Kevin Dent, A Game Designer That Will Threaten, Blackmail, And Slander As A Part Of His Buisness Model

I was going to wait until tomorrow to see if any more on this story developed, but some things need to be stated in the moment or else we will never see any change.

Earlier today a Mr Kevin Dent, a man who *could* be considered a figurehead of the game industry (if only going by his position within a company and his association within the IGDA) has decided to take it upon himself to comment on the growing opinions of how Aliens : Colonial Marines is a terrible game. Even though the embargo is about to break some people ( especially in Australia) have already gained access to the title and immediately requested access to a vomit bucket…. a vomit bucket that has access to twitter.

Normally if a game is bad, and the public thinks its bad, then the standing operating procedure for most devs is to either join in on the anger or try to learn something from the angry pit (think of it as an exercise in Usability testing without the need of fancy eye tracking equipment). Dent however decided to use it as a chance to start insulting the journalists. Although the “game developer” has since removed the tweets a vast collection has been deposited over here. Inside we see @ElizabethDanger being harassed, accused of being a slut, accused of not being a journalist, and a whole bunch of other things that are equally just as disgusting. Next we find out that Dent threatened to cut funding to Big Ant Studios because one of their programmers decided to defend Elizabeth ( tweets that show this are gone) , next Dent tried to get Elizabeth fired from Gameranx when he clearly started to lose the arguments on twitter, finally he starts attacking Stillgray over talking about the embargoed game while Stillgray couldn’t see anything Dent was saying because on previous occasions Dent had proven himself to a be terrible person and was subsequently blocked.

I’m a little lost for words, How Dent has been allowed to work in the industry before now, actually release a game, or even be allowed in the IGDA is nothing short of a god damn mystery. If a game is bad then the developers usually KNOW that they need to keep their mouths shut and not fan the flames ( fun fact: they also usually know if the game is bad). Image and Marketing for games go hand in hand so that’s one reason why you should never say anything online in such a slanderous fashion even if you yourself are being attacked (which he wasn’t), a second reason why you should never say anything like the crap Dent has spewed this lovely evening is because it just isn’t good business sense. The IGDA, the teachers, the mentors, and even most level headed gamers that are all part of this industry will know you should never say anything insulting, sexist, or racist when you are working as a professional. It doesn’t matter if its a twitter account that is not directly connected to your employers or has since taken down the notice you are a member of the IGDA, you under any circumstances are not supposed to go around acting like the scum of humanity while secretly blackmailing a different studio for one of their programmers growing a backbone.

This is the industry we all live in now, between the sea of record losses, record layoffs, and record profits we are now beginning to see the dark side of this industry. Currently companies like Capcom are wondering if the reason why they are failing to make games like RE6 a success is because of a lack of proper marketing. I’m beginning to think it might be because we have too many people like Dent sitting around. People that would rather sexually harass and blackmail instead of making sure their games are actually solid experiences that people that want to play.

Know what the sad part is? he did all of this attacking for absolutely no reason and my heart is sad right now to see all this nonsense.

( Update: apparently not all of this nonsense happened today, so see this as a timeline of bad decisions that transcended into the powder keg we see today)