Abubakar Salim, the founder of Surgent Studios and creative director of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, issued a strong statement today addressing harassment both he and his studio have faced since the release of Tales of Kenzera in April.
In a five-minute video posted to X/Twitter (which you can watch below), Salim opens by saying he didn’t want to address the harassment, and that he’s dealt with assertions that he didn’t “deserve the opportunit[ies]” he got from the beginning of his career: “No, it was simply because I’m Black, and I’ve turned my other cheek and just kept doing my thing,” he says.
A needed message. pic.twitter.com/oJaJEeZd61
— Abubakar Salim (@Abzybabzy) May 31, 2024
Salim is also an actor known for roles in Assassin’s Creed Origins, Max’s Raised by Wolves, and an upcoming part in Season 2 of HBO’s House of the Dragon. He goes on to say that he can brush off some of the comments, but “when there’s a constant barrage of them, it’s exhausting.” And, when it came to Tales of Kenzera in particular, the situation reached “a fever pitch,” especially as the game was roped into ongoing harassment campaigns targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts on social media.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s been so much amazing and beautiful support for this game. The fact that it’s inspired so many people and touched, you know, so many lives, it was one of our goals from the outset — to have this positive impact, right?” Salim says. “But at the same time, we are being faced with constant targeted harassment from people who see diversity as a threat. From people who look across the vast landscape of modern media and decide that anything that doesn’t speak to them or centers around them is unnecessary and inauthentic.”
“And look,” he continues, “there’s always a reason why diverse stories can’t exist. You know, it’s always either we’re doing it the wrong way or it’s just there to tick boxes and it’s just beginning to feel like there is no right way. You know, these exclusionary rules continue to stack up and the goalposts continue to shift until, you know, me, my studio, people who look like us, just sit down, be quiet and just accept the fact that you’re outsiders. But I won’t do that.”
“If there are people who aren’t like you in a game, I want you to know that game is still for you,” Salim continues. “You know, if the characters are a different race or a different gender or you know, a different ideology or different perspective, that doesn’t mean the game isn’t for you. It can still be for you.”
It’s that philosophy, Salim says, that inspired him to set Tales of Kenzera at a more affordable price than many other games, going for $20 across Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. But the harassment, he continues, has spurred him to make the price of the game even lower to try to make it more accessible to a larger audience.
He announces that, starting today, the price of Tales of Kenzera will be lower than $15 on Switch, giving Nintendo a shoutout for “acting fast on this.”
“I’m working with the team in bringing this discount to all platforms and it’s gonna start from now to until the end of June because, you know, it just means so much to me, man,” he says.
“I believe this is just one way that I can show you how serious I am about this,” he says. “Games are for everyone. Diverse games, they’re not about taking something away from you. They’re about adding something new because there’s room for all of us.”
Salim’s statement comes at a time where the games industry has seen an uptick in harassment on social media, spurring the International Game Developers Association (IDGA) to issue a statement on the matter in March. At the time, the organization said it was “deeply concerned about the increased harassment of historically marginalized developers and those advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.”
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a side-scrolling action game that follows a young shaman named Zau as he embarks on capturing spirits of three monsters as offerings to Kalunga, the God of Death, so that he may revive his father. Salim has been open about the fact that the game was inspired by the death of his own father, and in our review, IGN called it a “touching love letter from a grieving son to their deceased father, told in clever and moving allegories about sending restless spirits to the afterlife, that helps it stand out in the pack.”
In his video today, Salim concludes by sending a message to other developers who have told personal stories that “uplift the marginalized and underrepresented.”
“Your work is so important, so important today,” he says. “Whether you realize it or not, you are actually setting an example for the next generation of developers, of creators, of artists, just take that in. Keep doing what you’re doing. Thank you.”
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
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