Studio behind Mechwarrior Online reverses decision to rename competitive teams ‘Trans Rights’ and ‘Trans Fights’
Mechwarrior Online is a free-to-play game that has an active, loyal, and fiercely competitive community. But after the studio behind Mechwarrior Online, Piranha Games, forced a name change for competitive teams called ‘Trans Rights’ and ‘Trans Fights’, a few gamers were left streaming – and for good reason!
As posted on Reddit in a thread called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: MWO Edition’, – referring to the military service policy in the United States in regards to queer members of the LGBTQIA+ community – user and team member Daalpacagirl explained what had happened.
They disclosed that, in the spirit of standing in solidarity with a trans woman who was banned from a unit’s Discord server after her posting a “picture of her mechs painted” in the “trans flag colors”, their two teams named themselves KDCM V: Trans Rights and KDCM VI: Trans Fights. These team names would appear whilst they competed in the Championship series. It seemed harmless.
However, Daalpacagirl states that “within a week of the competitive queue opening up” the leaders of the two teams received an email that said the following:
“To summarize our Code of Conduct policies on Racial Ethnic, Sexual Preference, National and Major Religions. We believe that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. MechWarrior Online has a diverse mosaic of players who come from many walks of life, cultures, languages and religions. Regardless of where they came from or who they are: Here they are MechWarriors meriting equal value and respect as any other. Promoting any intolerance based on age, race, ethnicity, citizenship, language, gender, sexual orientation, medical condition, religious beliefs, political alignment, employment or even musical tastes are strictly forbidden. While real-life political discussions are important, we do not believe this is the appropriate environment for such discussions. As per the above rules, your Comp team name has been adjusted.”
And adjusted it was. The team names had been changed to KDCM V and KDCM VI. This led to the teams reaching out to Piranha Games about its policy and moderation, wanting to know why since the team hadn’t promoted intolerance of any kind. The exact opposite, in fact. They had chosen the names to celebrate the trans community, both inside and outside of MechWarrior Online.
The discussion continued, with the GM involved in the email stating that the game wasn’t the “appropriate environment” for “real-life political discussions.” Daalpacagirl pointed out that nothing within the Code of Conduct mentioned they couldn’t mention the words ‘trans’ at all.
Fast forward a few weeks later and Daalpacagirl describes that things started to get “absurd”. They received an email from another GM from Piranha Games warning them of reports of harrassment and defamation. At first the email didn’t explain what Daalpacagirl had done, but afterwards it was revealed that their ‘harrassment’ was just them simply typing ‘trans rights’ before a game. Afterwards, Daalpacagirl’s account was banned for 48 hours, and they were given a warning that continuing would lead to a permanent ban. This felt particularly heavy-handed, especially as there are mechs on MechWarrior Online that are painted with the colours of the confederate flag.
Co-founder of Piranha Games, Russ Bullock originally agreed the decision to change the name of the two teams was the right one, stating on Twitter that he had “zero concerns” about the PGI staff and that “for super obvious reasons the word Trans and others […] have been excluded in the EULA for a very, very long time,” pointing out how trolls have ruined the use of words like Trans.
However, yesterday Live Operations Manager at Piranha Games, Matt Newman, conveyed that the decision to change the names was a poor one on Piranha Games part. In an official newsletter for MechWarrior Online, Newman stated “moderation action was taken to rename a competitive team using the names Trans Fights and Trans Rights. This was not the correct decision. We should have asked more questions and determined the true intent behind the name selection, and those having issues with them.” You can read the full statement, here.
To conclude, competitive teams Trans Rights and Trans Fights have had their names reinstated. Though, despite this seemingly happy ending, Daalpacagirl undestandably remains cynical about the reason behind Piranha Games change of heart.
“I’m glad they seem to have reversed their position, but that it took some amount of(potential) public pressure to get such a response combined with their (apparently quite long) history of not doing a whole lot to stop harassment, doxxing, and bigotry in the community do a great deal to temper my hopes & expectations going forward.” They stated on Twitter. “In the meantime, though, I’ll be happy to go back to playing MWO with my friends, maybe with a little less stress this time around”.
About The Author
