[Oni]

A friend was telling me about this a month ago, but it seems more allegations have surfaced since. Pretty messed up.

The competitive community for Nintendo’s popular Super Smash Bros. series has recently been rocked by an overwhelming amount of sexual misconduct allegations. An endless stream of victims—many speaking out against highly-skilled, popular, or otherwise powerful individuals—has come forward to expose the dark underbelly of a scene built around playing an ostensible children’s game. This has sparked serious conversation about what can be done to hold people accountable and prevent such widespread abuse in the future.

In the last week, according to Kotaku’s tracking of statements made on social media, more than 50 victims have come forward to expose someone in the Smash community of some sort of sexual misconduct. These accusations include multiple instances of rape, sexual assault, preying on minors, and grooming underage players. Several have resulted in bans from various tournament regions. Esports sponsors are retreating en masse. Without a true governing body to investigate allegations and enforce punishment, however, it’s often left up to the multitude of disparate Smash organizers to decide for themselves what to do on the local level. And as we’ve seen, that’s often a recipe for disaster, especially with how many children attend these events.

Read More: https://kotaku.com/over-50-sexual-miscon...1844328719

[blackrosex0x0]

Wow, I had no idea about this. This is pretty sad to hear about. 50+ victims coming forth is no joke.

[Oni]

Wow, I had no idea about this. This is pretty sad to hear about. 50+ victims coming forth is no joke.

There's no guarantee all of the claims are legitimate, but I'm sure a disturbing number of them are.

[Jiggly]

Jesus this sounds awful. If even one of the claims is true.. it's sad.

Is this all isolated to the events, or are players somehow getting groomed via in game communication too?

[Oni]

Jesus this sounds awful. If even one of the claims is true.. it's sad.

Is this all isolated to the events, or are players somehow getting groomed via in game communication too?

Most of this happened around the competitive events/scene. While Nintendo has added voice chat in Ultimate, I think most of these allegations predate that.

[Jiggly]

Jesus this sounds awful. If even one of the claims is true.. it's sad.

Is this all isolated to the events, or are players somehow getting groomed via in game communication too?

Most of this happened around the competitive events/scene. While Nintendo has added voice chat in Ultimate, I think most of these allegations predate that.

I assumed as much. Thank you. This sort of thing doesn't seem to be limited to this game. I'm aware twitch and other community gatherings have been plagued with scandals like this. Its disturbing to think this is so common. Especially considering the people attending these are from the "stranger danger" and 'stay away from dodgy people you talk to on the internet" generations. We're taught a lot about being safe... Yet somehow all this happens?