A viral video making the rounds on the internet has sparked controversy over discriminatory attitudes hidden behind the scenes in game development. Sam Maggs, a writer with credits in some of the most well-recognized modern games, recalled one of her "all-time worst gaming experiences" in a video posted to Twitter.

Narrating over a timelapse of her makeup routine in the morning, Maggs recalled an experience with an unnamed gaming development company that stayed with her. According to Maggs, she had created a character for a game that was cast with a human actress. After going through the process of scanning the actress's face for the in-game model, she said her creative director "stormed in" and told her to recast the character for quite questionable reasons.

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Maggs said the creative director didn't want two Asian characters in the game because they "already have an Asian woman" in it. Maggs then goes on to say that the creative director claimed that "players won't be able to tell them apart." Maggs remembers being shocked because the characters that the creative director was referencing were "completely different" and even had different ethnic origins – she recalls one actress had Japanese ethnicity, and one had Vietnamese ethnicity.

Maggs remembers asking the creative director why he thinks players will be able to tell all of the White men in the game apart, but not two distinctly different Asian characters. She sums up her story by saying that it ended up being "too expensive to replace her," as money had already been spent on including the actress in the game. Maggs did not directly call out any specific games development company or the creative director, but discrimination and racism is not as uncommon in the gaming industry as some might think.

The viral video comes at the height of the Stop AAPI Hate movement, which has become a vocal movement against hate crimes towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hate crimes increased sharply, sparking individual and corporate allies to come out in support of the AAPI community. Maggs' account does not give any specific names of the perpetrators, but she does respond to her own tweet by telling the company directly that if it wants to sue her, it will be identifying itself.

While some modern games, like Apex Legends, have put a lot of effort into representing Asians and Pacific Islanders accurately, the gaming community still clearly has work to do regarding racism. A number of gaming companies have added their names to the list of companies outwardly supporting the Stop AAPI Hate movement. If Maggs' viral recollection is a true account, it's a sign that gaming companies need to clamp down on individuals who express discriminatory attitudes.

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