ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Game Workers Unite member leaves after accusations of "exclusionary behaviour and bullying"

Game Workers Unite member leaves after accusations of "exclusionary behaviour and bullying"

Video games developer union Game Workers Unite UK has confirmed that its member Marijam Didžgalvyte has left the International organisation.

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, Didžgalvyte has left after allegations of poor conduct. In a public statement by Game Workers Unite's Seattle chapter, she is accused of "exclusionary behaviour and bullying" with that branch of the union lamenting the lack of any accountability.

In a statement made earlier this week, Didžgalvyte says the accusations came after Lionkiller developer Sisi Jiang asked that Game Workers Unite put out a statement condemning white supremacy. Didžgalvyte said that this should be handled by the individual, local GWU groups, rather than coming from the International Game Workers Unite. Furthermore, she claims that she didn't want the developers union to be too Western-centric.

Taking to Twitter, Jiang said that Didžgalvyte told her personally that GWU didn't want to "alienate game developers by condemning racism." Didžgalvyte says that these were "three clumsy sentences" and that she apologised to Jiang after.

This isn't the only incident in which Didžgalvyte is implicated, either. 80 Days writer Mag Jayanth called her a racist, which points to a broader pattern than just the incident mentioned with Jiang.


Tags:
PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.