About
Penny Arcade[1] is a webcomic about video game culture that launched in 1998.
History
Penny Arcade was created by author Jerry Holkins[2] and artist Mike Krahulik[3], who often go by their names of their in-comic alter egos Tycho Brahe and Jonathan “Gabe” Gabriel, respectively, in November 1998. The strip was originally written for the gaming website Loonygames[4], where it ran until Penny Arcade moved to its own domain in 1999. The first comic strip depicted Gabe waiting for a level to load while playing the first person shooter game SIN, which was known for its extensive loading time between levels.[5]
Highlights
Child’s Play
[researching]
PAX
[researching]
Video Game
[researching]
Controversy
2013 Twitter Controversy
On June 7th, 2013, Kotaku[6] published an article on the mobile game HappyPlayTime, intended to gamify female masturbation. The article pointed out that the game was exclusionary to transgendered women, as the available screenshots made it look like the game focuses on clitoral stimulation. The same day, Mike Krahulik tweeted out a link to the article, mocking Kotaku’s criticism of the game. After blogger Shidoshi pointed out that he was excluding transgender men and women, whose genitals do not match with their gender identity, Krahulik stated that he did not find labeling a game for “vagina havers” as a game for women “exclusionary or unreasonable.” That day, a number of Krahulik’s tweets were compiled on Storify by two different users[7][8], which were viewed more than 8,600 times combined within two weeks.
pikoeri</a> that game was for vagina havers. I don't think it is exclusionary or unreasonable to lable vagina havers as women.</p>— cwgabriel (cwgabriel) June 7, 2013
On June 20th, the panels for PAX Australia were revealed, including one titled “Why So Serious? Has the Industry Forgotten That Games Are Supposed to Be Fun?.” The original description of the panel (shown below, left) suggested that questions about race and gender equality in games were overbearing and that games should be exempt from this type of criticism in the spirit of “fun.” As the panel description began to circulate online, it was quickly changed (shown below, right) to remove any mentions of sexism, misogyny and racism.[9]
The two situations began to mesh together, resulting in a number of social justice bloggers attacking Krahulik and Penny Arcade itself on Twitter. Krahulik responded with more transphobic tweets, telling people who used the term “cis” not to bother tweeting at him (shown below).[10] Krahulik then addressed the situation on the Penny Arcade blog[11], where he posted an email exchange between himself and gaming journalist Sophie Prell in which she expressed her concern about the incident and revealed to him that she is transgender herself. At the same time, gaming forums and feminist blogs began to discuss the story, including the Facepunch forums[12], NeoGAF[13], the Feminist Gaze Tumblr[14] and Gay Gamer.[15] Men’s rights subreddit /r/SRSSucks[16] also had a conversation about the situation, praising Krahulik for asserting his beliefs.
heads up if you use the word "cis" save yourself some time and don't bother tweeting at me.
— cwgabriel (@cwgabriel) June 20, 2013
On June 21st, Krahulik apologized for his tweets, claiming he snapped and should have walked away from his computer instead of “put[ting] on [his] asshole hat.” Despite his apology, the same day, indie game developer The Fullbright Company[17] made a blog post noting that they were going to pull their game Gone Home out of this year’s PAX Prime Expo’s Indie Megabooth, scheduled for August 30th, 2013. The post cited not only these recent events, but the 2011 “Dickwolf” incident[18] in which Mike said it felt “pretty good” to “support rape culture.” Fullbright also acknowledged that the decision would hurt themselves, but as a four person team with two women and a gay person, they no longer felt comfortable aligning themselves with Penny Arcade.
Traffic
By April 2010, Penny Arcade had attracted more than 3.5 million readers.[20] As of June 2013, the site gets approximately 3.4 million visitors globally per month, with a Quantcast[21] rank of 1,669 and Alexa[22] ranks of 1,351 in the US and 4,637 globally.
Search Interest
External References
[2]Twitter – @TychoBrahe
[3]Twitter – @cwgabriel
[4]Loonygames – Penny Arcade
[5]Wikipedia – SIN: Reception
[6]Kotaku – A Game That Wants To Teach Women How To Masturbate
[7]Storify – @cwgabriel tweets some transphobic garbage
[8]Storify – Penny Arcade and Transphobia
[9]The Border House – A Rundown of What’s Going on with Penny Arcade Now
[10]Twitter – @cwgabriel: heads up if you use the word “cis” save yourself some time and don’t bother tweeting at me.
[11]Penny Arcade – Twitter Sucks Sometimes
[12]Facepunch – “I think women have vaginas; I think you call a person with a vagina a woman.” Penny Arcade’s Gabe submitted for additional privilege assessment
[13]NeoGAF – Did something happen with PAX or Penny Arcade today?
[14]Feminist Gaze – TW: transphobia
[15]Gay Gamer – Why So Cis?
[16]Reddit – /r/SRSSucks: Gabe of Penny Arcade has riled up the SJW’s because he thinks women have vaginas.
[17]The Fullbright Company – Why we are not showing Gone Home at PAX
[18]Tumblr – debacle: The Pratfall of Penny Arcade
[19]Penny Arcade – Well that escalated quickly
[20]USA Today – ‘Penny Arcade’ a testament to the power of gaming culture
[21]Quantcast – penny-arcade.com
[22]Alexa – penny-arcade.com