PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds‘ creator Brendan Greene has taken a controversial stance in a conversation with a high-profile Twitch streamer, speaking out against threats of violence regardless of whether or not they’re made in jest.
Greene, most commonly referred to online as PlayerUnknown, had a conversation with Twitch’s Dr DisRespect after temporarily banning the streamer from the game. Though Dr DisRespect is one of the more famous PUBG streamers, with his over-the-top antics in the game garnering him over 650,000 followers on the site, he wasn’t exempt from Twitch’s rules regarding team-killing. Though team-killing is enabled in PUBG, it is certainly not encouraged, and the game’s terms and conditions warn against doing so intentionally. As Dr DisRespect was caught killing a teammate on camera (even if it did make for a very funny moment), PUBG rightly suspended his account.
Footage of the incident that led to Dr DisRespect being suspended can be viewed below:
Greene responded to Dr DisRespect’s complaints regarding the suspension on Twitter, writing: “If you break the rules in @PUBATTLEGROUNDS… no matter who you are… you’re gonna have a bad time!” After a brief exchange, Dr DisRespect jokingly replied “If I could do the splits I’d roundhouse kick you in the neck. But since I can’t, I’ll just front kick you in the chest instead. Lightning.”
If I could do the splits I'd roundhouse kick you in the neck.
But since I can't, I'll just front kick you in the chest instead.
Lightning.
— Dr Disrespect (@DrDisrespect) July 18, 2017
However, despite Dr DisRespect’s response being firmly in-character, Greene didn’t take too kindly to it. “Suggesting violence is the best way to solve a disagreement is just wrong, even if you are playing a character…” he replied.
https://twitter.com/BattleRoyaleMod/status/887233806935117824
Soon enough, Greene’s tweet was being widely criticized by many of both his and Dr DisRespect’s followers, with it being suggested that he didn’t know how to take a joke, and that he had unfairly called out the streamer as a result.
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Greene later expanded upon his thoughts regarding the criticisms he had received, writing the following:
“So today I created a little bit of a shitstorm on Twitter.
Before I begin, I have to say that I do enjoy the character Guy has created with DrDisrespect. Hell, I am even part of the Slick Daddy Club! I understand that he likes to talk shit, and I was right there with him until that one tweet.
I was told that I should have taken The Docs threat of violence as a joke. So now I will try explaining why I took this tweet seriously and tweeted out the response I did.
Story time!
When I was in college, many years ago, I had a disagreement with my flat mate. Instead of talking it out like men, he decided to get aggressive and while I was backing away from him, he kicked me in the chest and put my head through a plate glass door. Thankfully, I don’t suffer from any ill effects due to this experience.
The point of that story is to attempt to explain why I think even the threat of violence is not something that should be joked about. Given my experience in college, and the fact that The Doc’s threat, even as a joke, synced up closely to a bad experience I endured, it could have brought up bad memories, triggered a panic attack or had other consequences The Doc might not have intended when composing the tweet.
All I ask from anyone that reads this is to consider that your words, however flippant they may be, could have unintended effects on those reading them.”
Personally, I can understand how Greene’s comments can be viewed as an overreaction to what is a clear attempt at a joke. However, considering that there are some major figureheads in the gaming industry who are significantly lacking in the empathy department, I’d rather there be more developers like Greene who are more considerate of their actions both online and off. It’s good to see the creator of such a popular game — despite its humble beginnings and small development team, it’s one of the best-selling games on Steam — using his platform to encourage his audience to be more thoughtful of others. That’s unfortunately a rare sight these days.
