Gamer Girl, the first improvised FMV game, provokes a backlash


[[[[To update: The Gamer Girl trailer has apparently been removed from YouTube, as the embedded video below will no longer play. It attracted great controversy when it was initially available.]

Publisher Wales Interactive said in a series of tweets that the game seeks to raise awareness of online abuse.

The original story continues:

Wales Interactive, the publisher behind FMV games like The Complex and Late Shift, has announced a new FMV title called Gamer Girl, and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. Coming to PC, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in September, the game lets you play as a chat moderator and personal contact for a popular streamer. The game is being developed by FMV Future (The Bunker).

It is up to you to manage a chat log and maintain personal contact with the transmitter, Abicake99 (Alexandra Burton). You’ll make decisions about her chat posts, respond to her DMs, and work to help Abi succeed – she can fire you if you’re wrong.

Interestingly, this one is also positioning itself as the first “makeshift” FMV game, with the press release making comparisons to found footage films like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Part of the game will consist of protecting Abbi from a predator and following her as she takes her broadcast to dangerous real-world scenarios.

You can watch the trailer below, which hints at the horror elements of the game.

The game’s micromanaging elements will include comment management, rewarding or banning Abbi community members based on their feedback, and the better you do it, the more moderator skills you’ll be able to unlock.

It seems that the game will have two goals: to help Abbi succeed and keep her safe. It can also influence the type of broadcasts she makes, or intentionally encourage drama and help increase her ratings.

Real life streamers, including CyborgAngel, will also appear in-game as characters. You can also contact some of them, but they may have hidden reasons.

Wales Interactive promises “hundreds of options and permutations”, so it should be interesting to see how many different paths it can take in Gamer Girl.

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