![]() A bunch of people bought it through an insane amount of information jamming, and it wasn’t long before literal nazis got on board – or at least in the open – and this massive show of collective idiocy became a sign of things to come for an entire country’s political atmosphere. For a game that was released freely for browsers to act as a teaching tool about depression. On top of this, HuniePop’s other source of backlash was that it released during the mitts of a massive harassment campaign called GamerGate, which would go onto give a platform for many who would become architects for the “alt-right.” As stupid as it all may sound (and it genuinely is stupid, as is most US politico now), a spiteful man got a bunch of chan-goers to start a smear attack against his ex with a fake story about sleeping with a game journalist for a good review. This ironic form of writing and content making has become a smokescreen for anti-antisemitism, racism, queerphobia, and a whole mess of other horrible things, and that cover is paper thin at this point. It’s why nazi groups and MRAs have become such strong presences on these sites, using this cultural norm to teach actual hate and ignorance to kids who don’t know any better. The big open secret about these sites is that when someone says something horrible, they generally mean what they say. It’s all one big dumb goof, which results in lighthearted subversion punchlines at best, and just straight up actual xenophobia at worst. Jokes are constantly made and nothing is considered to be told in a serious manner. These are not cultures with a sterling reputation.Ĭhan sites have grown to generally hate sincerity beyond “I think X is cool” and embrace irony posting. The first major issue was Koons and company’s open connection to chan communities, mainly 4chan, and – more importantly – 8chan. It was a game that came out in the right way at the right time, but it quickly found push-back due to two major factors, both in and out of its control. It helped bring to light a significant problem in gaming culture, both social and industry, and tried something nobody had really tried before, or at least with this many eyes on them. This larger issue put HuniePop is an odd position. The main game itself was barely affected by this restriction. With HuniePop, it’s just CG images as a reward for making progress. Koons simply hid the explicit content behind a patch freely distributed on the game’s Steam forums, bypassing a wall more serious minded games with sexual content couldn’t due to how connected that sexual content is to the experience for said other games. However, controversy rose due to the game’s pornographic content, which would not be allowed on Steam, the major PC gaming storefront. It looked like a serious project to be released to a somewhat wide audience, and it turned out to be just that. The project got attention initially for the novel premise of combining a dating sim with a puzzle game, not to mention the surprisingly polished art and music. While Cam is mostly ignored by the wider market, Pop was a massive discussion magnet for a wide swath of reasons, good and bad. Pop was the result of a successful crowdfunding campaign, while Cam was a shorter, smaller release that experiments with a completely different genre. HuniePop and HunieCam Studio are games by studio HuniePot, founded by a developer named Ryan Koons. But out of all of them, it’s HuniePop that’s somehow been the most controversial release, and possibly the most tame. When games informed by chan culture come around, they usually turn out to be pretty terrible irony games you can easy spot as trash from a glance (see “The Triggering”) or seemingly normal games that end up being incredibly idiotic social commentary that either misses the point (The Last Night, the product of a gater) or is informed entirely by ignorance (Aerannis, which includes the mascot of a harassment campaign as a celebrity cameo). Normally, this wouldn’t be writing about these sorts of games, since they’re usually too simplistic or crude to be worth the musing. This series went in a weird direction, talking about sexy puzzle and tycoon games. ![]() …well, I’m about to talk about videogames made by chan regulars that isn’t the much beloved visual novel about living with handicaps. Content Warning: This article discusses sexual assault, not in the games featured but in discussion of subcultures related to said games.
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