Developer MidBoss, maker of the visual novel 2064: Read Only Memories, had taken to Twitter back on January 29th, 2017 to tell Donald Trump voters to ‘eff off. They apparently didn’t want Republicans to buy their game. After a while, their Metacritic score tanked, and recently, on April 18th, 2017, they took to Twitter once more to ask for help in restoring the user rating on Metacritic.
They received a healthy dose of mocking from many members of the gaming and political community, regardless of political affiliation.
They even had various high-profile YouTubers reproach them for their antics, such as AlphaOmegaSin.
.@ROM2064 Unless you’re a politician or your game itself is about politics, use your head & don’t divide your potential fans let alone push some away
— AlphaOmegaSin (@AlphaOmegaSin) April 19, 2017
They responded to AlphaOmegaSin, stating that Trump voters aren’t bad and that they messed up by turning their social media platform into a political debate. They stated on Twitter…
“Our game is what we wanted to make and if people like it or dont its up to them […] Obviously trump voters arent bad people its just frustrating seeing what we believe is leading us to bad place .”
Papa Sin set them straight, and they opted to take that message back to the gaming community, saying that they would keep politics out of their feed.
OK! Sorry, we’re gonna move beyond this topic because we know that you’re not here for political banter- you want more b-gum cyberpunk!
— 2064: ROM out now! (@ROM2064) April 18, 2017
They did manage to repair some of their user scores on Metacritic, bringing it up from 4.4 to 5.7, as of the writing of this article.
While they received a lot of ridicule from right-wing subs like The_Donald, there were members on there who did at least advocate for calmer heads to prevail no matter what political side anyone affiliates with. User TyperSniper wrote…
“Anyone that tries to discriminate based on political allegiances can fuck off. I’m far from a fan of the left, but if a game developer said “no libtards or Hillary shills wanted” I’d leave an equally scathing review, we show acceptance and tolerance of their views despite disagreeing with them, which they’ll never do for us, hence why ‘the divide’ is only going to grow. “
Surprisingly, though, the sales for 2064: Read Only Memories did not slow down or subside all that much after they made the original comments back in late January. In fact, they maintained a steady incline in owners from January, 2017 up until recently, according to Steam Spy.
Nevertheless, this kind of negative publicity could definitely end up hurting MidBoss in the long run, especially if they have another game they plan on promoting and selling.
