‘Heartbeat’ players accuse the games devs of mocking trans suicide
Before we begin this article about Heartbeat, we should remind our readers to be wary as this article will include blatant transphobia and mention of suicide. Please consider if you’re able to handle this content before reading — thank you.
Heartbeat, an indie game from developer and publisher CHUMBOSOFT, is a game that had originally been heralded by the LGBT community thanks to its blatant lesbianism, cute art, and stunning story.
However, as we found out from The Daily Dot, perspective quickly shifted when it was revealed that Nikotine, the girlfriend of the lead developer and artist Shepple, as well as a highly-regarded fandom artist for Heartbeat, was spouting transphobic rhetoric on Twitter.
In one of Nikotine’s many transphobic tweets, she described how she was ashamed to be born in America due to it being a place “where men believe they can mutilate their penis and dress in an ‘effeminate’ manner to become ‘female'”.
Despite having nothing to do with the game itself, some fans of the game were further aggravated by Shepple’s complete disregard of her girlfriend’s behaviour and have since been asking for their money back.
However, the situation has only gotten worse. On September 25th, Nikotine announced that Heartbeat would be going on sale. 35% would be knocked off, which by itself isn’t a suspicious number. However, when bundled with the game’s soundtrack, that percentage went from 35% to 41%. As Ana Valens stated in her article on the Daily Dot, “those numbers were suspicious.”
Considering that the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute reported that suicide rates among trans folx is 41%, we’re inclined to agree. While it may be easy to state that it was just a coincidence, given how Nikotine and Shepple’s handled the fair criticism thrown their way, it’s hard to believe it as anything but a planned move.
We also reached out to Ana Valens, an Trans sexuality and NSFW reporter that specializes in online queer communities, marginalized identities, and adult content creation.
“I’ve reported on transphobia in gaming for four or five years now, but this is easily one of the worst situations I’ve ever seen. What makes it so egregious is that it’s from within the LGBTQ community: the two main actors in this story, Nikotine and Shepple, are lesbians. Their game was popular with queer folks, especially queer trans women, and yet both appear to be mocking trans suicide attempt rates.
It’s downright cruel if that was their intention — which seems likely, given the allegation that Shepple ran a Discord channel mocking trans fans. Not to mention, it’s just a selfish and childish situation for Shepple to enable.
What’s important about this story isn’t just the sales numbers or Nikotine’s tweets, it’s all of the underlying problems that have since been brought up. This is a story about Steam sales numbers that seemingly mock trans suicide, but it’s really about the ways in which systemic oppression happens within queer indie spaces that are seemingly safe, but ultimately not.”
It is a sorry sight to see that transphobia is still so rampant in the industry, and while it can be argued that Nikotine had nothing to do with the game, Shepple’s lack of response – outside of the sale – is incredibly telling.
For more coverage of LGBT news, please check out the rest of Gayming Magazine.
About The Author
