Depression Quest Dev Faces Extreme Harassment Because She’s a Woman

Note: Possible trigger warning if you are uncomfortable with hate speech. 

Zoe Quinn, developer of Depression Quest, is just trying to put her game through Steam Greenlight. It’s a difficult process normally, but this is different. Why? Because for the SECOND time, Zoe Quinn is being excessively harassed by online users, reportedly from the site Wizardchan. 

How bad? She had to change her phone number because she was receiving sexually harassing phone calls. 

This is the second time Zoe Quinn has been the target for abuse, evidently being a woman is enough to get yourself attacked on the internet with such illuminating quotes as: 

All females are sluts and have no right to be depressed. They can just go onto the street, lie down with their hole open and have a man come and solve all of their problems. But they would still be depressed because they’re all just stupid whores.

She is the one responsible. Of course a woman would never relate to anyone here. She would never be with a truly depressed person. Can someone mail her a rant or a link to this thread? God I hate that ****

Quinn has been harassed before after putting up Depression Quest on Greenlight, and wrote that this “raid” — where users inundate her with abuse — was an “accepted risk” and that “this will continue to be the cost for me to stay in games.” 

In the wake of the attention Wizardchan is getting over their harassment, they have implemented a rule about “no generic venting threads about women.” Wizardchan is, no joke, a board for lifelong male virgins. 

This implemented policy change has resulted in several more fantastic comments about how:

We should be able to piss on women as much as we want for all of the pain they’ve caused us. 

Women are trash and we should be able to talk about them openly and honestly.

I’m not going to say that “not all men are like this,” or alternatively “not all Wizardchan members are like this.” That goes without saying. But this shouldn’t be the price of doing business on the Internet. A developer shouldn’t be getting attacked simply because she is female, which is why the attack happened to begin with. 

Depression Quest is a game that seeks to spread awareness and understanding for those affected by depression. You can find more about the game here or on Steam.