Microsoft Apologizes for Comedian at Eurogamer

At Eurogamer this year a transgender journalist, Laura Kate Dale, has come forward stating that a Comedian at an Xbox One event dehumanized and insulted them during a stage performance. The performer, Fraser Millward, was hired for entertainment during a Microsoft event reportedly referred to the transgendered person as “he,” “it,” “this one” and “thing” during his performance. Later Dale returned to the Microsoft booth wishing to speak with the comedian to confront the situation and was told that it was not possible.

Fortunately, later Microsoft issued apologies and likewise Eurogamer on twitter has sent messages looking into the situation, but it’s just too bad that it has come after the fact as opposed to an immediate response. The real concerning part of this story is that the transgender person that was offended and hurt from the performance has received more hate and vitriol over twitter and in comment section than the comedian themselves. It just goes to show that the video game industry still has some growing up to do when handling these types of situations and there is still room for improvement in the future.

Another thing that I want to touch upon is that the majority of the narrative, as it is the game industry, seems to be centered around the “controversy” as it is pertains to the Xbox One and Microsoft which I think is a disservice to the problem at hand. I know that people need clicks and views, but this is obviously a problem between a third party comedian and his hurtful comments not necessarily the company that hired him. I just hope that the end of this story as it plays out is more centered around the actual event that happened and not some fan boy rationalization of why one video game company is better than another.