Video game news outlet Destructoid let go of its UK team yesterday, placing three people out of work including co-host of the Jimquisition Podcast, Laura Kate Dale, who served as their UK editor.
“As of June 30th this month, the UK team at Destructoid (Myself, Joe Parlock, Vikki Blake) will no longer be a salaried team at Destructoid” announced Dale on her Patreon page last night. “Our team being dismantled is apparently nothing to do with content quality of viewership of content, and due to seasonal financials and our team of three being the most recent additions to the salary payroll.”
In her Patreon post, Dale makes a call for monetary pledges in order to fund her and her previous team on their own business venture:
Obviously, recieving this news two days before heading off for surgery is less than ideal haha. I want to address the fate of our little team, as well as our hopes and plans going forward. In a perfect world, I would like to bring Vikki and Joe over to my little content creation platform. I would like to pay them the same salary they were earning at Destructoid, and instead have them creating content for my site and feeds.
Dale received heavy criticism in December after she attacked an independent game developer for creating a satirical game under the name of “Tranny Gladiator”. Dale, who is a transgender female herself, made numerous demands of the developer Pan Games after her Jimquisition co-host and fellow social justice warrior Jim Sterling made a video about the game, sending his fans after the developer.
“I really hope Steam refuses to let this on Greenlight at step one,” posted Dale on Twitter. “Let’s repeat – If you are not Trans, you do not get a say on if Tranny is a slur / if it should be reclaimed etc.”
After the developer apologized on Twitter and issued a statement about the situation, Dale issued a veiled threat, tweeting, “I’m telling you now for your own good, pull that trailer, remove the word tranny and the suggestion ex CD Red staff work for you,” before also demanding that the small developer “get a trans person involved as a paid consultant before re launching this project,” despite the project receiving support from numerous other trans women.
@pan_games get a trans person involved as a paid consultant before re launching this project.
— Laura Kate Dale (@LaurakBuzz) December 20, 2015
https://twitter.com/MrNashington/status/678597666159374337
Breitbart Uses T-Slur To Mock 15-Year-Old Transgender Activist, surprising nobody who has ever heard of Breitbart. https://t.co/Dp1dk8WClY
— Laura Kate Dale (@LaurakBuzz) December 4, 2015
After issuing a statement and attempting to fix the situation, Pan Games went silent on social media and have not made any updates or continued their development of the game since December.
Dale was also the subject of controversy after claiming that a presenter at the Eurogame Expo in 2013 referred to her as “he,” “it,” “thing,” and “this one.” She later recanted the claim that those terms were used, but not before significant public backlash had been levied at the supposed offender.
The presenter, British actor Fraser Millward, said that he had referred to Dale as “this person” but apologized anyway for “publicly misgender[ing] her.”
As of writing, Dales Patreon fundraiser has reached $2,346 out of the needed $3,000 a month to continue as a team.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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