem, but the YouTuber Arch Warhammer himself. He actually comes from the Warhammer 40k community and is considered someone who holds extremely right-wing views. He is so controversial that the developers of Warhammer, Games Workshop, have warned partner companies against working with him (via twitter).
Shortly after the video was released, there were already complaints to the developers of Subverse about who they were collaborating with.
The developers of Subverse then issued a statement. They said they chose Arch Warhammer because of the quality of his content, his community, and his number of subscribers.
And apparently, they had no great selection either:
As a company that produces pornography, it is very difficult for us to get such an opportunity. We were happy when we found someone who could help us. At that time, we were not aware that he had made racist and other controversial statements.
Statement from FOW in Discord
After the statement, the comments got even worse. Now, fans of Arch Warhammer and other “right-wing YouTubers” felt attacked: the leftists supposedly do not appreciate “virtual flesh and breasts.”
Developer team wants to end the discussion
So there was another statement from the developers. Now they wanted nothing to do with politics. They then stated:
Ultimately, we are just tit-software developers, but suddenly we are in the middle of a political debate.
2nd Statement from FOW
Subverse would have no political affiliation, it would be a game that everyone should play.
The current status is that Subverse will leave Arch Warhammer’s video up but makes it clear that they do not agree with “some of his comments from the past.” Now they should just end the topic and do not want to hear about it anymore.
Let’s see how well that works.
At the moment, it looks like Subverse has achieved a goal and gained attention with the action, while somewhat alienating both sides of the political spectrum.
Sex games or “adult games” are indeed a prominent topic in the gaming world, even if they are rarely reported on. In February 2020, when the Corona pandemic was already raging in China, an adult game drew attention. The hentai game Mirror wanted to help contain the pandemic:
Studio gives away acclaimed sex game on Steam to combat Corona virus
