IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine has announced that she has left X and suspended her account after she posted slander against Black Myth: Wukong Developer Game Science fails across the board.
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong (2024), Game Science
Valentine’s bio on X now reads, “No longer on Twitter, no direct messages.” She has also locked her account and protected her posts so that only her approved followers can see her posts.
Rebekah Valentine on X
READ: Black Myth: Wukong Rises to 2nd Most Concurrent Steam Players of All Time and Continues to Rise
Valentine leaves X and closes her account. This happens in the wake of Black Myth: Wukong and was a huge success despite repeated slanders that Valentine and her colleague Khee Hoon Chan made about the game’s developer.
Soon after its release, the game became the second most played game of all time in terms of concurrent players on Steam. The game reached a peak of 2,223,179 concurrent players. The only game that did not surpass it was PUBG: Battlegrounds, which reached an all-time high of 3,257,248.
SteamDB’s most played games, sorted by highest number of concurrent players ever
The game’s success followed a report by Valentine and her colleague Khee Hoon Chan in November 2023, accusing the developers of sexism and misogyny. The duo reported: “Several posts have surfaced on Chinese social media site Weibo, written by individuals from the studio, containing multiple references to genitalia and sexual innuendo.”
They also stated: “Added to this were the studio’s 2015 recruitment posters that featured images and headlines that point to a culture of deep-rooted sexism in games science.”
The article did not provide evidence for these headlines or posters. However, it did provide descriptions: “On one poster, a risqué illustration reminiscent of the artwork of Austrian artist Egon Schiele is accompanied by a headline that says, ‘Masturbation is mandatory.’ On another poster, showing the back view of a woman, the ad reads, ‘Don’t fuck your coworkers.’ The same ad also suggested that friendships with benefits are an office perk. And a third poster, featuring a dumbbell, is far more explicit, as the ad reads, ‘Fat people should fuck off.'”
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong (2024), Game Science
READ: Chinese gamer rejects IGN’s sexism allegations against ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ developer Game Science, but condemns the developers’ statements as unprofessional
Chinese gamer Fei_fiii confirmed the existence of the posters, saying: “Before working on Black Myth: Wukong, they had to survive two mobile games that I don’t know much about. But during that time, they created some pretty vulgar recruitment posters that reflected their usual style and received a lot of criticism.”
She continued, “I’m sure you’ve come across people like that. People who find dirty jokes or swear words funny. Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much. I think everyone swears occasionally to relieve stress, and I do too. But I would never behave like that at work or on formal occasions. And I wouldn’t show it in videos either. It’s a sense of boundaries and respect for others. Otherwise, like them now, while their bad behavior gets a lot of attention, it also gets blown out of proportion, leading to people accusing them of sexism. That could affect the reputation of their work, which is a shame.”
The posters seen in the video below are definitely in poor taste and could even be considered trash. Game Science should be condemned for creating them. However, that doesn’t mean the developers are sexist. It just means they are clumsy and clearly unprofessional, as Fei_fiii points out.
Valentine and Chan then criticized a social media post by the company’s co-founder, Feng Ji. The duo claimed he wrote, “I want to expand my circle and hire more people, let me lick them until I can’t get an erection anymore.”
They continued to translate: “You know, you’re just a little depressed. It’s my honor to offer you some comfort for the lower half of your body.”
In addition, he reportedly wrote: “After watching it a few times, I got wet… the pressure in my crotch is enormous!”
IGN’s translation of Feng Ji’s Weibo post
READ: ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ developer Game Science reportedly bans content creators from incorporating political and feminist propaganda
This translation was initially challenged in a clip by Asmongold Clips, which said Feng Ji’s comment was “a common idiom in the Chinese language. As a colloquial expression used humorously or sarcastically to describe a situation in which excessive flattery or sycophancy has an overwhelming and paralyzing effect on someone. The use of such metaphors is found in informal language on social media.”
Furthermore, the clip points out that other posts IGN used in its smear article were translated “in the most merciless way possible” to spread the narrative that the developer is sexist and misogynistic.
Fei_fiii also addressed this post, saying that IGN mistranslated the first sentence. She notes that in Chinese he meant to say, “I just wanted to recruit a few people, but I got more praise than I expected, which made me uneasy.”
She then explained: “Just because I understand what he was trying to say doesn’t mean I approve of the way he expressed it. You can call him ‘rude’ and ‘primitive’, but there’s no reason to label him a sexist.”
In fact, she goes on to say that there was significant backlash in China over these remarks: “The backlash against her on the Chinese internet actually started when the first video came out and was nothing new. Her inappropriate remarks from earlier were dug up and widely shared at that point. This spread extended beyond the gaming community and since then, every year when they release a new video, it triggers a new wave of criticism that people argue about fiercely. IGN’s report last year came too late.”
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong (2024), Game Science
READ: Black Myth: Wukong benchmark tool hits 85,277 concurrent players despite media slander against developers
One of Valentine and Chan’s more bizarre claims comes from a post by Yang Qi, one of the company’s co-founders and lead artists, who explained that men and women are biologically different.
The report claims he wrote that men “dreamed of holding heavy machine guns and shooting at governments, while ladies dreamed of carrying bags that their girlfriends would envy.”
He concluded his post by suggesting that people should wear silk stockings and suspenders at work, make chrysanthemum tea, and put a humidifier on the table to create ‘soft and feminine things.'”
IGN’s translation of Yang Qi’s social media post
Finally, Valentine and Chan accused technical artist Daiwei of claiming that players could masturbate to a female character in the game by “looking at her more.” He reportedly wrote, “Although I’m not used to the snake neck, I can still cultivate this fetish.”
IGN’s translation of Daiwei’s social media post
READ: Former Kotaku and IGN editor calls on video game developers and publishers to condemn players who oppose woke ideology
Valentine would make these allegations as part of IGN’s Black Myth: Wukong First impressions article. Valentine wrote a section on the outlet’s November report.
She stated: “Last year, we published a comprehensive report on IGN detailing a number of sexist and inappropriate remarks made by several Black Myth: Wukong developers, including those in leadership positions at Game Science. As of the publication of this preview, Game Science has yet to provide a response or comment on our report or their previous remarks.”
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong (2024), Game Science
After detailing how much she enjoyed the preview of the game at Summer Game Fest, Valentine added: “It is also true that several of the people making this statement have made derogatory remarks about women and appear to have no interest in retracting their previous statements, nor in supporting the numerous women who are being harassed in online conversations about Black Myth: Wukong simply for expressing their discomfort with these statements. Both ideas can exist simultaneously – what the audience wants to do with this conflict is ultimately their choice.”
She concluded by saying, “One final note – I didn’t see any women or female-coded characters in the demo, and I was able to confirm from Game Science that there were none in the portion of the game presented to press. There will be women in the final game, but at this point it’s impossible to really say whether or not the beliefs expressed by the developers at Game Science permeate Black Myth: Wukong in any meaningful way.”
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong (2024), Game Science
What do you think about Valentine X leaving and having her account banned after her attempts to smear Black Myth: Wukong and its development team failed?
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