The Statement Released Due to an Incident at a Spanish Warhammer 40,000 Tournament
Gamestop speaks out after an incident within a Spanish Warhammer 40,000 tournament. It’s a bit of a doozy, this one. Apparently, there was a player that really went out for all the stops when it came to racism, and I’m not kidding. I wish I was. This isn’t what the player said, but they were, in a sense, being passively racist. Not only did they have the user name that refers to, of all things, Adolf Hitler, but they were multiple Nazi symbols. That’s not the crux of the problem. The problem came about when other players did not want to play with this problem player. And instead of kicking said player out, the tournament organizers…penalized players who refused to play against him.
This is why Gamestop had to release a statement about what happened, and again remind people about their no-tolerance policy against hate groups and the symbols that come with them. They released a pretty lengthy statement about the matter, but some of it was quite blunt about the matter. “If you come to a Games Workshop event or store and behave to the contrary, including wearing the symbols of real-world hate groups, you will be asked to leave,” the statement read. It got more to the point with: “We won’t let you participate. We don’t want your money. We don’t want you in the Warhammer community.”
They were also quick to offer help for those who wanted to make a safe attending environment for future events, as well as help for educators and youth groups alike. Warhammer 40K, according to Gamestop, is meant for everyone. And too, while Imperium of Man is full of zealots and xenophobes, it’s not meant to promote hate speech in real life- it’s meant, according to the statement, to be a “cautionary tale” as well as satirical.
There has been no word on if the tournament organizers have been penalized, or if that particular user has been banned from future tournaments, but we may hear more about it in the upcoming weeks.