Ok, read all posts in here until now, plus the official statement from EGs site (which is pretty much up to date included in the article). I will try to include most, but won't realy quote much.
The headline is in fact and nothing more, nothing less, very correct. He got suspended, for what he said!
That's one thing. And i have to say, i think, this by itself is already rather reasonable. Sure, i make rude jokes myself, just a few days ago i made a discriminating and racist joke in one sentence, stating to a friend of mine, that last year he was the quota handicapped and this year we got the quota black female assigned to our institute. But, first, it was clearly intended as a joke, second, that's my free time and (except from taking it to this forum now) absolute private. And still, if the target of my joke would've been offended by that, it would have been my (private) responsibility to apologize. Taking a comedian as an argument of defense in this matter is completely missing the point, considering that it is part of a comedian's job to target delicate topics and criticise them in a homorous way. This is not the job of a pro-gamer, neither of most other professions and those who aren't expected to tackle topics like this, are likely to get bad feedback for doing so and the worse it's done, the worse the feedback is gonna be. Maybe this is a problem of our siciety, tabooing certain topics for most occasions and it certainly is something often discussed, maybe it'll change in the future for "the better", but the current "ruleset of society" has some taboos. "Stephano" broke a taboo in most unfortunate circumstances and that he is to take responsibility is just righteous and in my personal opinion, what his management did, was a rather smart move (fast damage control, further investigation and hopefully clearification, and still having the opportunity to set things right in the aftermath).
Now to get at what he said and what he may have ment. Maybe he just made a (realy bad) joke and most of the community is "overreacting" right now, but
Grey Carter said:
Despite a public apology from Satouri, Evil Geniuses says that while the decision to suspend him is final, the team doesn't consider the matter closed just yet.
This includes, that they are reviewing the incident and what it may have actually ment. At best, he just made a verbal mistake and will be back next month. At worst, he basically made a confession to an actual and rather heavy crime. That children up to a certain age are in general protected by law has very good reasons. If an adult, what "Stephano" is by law, sexually approaches, or even abuses underaged children, let the border be 15 in france (don't know about that for certain, 15 is "already" rather young in modern western countries), this is in fact a crime and for good reasons for sure, because it is to protect those who are "innocent" and defenseless by themselfs. If a child is abused, you'll never hear an official complaint by the offended, because they're simply not able to. If i make a racist joke, the chance is rather high the offended are able to and will complain about that. Dead baby-jokes are very borderline, but as long as they're clearly jokes, have it your way. We'll possibly see the outcome of this matter in the near future.
Another point is, what it actually means to the community. Point made in the article is, that currently the gaming community is still growing, not only in numbers, but also in representation, including major events and public figures. In addition, within this representation, the quantity of "scandals" increases. They were already present before for sure, are in other communities as well, maybe the percentage hasn't even increased, but in quantity, the community is getting more and more bad representation (look at the other arguments, unsporstmanship in League of Legends, harassement in Street Fighter X Tekken). Now, in this matter the question is, how we, as a community, react to stuff like that?! Are we letting it slip and slip again, basicaly slowly destroying what we worked so hard for in the last years, or do we take action and further work to achieve our goals, to build a better and respected community and make "games" accepted by the majority of society? I, personally, will always stand for and defend better sporstmanship, proper representation and treatment of "gaming", because it is something i like very much, an important part of my life, which i don't want to be condemned for, but i want to share it with society and make it the best it can be.
