Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy—appointed in March—drew fire earlier this year when an anonymous employee accused him of kowtowing to the Trump administration's assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives with a decision to dramatically scale back Pride Month celebrations in RuneScape and Old School RuneScape.
Understandably, that decision sparked ire, as did Bellamy's attempts to pitch the rollback of Pride events as a way of preserving the games' status as a safe haven for queer players. Pride content was, he told staff, "now controversial in a way it didn’t used to be and that controversy now brings more risk than it did previously, risk that I’m personally responsible to protect against." Some RuneScape players responded with a "No gay, no pay" protest campaign.
Now, in a chat with GamesIndustry.biz, Bellamy has returned to the controversy, standing by his decision and even suggesting that he may well make the same choice for next year's Pride Month. "Ultimately, my job is governance and protection as much as anything else, and so sometimes those kinds of harsh decisions have to be made to protect the imminent future of the game," Bellamy told GI, going on to say that "If there are tough decisions to be made next year, we'll make them."
On the other hand, says Bellamy, "If the world has changed a bit and the environment is different, we will react accordingly."
To hear Bellamy tell it, it's all a question of priorities. "The most important thing is the continuity and maintenance of our games, as well as the preservation of our players," said the CEO.
"I totally sympathise with what's being said. At the top of my totem pole will always be the continuity and operation of our games as apolitically as possible." He continues, "ultimately, our games offer escapism to many hundreds of thousands of players every day. If that escapism opportunity is compromised, there's a very real risk to the business. I will continue to make decisions that keep the continuity at the top of the priority list."
On the one hand, of course, Bellamy is really saying out loud what so many companies are doing quietly—we live in a time of reactionary backlash to the social progress of the last couple of decades, and many institutions are choosing a quiet life rather than fighting back. Expecting principled solidarity from a profit-seeking corporation is a fool's errand.
Indeed, Bellamy even implies—with his comment about "if the world has changed a bit"—that RuneScape could well go back to big Pride events if the world undergoes a reversal in the political winds in the near future.
But for me, what truly sticks in the craw is the statement that Bellamy's priority is the operation of Jagex's game "as apolitically as possible." Hosting Pride events is not apolitical, but nor is cancelling them in order to cosy up to far-right governments. The latter is just easier. If Bellamy's priority truly is to prevent the compromise of the "escapism" it offers to its many players, I have to wonder how RuneScape's numerous LGBT players feel about their escapism right now.
