An Apology
On Friday, one of our writers, Michael Thomsen, posted a defense of the new trailer for Hitman: Absolution and a riposte to some of the ensuing dialogue around it.
As a community, you responded with disappointment and disgust. While I want Kill Screen to be a place of provocation and debate, this was one instance where our writing didn’t reach the high bar we normally set for ourselves. The headline, for example, was particularly inflammatory. I spent time talking to Mike and others and I can assure you his original intent was not to offend. But the piece was not reviewed and edited in a way that paid respect to the very real issues of rape and violence against women, and for that we are truly sorry.
When we launched Kill Screen, our idea was to give a platform to a wide variety of voices from inside and outside the world of games. This still remains our mission and while this was a misstep, my hope is that core idea still shines through.
You may have noticed that we’ve been experimenting with both news and features. The former is obviously a bit quicker to press, and we’re still working out the bugs to figure out the right tone and process for publishing short form pieces. The appearance of this piece as a standalone op-ed in the news section disavows the very presence of differing and dissenting voices among our contributors. We thank you for your patience as we work that out.
While disappointed by our mistake, I have been tremendously encouraged by our community’s response. There were some concerns a few months back that implementing comments on the site would lead to the descent into rude and unproductive discourse found elsewhere on the web. That didn’t happen. One commenter wrote:
On a more positive note…I have to say that the comments here have really restored my faith in the gaming community, in contrast to those from the original website.
I’m proud of the thousands of pieces we’ve produced over the last three years. It’s nice to know when we mess up, you’ll be there to correct us with truth, wit, and kindness. Our sincere apologies to all offended, and we hope you will give us a chance to work out these kinks as we grow.
–Jamin
