Reckoning within the video game industry continues. Skull girls Mike Zaimont, Senior Design Director and featured member of the fighting game community, has been accused of inappropriate behavior by multiple cosplayers. Cosplayer BunnyAyu was the first at the level of these charges after posting alleged messages he sent her.
She revealed this by tweeting that she wouldn’t be playing Skull girls by Zaimont’s comments.
“I will no longer play Skull Girls [sic]”The creator, Mike, was incredibly disrespectful to DMS and made me feel very uncomfortable. I have shared screenshots of the conversation with others at the FGC and with Combo Queens.”
BunnyAyu then followed up with a thread of her alleged messages that made her uncomfortable. The images also contained small snippets of the parts that bothered him, including flirty comments he made about the validation. She ended the Imgur album by saying that her responses were “creepy” and “degrading” and that she thought she probably wouldn’t “speak to a man like this.” Before logging out, she said that more came up with their own stories on their DMs.
Some of the messages that Mike Zaimont allegedly sent to BunnyAyu.
This accusation prompted Carbonbae, another cosplayer, to publish his story. They responded with a video accusing Zaimont of similar behavior.
“I still haven’t read Bunny’s DMs,” they said. “I don’t know what Mike said to him. I’m sure it sucked and I know this because Mike has been making strange sexual comments to me in and out of cosplay at fighting game events for real years. And I’ve been writing a lot because when I tell people, they say, ‘Oh, he’s something like that. Sorry!'”
Then they went on to say that he has not changed in the past five years, as have others in the fighting game community. Carbonbae said the people they’ve counted do nothing about it before speaking in the following video about the broader issue of people remaining silent about the transphobic, racist and sexist comments made by their peers. Commentator Ryan “Saint Cola” Collins also contributed, saying that the fighting game community had known about Zaimont’s habits for years, but did not review it.
Former Lab Zero artist Beezul later came forward with his own stories. These included stories of racism, as well as some sexual harassment directed at others.
Zaimont has not responded and this is not even the first time that it has been the subject of controversy in the past month. In early June, while commenting online Skull girls party, he made a tacky “I can’t breathe” comment that seemed to mock the murder of George Floyd. He later apologized and said he does not represent his views on racial injustice before bowing to comment fully if viewers request it.
