Brianna Wu’s Giant Spacekat pulls out of PAX East, blames GamerGate death threats

Brianna Wu, the cofounder of game studio Giant Spacekat, said she has decided to pull her team out of the PAX East gaming convention because of specific ongoing death threats from supporters of GamerGate, the controversial group that claims to challenge game journalism ethics and has also led to harassment of female game developers.

“I’ve [had] very difficult conversations with my husband about standing up to GamerGate despite the death threats. We don’t have children, and we feel strongly enough about this issue to accept this risk. Our lives are our own; this is our choice. I cannot and will not make that choice for the people I work with. After talking to them, I made the decision to prioritize the safety of Giant Spacekat’s employees,” Wu wrote in a post. “Specifically, we have chosen to withdraw our presence from the PAX East 2015 Expo Hall due to a concern that in a crowd of such a volume expected at PAX, the safety of our team can not be guaranteed.”