Last week, Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm saw his career implode following tweets from an ex-Twitch employee saying that he’d been banned from Twitch in 2020 for exchanging inappropriate messages with a minor. One by one, the dominoes fell, with his video game company, Midnight Society, dropping him and, eventually, YouTube demonetizing his channel. Numerous companies also washed their hands of the suddenly-radioactive streamer, including 2K Games, which said it intends to patch Dr Disrespect out of NBA 2K24. However, a small handful of other video game companies remain conspicuously silent on the matter.
PUBG Studios, Battlestate Games, and Hi-Rez Studios – the studios behind PUBG, Escape From Tarkov, and Rogue Company, respectively – have yet to say what they intend to do about the presence of Dr Disrespect-themed cosmetics in their games. In the latter’s case, Hi-Rez appears to have quietly disabled Rogue Company’s Dr Disrespect skin, but while community chatter suggests that a refund is on the way for those who purchased the skin, the company hasn’t confirmed this via any of its official channels. The game also contains a Dr Disrespect-themed level called The Arena, which players who claim to have spoken with Hi-Rez say will be removed. Aftermath reached out to Hi-Rez multiple times but did not receive a response.
Meanwhile, there does not appear to be any motion on PUBG or Tarkov’s ends, despite requests from Tarkov players to remove official Dr Disrespect armor, which can be found and equipped during matches. PUBG, on the other hand, added Dr Disrespect weapon skins as part of a limited-time promotion all the way back in 2018, meaning they’re pretty hard to come by these days. Neither Battlestate Games nor PUBG Studios replied to requests for comment from Aftermath.
Scrubbing in-game items and issuing refunds where necessary is likely a more complicated process than terminating a deal with the disgraced streamer, but it’s still notable that while the likes of Mountain Dew and the San Francisco 49ers moved quickly to distance themselves from Beahm, a trio of major video game companies continue to tiptoe around the issue without even cluing players in to their future plans. Perhaps they need more time, or perhaps this is simply not a priority for them.
