The video game industry must stand up against the right’s bad-faith attacks

The video game industry took two hits on Wednesday, in the aftermath of the double shootings across the weekend. ESPN, which had been planning to air an Apex Legends tournament as part of the X Games, decided to delay the program until after the X Games tie-in. Meanwhile, Walmart, which had been the site of the El Paso shooting, decided to remove advertising for “violent video games” — despite, absurdly, continuing to sell the guns used in the shootings.

The latter illustrates the core issue facing the video game industry: It’s too cowardly to actually speak the truth about why it’s being targeted, thus Walmart (and ESPN, or its corporate parents Disney/ABC) felt like they would face absolutely zero consequences for scapegoating games. The video game industry will continue to fail in the political arena as long as it is terrified to speak the truth that it is deliberately being targeted by Republican politicians as a distraction for their failed gun policies and complicity in hate crimes.