Games Done Quick Bans Two Speedrunners Over Offensive Comments

Tanner Dedmon

12/01/2018 12:53 pm EST

Two speedrunners have been banned indefinitely from Games Done Quick events after evidence surfaced of the two gamers using offensive language that was labeled as sexist and transphobic.

The speedrunners are known as R. White Goose and Graviton and are the two who have now been banned from GDQ events after screenshots of a private Discord conversation were made public. Another speedrunner shared the tweets below which showed the two speedrunners talking about women and transgender individuals. Topics such as banning women from their Discord servers and ways to identify transgender people were included in the messages below, some of which contain explicit language.

Games Done Quick's Initial Response

Not long after the screenshots of the conversations surfaced, the official Games Done Quick Twitter account tweeted to confirm it was aware of the situation and was investigating to see if the messages were real. A follow-up tweet shared afterwards condemned the statements made in the screenshots and said that they did warrant action, though only if they could verify the conversations actually happened. The company said it wasn't possible to do so at the time, but welcomed more reports.

Games Done Quick Bans the Speedrunners

Within the same day, the Games Done Quick account tweeted again to say that more information had surfaced and said the two speedrunners would be banned "indefinitely." The tweet announcing the bans of the two speedrunners said more information had surfaced which led to the company being able to confirm that the screenshots and the conversations within were authentic.

Games Done Quick Apologizes for the Situation

In one final tweet shared after the whole situation had taken place, Games Done Quick apologized for the way it handled the incident. When the company initially tweeted that it couldn't verify the authenticity of the screenshots due to them being private in nature, people criticized the decision and said the speedrunners should've been banned as soon as the organization said the comments in the screenshots were ban-worthy.

Banned Speedrunners Respond

After the two speedrunners had officially been banned, both commented on the actions of Games Done Quick. R. White Goose shared a lengthy statement where he said he understood the community's response and Games Done Quick's decision and rejected the language he used in the conversation. Graviton was less apologetic in his statement and said his "wrongthink" had gotten him more followers than a Games Done Quick run ever would have.

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