{"id":240873,"date":"2025-09-20T07:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T07:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240873\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T07:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T07:09:09","slug":"playstation-studio-boss-breaks-silence-on-dev-fired-for-charlie-kirk-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240873\/","title":{"rendered":"PlayStation Studio Boss Breaks Silence On Dev Fired For Charlie Kirk Joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last week, a war has been waging in the YouTube comments of each new Ghost of Yotei trailer as the PlayStation 5 exclusive nears its release date early next month. That\u2019s because a developer at Sucker Punch Productions joked about the assassination of Charlie Kirk<\/a> on social media. Sony confirmed it had parted ways with the employee following a right-wing pressure campaign, but declined to issue any further statement. Now studio head and co-founder Brian Fleming has commented on the firing directly in a new interview.<\/p>\n

Sucker Punch artist Drew Harrison, a nearly 10-year veteran of the studio, posted \u201cI hope the shooter\u2019s name is Mario so that Luigi knows his bro got his back\u201d on the day the assassination took place. Less than 24 hours later she confirmed she\u2019d been fired. \u201cDrew Harrison is no longer an employee of Sucker Punch Productions,\u201d a spokesperson for Sony told Kotaku at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe facts are accurate,\u201d Fleming told Stephen Totilo\u2019s Game File<\/a> when asked about the situation. \u201cDrew\u2019s no longer an employee here. I think we\u2019re aligned as a studio that celebrating or making light of someone\u2019s murder is a deal-breaker for us, and we condemn that, kind of in no uncertain terms. That\u2019s sort of our studio, and that\u2019s kind of where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CommentsYouTube \/ Kotaku <\/p>\n

Despite Harrison\u2019s swift firing, angry internet users, urged on by clout-chasing culture warriors like Mark \u201cGrummz\u201d Kern, have been demanding Sony take action against any staff members who may have liked or reposted Harrison\u2019s comment, while also targeting other companies and their employees<\/a> over potential anti-Kirk sentiment. That included Bethesda, which was accused of mocking the right-wing podcast\u2019s supporters when it posted a clip from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle of the famous Nazi puncher saying to a kitten, \u201cYou don\u2019t care much about these fascists, do you?\u201d It was later deleted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Microsoft Gaming employees were also targeted, including by Elon Musk. \u201cWe\u2019re aware of the views expressed by a small subset of our employees regarding recent events,\u201d the company announced<\/a> in response on September 12. \u201cWe take matters like this very seriously and we are currently reviewing each individual situation. Comments celebrating violence against anyone are unacceptable and do not align with our values.\u201d A spokesperson for the company declined to comment when asked if anyone had been fired from Microsoft following these investigations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSucker Punch is amazing & one of the last few bright shining lights in the game industry,\u201d Harrison posted this week. \u201cI still support them and I cannot condone any animosity directed at them. It\u2019s truly all the best people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last week, a war has been waging in the YouTube comments of each new Ghost of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":240874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19719,40961,120790,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-240873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-charlie-kirk","9":"tag-ghost-of-yotei","10":"tag-sucker-punch-productions","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115235374097827259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}