Pokemon Unite devs flamed over LGBT “censorship” in Squads
Timi StudioThe Pokemon Unite community is expressing its concerns over censorship claims with the MOBA’s Squad feature that isn’t allowing mentions of LGBTQ+.
Squads released with the Pokemon Unite 1.2 update to give players a way to quickly find and socialize with up to 30 members. Every squad is different with Squad Tags supporting beginners, people of certain ranks, players from specific regions, and more.
This is where Pokemon Unite players attempting to make LGBT-focused Squads hit a roadblock seeing as the game doesn’t allow using related words in describing or forming their groups.
While there’s plenty of games that censor certain terms in everything from usernames, clans, DMs, etc., to avoid harassment or toxicity, disallowing terms that generally encapsulate the LGBT+ community like this were concerning for people.
“You can’t [have] any words regarding the LGBT+ community on the description of a Unite Squad,” Reddit user ‘TaikoRaio19’ said.
After attempting to describe their Squad as “LGBT friendly” the player got a notice that said: “That Unite squad description cannot be used.”
“This censor is not really cool,” another user said. “Some people just outright hate the LGBT+ community so it is important to give them a safe community that they can feel welcome. I’m not a part of the LGBT+ community but I know how important it is to them.”
Dexerto also tested the feature and there were a few keywords that prevented a Pokemon Unite Squad from being made. Words like ‘LGBT,’ ‘gay,’ and ‘queer’ weren’t allowed as the Squad name or in the description, but pairing them with other terms to make a single word seemed to work.
This would likely be why some players reported finding Pokemon Unite usernames like ‘destroylgbt’ while not being able to have them in terms for pro-LGBT uses.
TiMi Studios has yet to comment on burgeoning concerns as Pokemon Unite players are looking for more clarification on the matter.