Behavior Interactive is currently under fire after one of its community staff allegedly went rogue and gifted controversial streamer TheBurntPeanut every in-game item in Dead by Daylight live on stream. The developer already apologized once on the secondary Dead by Daylight social media account, but this latest mea culpa, in an attempt to take full accountability, was posted on the full-fat account.
TheBurntPeanut gained popularity over the last year for playing extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, but his style of commentary is seen as edgy by some and problematic by others. Earlier this year, Fortnite was wrapped up in similar drama for collaborating with TheBurntPeanut due to accusations he’d allegedly used homophobic language online.
Dead by Daylight initially starts players with a small selection of playable characters, but they must spend in-game currency to earn the rest, while licensed characters cost around $5 in real money. Gifting TheBurntPeanut all the characters was taken as a betrayal by the community, which has many dedicated streamers who haven’t been gifted everything the game has to offer.
Not only was his alleged behavior never taken into account, but it sparked favoritism concerns considering it was the first time the streamer had shown an interest in Dead by Daylight. Initially, TheBurntPeanut offered to send the freebies back, concerned that it would cause drama. Responding to the online outrage, the studio reportedly sent support TheBurntPeanut’s way, with the most infamous message saying, “WE CAN TAKE THE HEAT! THEY ARE YOURS TO KEEP!”
A video from seven months ago shows the streamer saying he doesn’t understand the game’s popularity. “No disrespect, but how the hell has a game where you fix four generators and then leave, rinse and repeat, been alive for ten years?” he said.
The streamer himself has since responded to the controversy, which bubbled away on social media between the weekend and today. “I just went on Twitter for a second and everyone’s pissed at us for getting free skins in Dead by Daylight,” TheBurntPeanut said in a recent video. “There’s one guy that’s submitted a refund, and in the refund reason box they go, ‘TheBurntPeanut collaboration and the response of the game’s communication team — I do not support racist transphobes.’
“I don’t think I’ve ever said anything about transgender people, I think, in the last two-and-a-half years of streaming. Have I ever said anything about transgender people?” He asked this question to another streamer, who replied: “I don’t think so, but there’s always time to start.” This made TheBurntPeanut start laughing. “Where are they getting this from?” he asked. He didn’t address the racism accusations.
Behavior Interactive’s new apology, posted on the main account, claimed that it will put in new approval processes to prevent community representatives from being able to choose who Dead by Daylight collaborates with without checks.
Explaining the initial decision to grant TheBurntPeanut an unlocked account, the latest apology claimed that the team saw a new streamer with a large audience playing the game and got excited at the prospect of reaching new players. But the decision to grant the account perks happened without any internal discussion.
“When collaborating with a new creator, we normally look thoroughly at their past content to determine whether they are representing the values of inclusion our community expects from us,” Behaviour explained. “In this case, this was not taken into proper consideration or discussed as a group.”
The studio also spoke about the infamous “WE CAN TAKE THE HEAT” message. “This message, along with some others in that session, showed a disregard for the context we were suddenly in and crossed the line of appropriate responses from our brand,” the statement continued. “That reply escalated the situation for us and for our community, especially our content creators on the frontlines of these conversations, and that’s unacceptable.”
According to the developer, the account bonuses have already been removed from TheBurntPeanut, and Behavior is rewriting its guidelines for interacting with creators and identifying potentially problematic collaborations. The studio is “taking appropriate action internally” to deal with the employee involved, but the details of this will remain confidential.
Kirk McKeand is a Contributor on IGN News. Find him on Twitter @MckKirk