Recently, IGN included a video game called Ecumene Aztec— in which you play as an Aztec warrior going complete guerrilla warfare on Spanish conquistadors. In the wake of this IGN profile, Ecumene Aztec‘s designers have actually been bothered by reactionary extremists, consisting of having actually the site connected with the publisher taken by reactionary giants, who then made it into a page promoting Spanish imperialism.
In the preliminary review for the video game, IGN called Giantscraft as Ecumene Aztec‘s designer and publisher. Giantscraft is likewise noted as the publisher on press products for the video game that The Brink has actually gotten. There are no links to Giantscraft’s website on IGN‘s post, however looking for Giantscraft exposes a single Instagram page.
On this Instagram page, Ecumene Aztec does not appear; rather, the page includes a link to the site giantscraft.com. Upon going to the site, users are welcomed with an exceptionally bare-bones website for a video game publisher, including a quote credited to Hernán Cortés– among the conquistadors accountable for the damage of Tenochtitlan and the enslavement of its individuals– along with a huge picture of the Cross of Burgundy— heraldry connected to Spanish royalists, reactionary South American extremists, and Nazis. Likewise included on the page is a link to another Instagram page that is really plainly a sort of “anti-woke” 4chan-esque account filled with memes commemorating Spanish imperialism.
To be clear, Giantscraft does not seem connected with the Spanish far right. A translation of a post on the fascist Instagram page recommends that Giantscraft did not schedule the domain giantscraft.com and, after the expose of Ecumene Aztec, an opportunist swiped the domain and established what is basically a Spanish Imperial fan page. The Brink connected to Giantscraft and its PR, and a PR representative verified this by means of e-mail, composing that “given that the statement they have actually been under attack from difficult ideal groups” which the domain was taken quickly after Aztec‘s statement. Due to evident death hazards the advancement group has actually gotten, we are giving the PR representative privacy.
Ecumenegames.com is the publisher’s main site, with its PR representative declaring that the publisher remained in the middle of a name modification to Ecumene Games when all this occurred.
On social networks, Ecumene Aztec got a combined reaction. Some applauded the general principle of the video game– after all, there are really couple of video games in which dominated individuals get the chance to eliminate back versus their historic oppressors– while others derided the video game’s stereotyped take on Aztec civilization including an ahistorical representation of Tenochtitlan and human sacrifice constructed into the video game’s mechanics. Another subset of critics were disturbed that you could not play as the Spanish.
The criticism of the video game appeared enough to trigger the designers to upgrade its scope. In an upgrade on the video game’s Steam page, the designers composed that they would remodel the video game to enable gamers to pick to deal with the conquistadors along with carry out extra functions to make the video game more traditionally precise.
In a declaration made through its PR, the designers of Ecumene Aztec stated the modification in scope was because of asks from the neighborhood.
” It was not prepared. Nevertheless we saw that about 40 percent of [the] audience states that [they] want to have [the] option to sign up with [the] conquistadors, so we may in fact attempt to provide this possibility. The video game is not political in anyhow and never ever will be, it is history FICTION.”