Phasmophobia developers apologize and remove Discord admin after social media backlash regarding leaked explicit images

Kinetic Games, the developer behind horror game Phasmophobia, has apologized for how it handled the alleged leak of s*xually explicit images by a Discord admin on its official server.

The indie gaming studio took responsibility for mismanaging the serious accusations against the admin. It also apologized for how one of its developers, Corey "cjdxn" Dixon, brushed the issue aside.

Part of Kinetic Games' statement reads:

"First of all, we would like to apologize for the way we have handled the situation, keeping the admin on for as long as we did and for the slow response, he should have been removed from his position and banned sooner.

"We are only human and we can only apologize for our mistakes. We will continue to strive to be better people than we were yesterday."

The studio added that the admin has been banned from the Discord server and "will no longer have any involvement with the Phasmophobia community."

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"Phasmophobia devs [were] housing a se* pest": Kinetic games ban the accused after Twitter thread goes viral

On September 29, 2022, an individual with the Twitter username CrownedCollider posted a thread accusing Kinetic Games of "housing a s*x pest" on its official Phasmophobia Discord server.

CrownedCollider alleged that the official Phasmophobia Discord admin, Charcoal Salamander, had leaked nude pictures he received from someone and shared them without the permission of the victim.

The user wrote:

"So who else knew that the phasmophobia devs are housing a s*x pest in their official discord by keeping him admin and refusing to take any claims against him seriously bc I sure do now :)"

Claiming to speak for the victim, CrownedCollider posted screenshots indicating that when he took up the matter with one of the developers, the request to investigate the admin was denied.

In screenshots of the alleged DMs of cjdxn4, the Reddit moniker for Phasmophobia's lead artist, the developer can be seen dismissing the case, describing sharing explicit photographs as "fair game."

The tweets gradually gained a lot of traction, which ultimately forced Kinetic Games to make an apology. The developers took responsibility for not taking action sooner.

In a subsequent clarification tweet, the team provided a timeline of exactly how things panned out.

Turns out, Charcoal Salamander was banned from the server on January 25, 2022, after allegations of se*ual harassment against him. Five days later, he was reinstated after an investigation found nothing wrong.

Kinetic Games further stated that the decision to let Charcoal Salamander stay on the server in the position of an administrator was not right:

"We trusted this decision as we were very busy... This should not have been the case and will not happen in the future."

The long message also detailed how and why the developer's response to the complaints on Reddit was "poor" and "insensitive."

After the tweets, detailing the back-and-forth between Crowned Collider and cjdxn, went viral, the latter issued a statement where he profusely apologized for the way things were handled.

He has since vowed not to let things like this happen again and described his actions as an "inappropriate, hasty, poor choice of words."

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Reactions online

Many people have taken to Twitter to react to Kinetic Games ' latest statement. While some accepted the company's apology, others remained unconvinced.

The Phasmophobia developers have claimed that they are restructuring the entire Discord to avoid similar incidents from happening again.