Godus Wars – an RTS spin-off of Peter Molyneux’s Godus – is out (in some EA form or another) and reactions haven’t been kind. Usually this means that people don’t like the game. In this particular instance it means that and more. Molyneux gave an interview to Eurogamer in connection with the launch and that set the ball rolling. John Walker’s mention on RPS is as much a critique of the person Peter Molyneux and Nerd3’s “Nerd3 hates Godus Wars” has a prominent picture of Molyneux on the cover. I haven’t seen the video but the cover speaks volumes. The RPS piece unleashed a torrent of abuse against Molyneux in the comments section. The same happened on Ars Technica after a piece mentioning the Eurogamer interview.

I don’t care to go over Molyneux’ alleged ‘crimes’ but this is clearly not about Godus Wars. 2014 highlighted hateful speech directed against creators in the video games industry. Now, Molyneux is not a woman and I haven’t seen any comments asking for him to suffer anything worse than ignominy and derision. But I still fail to understand how he – or anybody – merits the level of vitriol and outright hatred, that is directed his way, or why it is tolerated if not outright encouraged by the gaming press when we have become so much more aware it’s detrimental effects.

It’s videogames, people. Save your outrage for poverty, inequality, human rights violations etc.