On Friday, June 24, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision overturning the 50-year-oldRoe v. Wadedecision, ending nationwide reproductive rights including the right to abortion for American citizens. Companies across the video game industry, both domestic to the United States and international, have issued statements reaffirming support forwomen’s reproductive rights. These statements have typically included a promise to ensure employees continue to have access to reproductive care regardless of where they live.World of Warcraftengineer Valentine Powell has been collecting a list of statements of support on Twitter. Curiously, both PlayStation and Xbox have approached the subject in different manners. 10 individual PlayStation studios, including Naughty Dog, PlayStation London, Guerrilla Games, Sucker Punch, Santa Monica Studio, Media Molecule,Insomniac, Bend Studio, and Bungie, all issued their own statements. However, PlayStation itself has not. Meanwhile, both the main Xbox and Bethesda accounts have tweeted statements, while studios beneath them have largely either stayed silent or retweeted their parent.RELATED:Xbox Says It Will Support Employees Following Roe v. Wade OverturnPlayStation and Xbox aren’t the only major companies that have issued statements, though. Both Electronic Arts andUbisoft, two of the largest publishers in the world, have reaffirmed their support for reproductive rights. Devolver Digital and Akupara Games may not be as large as EA and Ubisoft, but both have made statements. Others, including Nintendo of America, Valve, Epic Games, NetEase, Activison Blizzard, Take-Two, Square Enix, Sega, Capcom, and Embracer Group, have not issued statements.Many more studios have also issued support for abortion rights in the United States.Among Usdeveloper Innersloth,Super Meat Boy’s Team Meat,Guild Wars 2’s ArenaNet,Hyper Light Drifter’s Heart Machine,Pokemon GO’s Niantic,Battle Chasers' Airship Syndicate,SMITE’s Hi-Rez Studios, Rogue Games, Scopely,ARK’s Studio Wildcard, andLife is Strange’s Deck Nine all issued statements.
An area of surprising support is very young game studios as they work on their first projects, perhaps revealing a generational divide. Unbroken Studios, Cold Iron Studios, That’s No Moon Entertainment, Future Club,Dreamhaven, Recombobulator Games, Frost Giant Games, Ascendant Studios, Gravity Well, and Singularity 6 all made public statements of support.
It isn’t just game developers and publishers that have issued statements of support for reproductive rights, of course. Esports teams like TSM andTeam Liquid, gaming brands like NYXL and XSET, and even storefronts like Humble Bundle are all vocally supportive, too. It’s not just a message to potential employees that their employers will support their rights no matter where they live, but a message to Americans that even in a post-Roe v. Wadeworld there’s solidarity within certain areas of the gaming industry.
