This past weekend, popular online gaming forum NeoGAF went offline following allegations that its founder, Tyler Malka, had committed sexual assault. The site originally listed an error to those attempting to visit any of its pages, noting that it was down for maintenance. Now, both NeoGAF and Malka have emerged, with the site back online and its owner issuing a statement in response to the allegations.
Early Monday morning, Malka published a post entitled “The state of NeoGAF” on one of the site’s forums. Within his statement, he denies claims of sexual misconduct. “An allegation of sexual misconduct has been made against me by an ex,” wrote Malka. “It’s not true, the individual making the accusation isn’t credible, the story doesn’t reconcile logically with the facts, and there’s plenty of evidence and witnesses to corroborate that.”
Malka went on to comment that allegations of this nature are serious, and that the “unprecedented events unfold[ing] on NeoGAF” when the community caught wind of the burgeoning controversy left him “beyond exhausted” and “stretched too thin.”
“Before I could finish a statement and get it out there, understandably some mods hit their emotional limit, expressed concerns about the community coming after them, and decided to leave. A few people resigned, and many more quickly followed for similar reasons, citing stress and harassment,” Malka stated. “The site started breaking under load spikes leading up to the first resignations, too, and then flatlined altogether, so issuing a statement at that time on NeoGAF itself became impossible for the time being.”
The statement closed with Malka indicating that NeoGAF visitors and users must respect the mod team, as that is “non-negotiable.” However, he did note that others have “no obligations” to respect him or “believe anything [he] say[s] about [his] personal life one way or another.”
A follow-up message from NeoGAF’s moderation team explained that the forum’s Off-Topic boards would be shuttered for some time to refocus the site’s discussion to video games and steer clear of political topics and the like. A great deal of moderators left the NeoGAF community when the allegations first surfaced, viewed as a protest against him and the actions he is alleged to have committed.
Responses to Malka’s statement and the subsequent decisions moving forward have been quite heated, following in the same vein as the so-called “suicide posts” users wrote over the weekend with the hopes of being banned from the site altogether. One NeoGAF frequenter who hadn’t been banned reacted to the situation this morning, writing, “Your solution to people being upset about the sexual assault accusations against you is to shut down the entire side of the site that discussed these types of issues and ban political/social threads? You are a coward.” Another responded, “This is unacceptable, the getting rid of Off-Topic and later restricting what can be discussed is a poor response. The spirit of what made GAF worth visiting is dead here.”
As it stands, it seems as though Malka won’t be stepping down any time soon. What’s far more clear is that NeoGAF is on the rocks, and that a large portion of its previous supporters – the same eagle-eyed ones who dished up information on the Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite roster earlier this year – are distancing themselves from the site as quickly and fiercely as possible.
Source: NeoGAF (1, 2, 3)
