Bungie to improve its games online safety after Buffalo, NY terror attack
Destiny 2 developer Bungie has issued a statement condemning the recent terror attack in Buffalo, NY, where 18-year old Payton Gendron allegedly opened fire in a Tops grocery store, killing 10 people and injuring more. In the statement, the company declared it is committing to improving online safety in its communities in order to better combat online extremism.
In the days since the shooting, authorities have revealed that Gendron allegedly planned his attacks months in advance, and deliberately targeted Buffalo's Black community. The attacks were allegedly planned on social chat platform Discord (which is still popular with the video game community despite a branding shift away from video games), and streamed briefly on Twitch.
Though there are no indications that Gendron planned or discussed the attack while playing Destiny 2, Bungie is still taking action with assistance from employee working group Black at Bungie. First, it's donating proceeds of sales from the "Be Heard" pin for the next year to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that works to monitor right-wing extremism in the United States.
Second (and this is a far more unusual announcement), Bungie is saying that it will be working with its player support and community teams to "see what part [the studio] can play in preventing these tragedies."
"We hope our colleagues in game development and gaming communities continue to examine their own platforms and invest in practices to combat bigotry in all its manifestations," the studio added. "We believe games and their communities should be a force for good and we are committed to that."
Bungie was previously forced to confront online extremism when it discovered a contract artist had created an in-game skin
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