Players Boycott Upcoming Nintendo Switch Game After Disgusting Developer Allegations

Content warning: the following article has mentions of sexual assault which some readers may find upsetting.

Yesterday’s Nintendo Direct was full of announcements for exciting upcoming titles, including the release date and name of the Breath of the Wild sequel, and a whole host of popular N64 titles coming to the Nintendo Switch Online service, but one has caught the eye of users on ResetEra for the wrong reasons. 

User ZeoVGM has made a detailed post highlighting a number of allegations made against kovarex - one of the developers of Factorio, a title in which players design their own factories to produce items, and protect it from pesky creatures. The game first released on Steam back in 2020, but is now set to hit Switch on 28 October.

Controversy apparently began when the Factorio dev team posted a blog post in June 2021, in which they spoke about a programmer known as Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin. At the time, some Internet users commented claiming that Uncle Bob was allegedly “a racist” and “a bigot”, to which kovarex responded, “I won’t even search him up. Why? Because I don’t care at all. I don’t care if he cheats on his wife, is a bigot, or pays proper tips in [restaurants]. These things are simply not relevant.”

In another instance, kovarex allegedly suggested that statutory rape is “a new SJW term” in a post on Reddit, adding that, “I always thought, that rape means that you assault someone against his will. If [a] teacher seduces his/her student and the act is voluntary, we can’t really talk about rape right?”

ZeoVGM wrapped up the post, adding, “Please do not support this game.” Other users are also planning on avoiding the title as a result: “Thank you for posting this. Don’t buy this game, folks,” wrote Ashlette. “Thanks for the info. Had seen good things about the game so I was curious but this is gonna be a hard pass then,” commented Ashes of Dreams. “Good thing my interest in this game was absolutely miniscule. Easy pass,” added P-Bo.