Ian Proulx, the CEO of Splitgate 2 developers 1047 Games, has apologised for wearing a ‘Make FPS Great Again’ cap while talking about the game’s battle royale mode on stage at Summer Game Fest. As you might have guessed, the hat drew unfavourable comparisons to US president Donald Trump’s MAGA hats.
It’d have been a pretty dumb, controversy-baiting stunt for a games company CEO to pull at any point in recent history, but especially hasn’t gone over well given the timing. As the SGF show happened, a large number of anti-ICE protests also began in response to violent immigration raids, and later that weekend Trump deployed the National Guard onto the streets.”
Up until yesterday, Proulx had opted not to apologise for the hat, which he wore while taking some shots at the state of the shooter genre right now, specifically going at the Call of Duty series for repetitive annual releases and wishing for a Titanfall 3. “I’m not here to apologize but I am here to clarify. This is not a political statement, it is quite literally what it says, so take it at face value,” he wrote in a tweet on June 7.
“I don’t regret what I said to be candid. I think that I stand by it and my intent is I’m speaking my truth and my intent is to make a great game for everybody,” he said of that tweet in an interview with IGN published yesterday, doubling down on decling to apologise.
Just a few hours prior to that article’s publication, however, Proulx u-turned and posted a video apology Splitgate 2’s official Twitter account, admitting that the hat was a publicity stunt.
“It is really freaking hard as an independent studio to break through the noise…at our biggest stage, coming out of beta, we needed something to grab attention, and the honest truth is we tried to think of something, and this is what we came up with,” the exec said in the video.
“We did not intend for this to be taken in any political way whatsoever and I’m not an idiot, obviously I knew there would be some level of controversy,” Proulx continued, “But we really saw this as a meme that was kind of stating our truth, which is we do want to improve this genre and we are disappointed with the state of the genre.
“You don’t have to believe me, but the truth is I am sorry, and the reason I’m sorry is because of what this has done to the community…I hate seeing division, and that’s what I’m seeing right now on both sides. There’s division in the community, and for that I am truly sorry.”
