Gaming

EDIT context from know your meme of all places :D : Apologies

Overview Godot Engine Blocking Controversy refers to a controversy surrounding the community manager for the game engine Godot blocking users on X / Twitter and, reportedly, GitHub over negative reactions to a social media post in support of indie games with LGBTQ+ and "woke" themes. The blocking became a subject of viral discussions on X and Reddit in late September 2024, with the hashtag #Wokot used by posters to refer to it.

Background On September 24th, 2024, an indie video game developer posted footage from the upcoming Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori on X[1] / Twitter, revealing that it was built using Unreal Engine 5. In the X[2] thread, user @kryztofcheski wrote, "Woke studios always use pre-built engines to make games because they can't build their own engines." In the following days, several X[3] users quote posted the post, mocking the presumption that gaming engines could be "woke" (example post shown below).

Natalie Spitzel @nat_the_dev Sorry fellow devs I guess game engines are Woke™ kryztofjønsøn @kryztofcheski • Sep 24 Replying to @AfterWarPlantX @Malice DaFirenze and @GorkaGames It makes sense doesn't it? Woke studios always use pre built engines to make games because they can't build their own engines. 1:22 PM ⚫ Sep 26, 2024 54.2K Views

On September 27th, the official X[4] / Twitter account for Godot Engine, run by a community manager, made a post referencing @kryztofcheski's post, calling for indie developers to showcase their "woke" game built using the engine. The post (shown below) garnered over 1.7 million views, 2,000 reposts and 16,000 likes in three days.

Godot Engine @godotengine Apparently game engines are woke now? Well then, we won't complain Show us your #Wokot games below 9:21 AM Sep 27, 2024 · 1.7M Views

In the following hours, Godot Engine blocked several developers and other users who replied to the post with criticisms. For example, on September 27th, 2024, developer funnygamedev reported being blocked on X[5] by the Godot Engine X account after asking them to focus on fixing and supporting Bitmap fonts (post shown below). On September 28th, indie developer and pixel artist @Cosmic_Scr wrote on X[6] that they were blocked by Godot Engine on X after replying with Godot Engine creator Juan Linietsky's quote "I deeply believe that any political discussion that puts labels to a group of people is one that should not have started." On September 28th, 2024, Godot Engine backer Starkium reported that they were blocked on X[7] by the account over a comment. Developer @dev_bonnie made a post about being blocked by Godot Engine on X,[15] writing, "Erm friendly fire" and pointing out that they are bisexual.

10.0 Godot Engine @godotengine. Sep 27 Apparently game engines are woke now? Well then, we won't complain Show us your #Wokot games below → 2.7K 172K 15K 1.7M ☐ 1 funnygamedev (mouse) @funnygamedev Sep 27 Can you focus on fixing/supporting Bitmap fonts to properly import into your engine first instead of doing this sort of thing its delaying my project a lot having to try to bugfix this with the little documentation you have for this. Q41 1753 1.7K Ill 46K funnygamedev (mouse) @funnygamedev blocking me for this really mild criticism for something that should be in a 2D engine a while now is making me consider switching to a different engine. There's a proper use of resources and it should be done to fix the stuff you have in there, not adding new things. Godot Engine @godotengine BENA 6 200 You're blocked You can't follow or see @godotengine's posts. Learn more 5:48 PM · Sep 27, 2024 899 Views

On September 29th, indie developer Anthony Waldsmith wrote on X[8] that he has been blocked by Godot Engine on the developer platform GitHub (post shown below).