Firewatch dev takes legal action against PewDiePie after racial slur

Campo Santo, the developer of the much-loved narrative adventure Firewatch, are pursuing legal action against the very popular YouTuber PewDiePie. The legal actions comes in the form of a DMCA takedown that would force PewDiePie to relinquish all rights to his Firewatch videos, instead putting them in the control of Campo Santo.

This is all happening after the Streamer and Youtube Let’s Player let out a racial slur while streaming a game of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (not a Campo Santo property).

We’re filing a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie’s Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games.

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) September 10, 2017

It seems like Campo Santo have reached their breaking point and no longer want to support PewDiePie under any capacity. In fact, it seems like they are actively perusing means to hinder him.

I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make.

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) September 10, 2017

He’s worse than a closeted racist: he’s a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry.

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) September 10, 2017

I’d urge other developers & will be reaching out to folks much larger than us to cut him off from the content that has made him a milionaire

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) September 10, 2017

A video of the stream in question that kicked off all of this controversy can be viewed below. PewDiePie says a racial slur in anger, begins to apologise / justify, but his thought process also trails off before saying anything really meaningful as an apology. [Incident occurs at around the 30 second mark].

PewDiePie is also no stranger to this kind of controversy. Back in February of this year (2017), the YouTuber was dropped by Disney after showcasing anti-semetic behaviour in some of his videos.

Speaking personally, PewDiePie’s comments once again reinforce how hurtful and immature he can be. These qualities are damaging, especially from a person of such prominence and a person with a big and potentially easily influenced audience.  Having said that, Campo Santo’s reaction seems to be retaliatory and immature as well. Video game companies filing DMCA takedowns over YouTube videos is tiring, outdated and all too prominent. To then use a DMCA takedown as some form of vigilante justice is odd, especially seeing as the controversy has nothing to do with Campo or their intellectual property.

What are your thoughts?