Amir Satvat, the recipient of the primary “Recreation Changers” award at this yr’s Recreation Awards, says he is acquired “numerous hateful messages” in addition to “disturbing feedback” following his acceptance of the award final week, together with antisemetic remarks about his spouse.
“I’m persevering with to do my greatest to tune this out however it’s fairly excessive,” Satvat mentioned in a LinkedIn publish.
In the course of the occasion, Geoff Keighley admitted that he is “struggled” to know the way greatest to handle the unprecedented rash of video games trade layoffs we have seen over the previous few years. It was the primary time the host and producer instantly addressed layoffs on the awards, and the answer he got here up with was to honor Satvat, a determine well-known within the video games enterprise for his efforts to assist laid-off builders discover new work.
A quick video phase described how Satvat’s undertaking has helped “place almost 3,000 individuals in jobs,” and Satvat accepted the award with a tearful speech through which he challenged the group to make the trade higher.
Many viewers responded positively to the phase, together with viewers within the trade, however some have criticized it as a cynical try and sustain the looks of caring whereas celebrating the very individuals chargeable for the poor state of the enterprise—the executives within the viewers whose firms finally fund The Recreation Awards. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who oversaw Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and the following layoffs, is on the present’s advisory board, for instance.
Some critics went nicely past denouncing the awards, nevertheless: After the ceremony, Satvat himself got here below assault for his job at Tencent, the place he is been a enterprise growth director for a few yr and a half. The suggestion going round social media is that Satvat was introduced as a sort of folks hero, however is definitely a part of the issue—or perhaps a sinister “trade plant” whose heartwarming story was completely manufactured.
Satvat says that his job wasn’t talked about in the course of the present as a result of it is irrelevant. He started offering video games trade job searching sources earlier than he began work at Tencent final yr, and says that he would not cope with mergers there, did not at his earlier job at Amazon, and has by no means laid anybody off.
“I’ve by no means signed a contract or personally been a part of a deal that led to job losses in my profession,” wrote Satvat. “In actual fact, in some situations, like at [Amazon Web Services], I put nice effort into ensuring a whole bunch of peoples’ jobs have been saved throughout moments of restructuring.
“I’ve additionally been accused of making ‘jail-worthy fraud’ and mocked for ‘simply making one spreadsheet individuals enter data into,’ normally by individuals who spent all of 8 seconds our web site with no understanding of the work we do or the influence we have had. We’ve 15 sources throughout 5 completely different useful resource houses and there’s a lot of depth to our group, as any of you who’ve used it know.”
I used to be conscious of Satvat previous to the awards as a result of, in the midst of masking the trade’s layoffs over the previous couple years, his identify has repeatedly come up within the aftermath of job cuts because the individual out-of-work builders ought to search out. I’ve understood him to be a popular determine whose efforts are genuinely appreciated by sport builders who’ve misplaced their jobs over the previous two years.
That impression is mirrored within the many optimistic feedback posted about Satvat following his acceptance speech, equivalent to within the replies to this publish on BlueSky. “Amir bought me a union job in Recreation Dev in 2024,” reads one. “He deserves the world.”
The criticism, insults, and accusations Satvat is in any other case receiving do not seem to return from anybody perspective—good religion criticism of The Recreation Awards is combined in with shouting about China, antisemitism, and different staples of web discourse most related at this time with X.
“This may occur to you too whenever you sacrifice over 2,000 hours of your time to assist the trade—that is the ‘reward’ for 2 years of service,” Satvat wrote. “…I didn’t need to say something however there have been too many feedback about my household, about my spouse, about her non secular background, and different issues which might be approach over the road for me to not say something.”
Satvat says that the publish will likely be his final phrase on the unfavourable feedback, and that he’ll proceed to pursue “optimistic, public service.”
