One day you publicly support a new Texas anti-abortion law. The next day you step down as CEO of a video games company. That’s exactly what happened to John Gibson, the head of Tripwire Interactive.
Following Gibson’s tweet in support of the law banning abortions, both fellow developers and the community at large have responded with almost unanimous backlash.
On September 6, Tripwire stated that the views expressed by Gibson “do not reflect those of Tripwire Interactive as a company. His comments disregarded the values of our whole team, our partners and much of our broader community.”
In the same statement, the company announced the immediate removal of John Gibson from his position, with co-founding member and current Vice President, Alan Wilson, taking over as interim CEO.
We are yet to see whether Shipwright Studios, which co-developed Tripwire games Chivalry 2 and Maneater, will now renew contracts with the studio. Yesterday, Shipwright said it would no longer work with Tripwire under its current leadership. Given the newly announced change in management, the co-development studio might just be willing to reinstate the previous agreements.