Phasmophobia is arguably the greatest ghost game of all time, holds a sizeable player base, and has dealt with community scandals this year. Her Discord admin for the game has taken her Charcoal Salamander handle, who has been accused of both suggesting sharing nude photos with another community member and making racist comments. I’m using. What happened or didn’t happen with these accusations is what brought this to mind.
The controversy began on January 25 when Charcoal was accused of sexually harassing another community member. Developer Kinetic Games accepted Charcoal’s evidence on Jan. 30 after suspending them during an investigation, while other admins spent “about two weeks” trying to figure out that Charcoal “does nothing wrong.” Charcoal was then reinstated to his original position.
After that, things went quiet until the studio received a further email about the allegations on August 15. With no additional evidence included and having been previously “settled,” lead developer DK said: , the studio itself decided not to investigate.
On August 27th, things started to move. The allegations began gaining traction again within his Phasmophobia community, such as Discord and reddit, but the latter’s new account messaged Kinetic Games lead his artist Corey ‘CJ’ Dixon about them. I started (after CJ).
Charcoal has been accused of using racist language on at least two occasions, and a scrolling screen-capture video shows Charcoal saying “in the context of a Chinese person” before making a racist joke about Japanese people. You can see him talking about squinting. The second accusation is that Charcoal received a nude photo from someone else and offered to share it with a friend via DM. There’s no indication as to whether or not he shared the photo, just that the offer was made. I’ll set aside the other allegations that seem to have no relevant evidence.
CJ’s response to concerns about Charcoal on this reddit account was not positive. In a DM published at a later dateThe developer wrote: But nothing punishes them more than removing them from the team. But you can talk to them. â
Phrases such as “fair game imo” in the context of sharing nude photos should cringe to anyone with a little decency, and are probably as bad as the response gets. We know society has issues like this, but sharing nude photos without consent is not normal and is never ‘fair game’.It is a crime under various laws in the UK. It is an act and can be considered revenge porn.
After CJ’s comments were made public, the community exploded, and people continued to criticize the developer’s response. To be perfectly clear where we are at this point, people believe Charcoal should be stripped of responsibility and banned for these alleged past acts. People are even more outraged by developer CJ’s comments. This is widely seen as downplaying the allegations and representing an uncomfortable tension in the “fellow” culture.
The controversy reached such a pitch that Kinetic Games belatedly realized they had made a mistake in handling the situation. I think. “
Our reaction to recent events. pic.twitter.com/3nihbzau4bOctober 1, 2022
As the allegations have newly resurfaced with these new screenshots, we have begun working with our Discord admins to investigate. I am no longer involved in the Phasmophobia community and will not have the opportunity to do so.”
Acknowledging that CJ was also part of the story, the statement continued: […] Nothing like this will ever happen again. â
This didn’t solve things. People were upset that Charcoal was accused of doing so, angry that Kinetic Games seemed to deny the allegations for so long, and furious at the way CJ tried to handle the matter.
Honestly, it’s a very old mess, so I’ve omitted the fuss factor. This contradicts the idea that he denied the allegations outright. He’s also clearly aware that he made a mistake, and he’s issued an ample apology on social media, albeit after his reaction came to light.
However, Kinetic Games has issued a further statement clarifying elements of the initial statement, in a sign of how confusing things have become around him and his involvement.
We’d like to clarify our version of events and why we took the actions we did, and apologize further for how we handled the situation.pic.twitter.com/RTr37DJq10October 2, 2022
We don’t blame you for skipping that wall of text. We’ll show you the timeline of events from a developer’s perspective, acknowledge that you handled this issue poorly, and let CJ apologize and explain what went down. I emphasize that I wrote like them because of the “misinformation” about what they did. It ends (emphasize theirs):
âThe Kinetic Games development team will not tolerate the sharing of personal images of any kind without consent, nor will it tolerate the racist remarks posted by Charcoal, and that they will not be tolerated by other developers. We would like to emphasize that it does not reflect the views or values ââof any member of the team.
âWe are restructuring the official Phasmophobia Discord staff.
“We sincerely apologize for how we handled this situation. We are all aware of the mistakes we made and will do better.”
On one level, this is sadly all too common a story on the internet, said to involve sharing nudity and racism in nested spaces. is a very embarrassing example of the problems modern developers face when community management and semi-official Discord channels are not treated with the professionalism often required in these areas.
For most people, it doesn’t matter that the developers didn’t actually run their own Discord channel, as it’s no doubt obvious to Kinetic Games. Day-to-day administration to volunteer community members and administrators. That might seem like an ideal solution, but again, most island utopias tend to end up like Lord of the Flies.
This is an object lesson for developers that one bad apple can eventually rot an entire barrel. Kinetic Games, who have left this issue in the hands of the community for so long and believed the correct conclusion was drawn, have been accused of essentially not caring about the rather unpleasant things that were going on with what I think. I left it exposed as the game’s official channel: probably the main channel.
Belatedly, the studio did the right thing. He, one of its developers, has learned a tough lesson on how to respond to serious allegations. And the charcoal is smoked. The stench may still be around for a while, but things feel cooler now. It’s ironic that you have to be stuck because you’ve done it.
