Electronic musician Joel “Deadmau5” Zimmerman was suspended from the streaming service Twitch after using homophobic language during a game broadcast, and it doesn’t sound like he’s coming back.
Zimmerman used an offensive slur for homosexuals while playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. He was reportedly angry at another player who, according to Zimmerman, could have been “stream-sniping” him in the match.
After Twitch suspended Zimmerman for the language he used, he took to Reddit to reveal that he was not going to be streaming on the platform any longer, calling what he did “harmless” and accusing the platform of having a double standard for suspending people. He then published a longer statement, where his tune seems to have changed.
“I know what I said was wrong, and my hastily composed non-apology was insult to injury,” he said in a second Reddit post. “I realize that trying to somewhat dismiss it as ‘gamer culture’ was even worse. I don’t know why I did that. But I do know it was stupid and insensitive and I feel even more ashamed. This was my worst moment.”
Zimmerman added that Twitch was within its rights to ban him for the slur, and that he would be staying “more quiet” as he continues to work on music. Since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds exploded in popularity, he had been an avid player and even began work on his own first-person shooter in 2018.
This isn’t the first time a high-profile celebrity has been criticized for using a slur while livestreaming PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Iin 2017, PewDiePie uttered a racial slur while playing the game, resulting in backlash from certain game developers. He later apologized and acknowledged that he needed to learn more from his controversies, though it was far from the last time he’d find himself in hot water.
The controversy comes at a time when LGBTQ identities are becoming more broadly accepted and included in video games themselves. Most recently, Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends launched with one male character in a same-sex relationship and another non-binary character. Blizzard’s Overwatch also has several characters who are part of the LGBTQ community, including Soldier 76 and Tracer.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.