BenV's messages

A copy of my open letter to GameStop regarding the shameful practices on this site and lack of staff response.

This message pertains to Kongregate.com, which is owned and operated by GameStop and is on this website.

I have been registered on Kongregate for just over a year, and have been playing games on Kongregate for over a year and a half. I am also a parent who has been playing games online since BBS’s, telnet, and muds, and I co-run on of the largest gaming wikis in the world for one of the most played MMO’s in the world. I am not unfamiliar with the online world and computer systems.

I am writing to GameStop to notify them about the extremely high amount of bad language and sexual misconduct on the Kongregate.com site, mainly in the chat rooms, but also in some of the forums.

Kongregate has permitted a pervasive atmosphere of these behaviors, including incredibly foul language, inappropriate sexual conduct, sexual harassment (primarily towards women), rampant sexual propositioning and discussion of sexual exploits, and casual treatment of violent sexual behavior (including rape, sodomy, and sex/murder) to exist on the Kongregate.com site. Note that some of these things are illegal under US federal law and in Canada.

I outline below the ways in which Kongregate has permitted these behaviors to occur to emphasize the systemic nature of the problem on the site. Kongregate has shown absolutely no concern about any of these problems and, from my personal experience and research through the forums, refuses to address them. As people of any age can easily log onto the site and see any and all of these things at any time, I highly recommend Gamestop step in and get Kongregate to change their protocols to stop the prolific .

This behavior is frequently participated in and/or condoned by many moderators on the site. I have seen moderators participate in the discussions many times in chat rooms, and have had active moderators refuse to do anything about the discussions which are taking place. Watching moderators talking about which orifice they would like to have sex with is completely inappropriate.

Reporting on the site is completely broken and non/functional. Firstly, there is no method of reporting from the chat rooms in which the problems occur. Secondly, I have made dozens of reports regarding actions and behaviors undertaken by people on the site and nothing has ever been done regarding any of the persons that were reported. I have never received a single reply to any of my reports, and from observation none of the people I have reported have changed their ways at all, whether hours, days, or weeks later. This includes moderators and would indicate that even if my reports were read by Kongregate, that they did nothing to change the behaviors.

I have brought this issue up in the forums on the site, and it has always been completely ignored by Kongregate. In fact, through extensive browsing of the forums, issues in these theme have been brought up and complained about hundreds of times and not once have any of them ever been treated with the dignity and or given the response that they deserve. The most common response is for the community to crash down upon the occurrence and drown out the voice of the offended person. This is either down through straight denial or the incredibly common line “This is the internet”. As if being on the internet justifies telling women on the site to perform oral sex acts on you, or telling people you are going to rape or sodomize them. As if being on the internet justifies violating the terms of use that are presented on the site at all. One time, a forum post I made regarding this sort of thing was actually deleted by a moderator and I received no explanation nor message. I have also had to flag forums posts threatening to rape someone like 20 times over 2 weeks in order to get it taken down finally!

With the presence of many moderators who violate their position, the lack of any meaningful reporting procedure, the inability to use the forums for such things without being completely humiliated or ostracized for speaking up, and the inability to effectively get moderators to take out improper forum posts or stop people’s hateful bashing of those who speak up, Kongregate is directly allowing and enabling these totally inappropriate behaviors on the site.

Muting is espoused as an option to deal with these behaviors, but unfortunately more and more games on the site now require participation in the chat rooms in order to play the game, which means if you mute the parties involved you cannot effectively play the game. And I am hoping to convey that this is not a problem of individuals doing these acts (which muting can help to solve), it is instead a problem of a widespread culture of acceptance and tolerance and participation in totally inappropriate and illegal behaviors.

This culture is prevalent across the site, and after trying every avenue possible in order to ever see action regarding any of it, I have finally given up with Kongregate. In extreme cases I have seen people talking about raping women, having sex with various non-sexual parts of their bodies (including orifices on deceased or murdered women). There is also a ridiculous amount of less extreme, but still very inappropriate, sexually charged discussions and propositioning on the site. I have had at least 3 times where men (or possibly boys) on the site sexually offered me their penis with moderators in the room who did nothing about it. There have been other times when moderators were not in the room. In general, I try very hard keep my gender hidden for fear of being targeted even more than I am. The only times my gender has come out in a chat room have had disastrous and disgusting results.

To summarize, Kongregate shows absolutely zero concern for the overly high rate of improper behaviors that I have only outlined above. It doesn’t matter whether incidents are reported or not, they get ignored, or brushed off, or deleted every single time.

This site is disgusting, and I do not plan on ever using it again. I will also use all my powers to encourage others not to use it as well.

If GameStop wishes to own a highly vulgar and inappropriate site such as this one which is dominated by the horny and overly aggressive actions of young boys and immature young men, then that is their prerogative. But if this is not the sort of site GameStop wishes to own and be affiliated with then I sincerely recommend doing something about these problems before more people get hurt for real.