Update 03/04/2019: THQ Nordic AB, the parent company of THQ Nordic GmbH, has now offered its apologies following last week’s 8Chan AMA debacle.
Per GamesIndustry, company co-founder and CEO Lars Wingefors has written an open letter to employees, partners and consumers, apologising for the decision and explaining that an internal investigation has been taking place.
It’s unclear from the letter if those involved have faced consequences. Here’s Wingefors’ apology in full:
Original story follows.
THQ Nordic GmbH, best known as the publisher of the Darksiders series, has apologized for hosting an Ask Me Anything on a site that has been blacklisted by Google for “suspected child abuse content.”
The official THQ Nordic GmbH Twitter account revealed this morning that it would be doing an AMA on 8Chan, adding “we have no idea why.” This was followed up by a tweet saying “The opportunity was here and we took it, we got apporached [sic] in a very friendly and polite manner and were assured, said person (shoutout to Mark) will take care of the nasty stuff. so, here we are.”
Many assumed that THQ Nordic’s account had simply been hacked, but it has since become clear that this wasn’t the case. IGN has reached out to THQ Nordic for comment.
Soon after many across the internet reacted to this AMA in confusion, THQ Nordic’s Philipp Brock, PR and Marketing Director, officially apologized on Twitter, writing:
Accounts credited to THQ Nordic’s Philipp Brock and Reinhard Pollice responded to comments in the 8Chan post. While some responses from these accounts have directly pertained to THQ Nordic GmbH’s business, Waypoint’s Patrick Klepek has noted many were less than savory.
For example, when responding to a question pertaining to Destroy All Humans, the account credited to Pollice wrote “We work it like an alien prostitute.” Other responses include commenting on the breast sizes of an image containing cartoon girls and saying the company will try not to appeal to a “SocJus” (social justice) crowd.
Back in 2015, as reported by Ars Technica, Google removed 8Chan’s domain from its search results and added a warning about “suspected child abuse content” when people searched for the domain directly. The site is known for hosting illegal pornography, racist imagery and more.
Colin Stevens is a news writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.