Notch, the creator of Minecraft and coiner of the term “ma’amsplaining,” is back in the fray over video game politics after he responded to a Redditor’s question about demands by some to put more female characters in video games. This issue came to a head when a bunch of liberal gaming journalists crybullied Nintendo over Link not being a woman in the new Zelda game. Notch responded to this growing trend by calling it censorship.
Then later in the week a reporter from Crave criticized Notch for what the author perceived was Notch advocating for censorship of female characters. Notch later clarified on Reddit that he was actually talking about a culture of censorship throughout the whole industry.
Regardless of intent, Notch and the article’s author had at it on Twitter.
@notch …but that is the intention I derived from your quote, and to be honest, I can't see how it could be perceived another way.
— Paul Tamburro (@PaulTamburro) June 26, 2016
You're one off the two-faced liars I speak about in the quote in your own article. https://t.co/k785dIGY1p
— Markus Persson (@notch) June 26, 2016
@notch Two-faced as in I disagree with your opinion, and then proceed to tell you that I disagree with it?
— Paul Tamburro (@PaulTamburro) June 26, 2016
@notch but rather that I strongly disagree that saying those advocating for these changes are guilty of censorship.
— Paul Tamburro (@PaulTamburro) June 26, 2016
People like you are the ones who turn it into censorship. Dissidents get publicly shamed. People self censor. https://t.co/riIUgAYgEZ
— Markus Persson (@notch) June 26, 2016
Notch’s devil-may-care attitude on Twitter and his willingness to speak up on issues other developers are afraid to discuss publicly has a lot to do with his semi-retirement and the fact that he has a shitload of money. He explained the situation last week on Reddit.