Gaming Ladies, Event for Female Gamers and Professionals, Canceled Due to Growing Threats of Harassment

Mobile developer King, the giant behind chart-crushing games like Candy Crush, recently announced that it would be hosting an event called "Gaming Ladies" at its Barcelona offices. The event would be a chance for female professionals in the video game industry (and women interested in making a career in the industry) to come together and learn from each other, and to network. This would have been the second time the event was held. Gaming Ladies was to take place on July 27, but King announced today that it would no longer be holding the event as planned.

This, reportedly, is because of a sudden swarm of constipated man-babies who, all too quickly, began to rally and formulate strategies of infiltration and harassment. A thread on NeoGAF points to a few posts on a massive Spanish forum called "Forocoches," which seem to be where things got out of hand. An entire thread of men assembled there to discuss the event for so-called gamers and "feminazis," and plotted multiple ways that they could get into the event themselves to disrupt the goings on.

Translations of multiple posts (thanks kulapik and psychowave) show men cracking tasteless jokes about the types woman who would attend the event. "You can hear them coming," one quipped, "with their tinted hair, black shirts and 85kg of weight." The author of the thread encouraged readers to think about how they might infiltrate the event as transsexuals. A rough translation:

"Hey guys, I'm creating the thread to plan out the trolling we're gonna do at the women-only event they wanna do at Barcelona under the excuse that they wanna feel safe and protected. The idea is to dress up as chicks and claim we're trannies and yell death to men. Once we're inside we display our rage. We need a plan, event info, maybe costumes and a telegram group. We'll need makeup, women's clothes and a lot of balls."

Needless to say, when you have an entire group of supposedly local men planning to break into and ruin an event meant to encourage and lift up an under-represented minority in the industry, you don't humor them by giving them that chance.

That being said, we love that King is celebrating women in the industry and providing an opportunity for aspiring programmers, artists, designers, and story-tellers to flourish with like-minded individuals who share their struggles. No doubt Gaming Ladies will be rescheduling and relocating its event promptly. They're professionals, after all.