What did Yandere Dev do? Grooming allegations explored as game designer faces cancellation in wake of apology

Alexander Mahan, also known as Yandere Dev, was recently accused of allegedly grooming a minor. A video emerged on TikTok on September 25, 2023, showing a person who alleged that they were groomed by the Yandere Simulator developer. Although the video was originally posted on YouTube, it has since been deleted.

Trigger warning: This article contains mentions of grooming and abuse of a minor.

The clip showed details of Yandere Dev's alleged inappropriate interactions with a minor. A few hours after this, the game developer took to his blog to apologize and own up to his mistakes.

According to Metropolitan Police, grooming is "when a person builds a relationship with a child, young person or an adult who's at risk so they can abuse them and manipulate them into doing things."

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Yandere Dev apologizes after alleged grooming scandal

Yandere Simulator is a game that Alexander Mahan introduced to showcase the Japanese popular fiction trope (Yandere). In the trope, a character has a romantic crush on someone, but it causes them to become violent to others.

The game was set to start its development in 2014 but has since not been heard of much. Needless to say, its almost decade-long development cycle has become a meme among its fans. Now, however, the game is trending again, this time because of its developer Yandere Dev.

Alex Mahan's alleged interactions with a minor were posted online on September 25, 2023. The TikTok video showed the alleged chats between the anonymous minor and Yandere Dev. It reportedly showed that the developer had groomed her when she was 16, according to Gamer Braves.

Some reports allege that the developer even made social media accounts to communicate on the minor's behalf to provide advice and guidance on how to avoid accusations, as per OPP.

Yandere Dev has since apologized to his fans on his blog for his mistakes but has not admitted to grooming. The 35-year-old did admit that the girl had revealed her age during a video chat at the beginning of their interactions.

According to the game developer, one of her friends listened to the recordings of the conversations between them. He alleged that the friend "interpreted" the conversation as Dev trying to "groom her" and convince the minor to "exp*se" him.

As per Distractify, the Yandere Simulator developer explained that he used "the same type of v*lgar jokes that [he makes] when voice chatting with [his] other friends." However, he immediately followed it by calling his actions an "absolutely unacceptable mistake."

"No grown-up should ever use adult language or make adult jokes in the presence of a minor," the developer wrote on his blog.

Mahan said it was "foolish" of him to think that an adult could be friends with a minor. He noted that this was because regardless of what the adult's intentions in the beginning are, there are a lot of potential things that could go wrong. He said due to this, any scenario with an adult and a minor together should "never even be allowed to happen in the first place."

While his apology has convinced some of his fans, netizens believe he was using the minor to justify his actions and that it was a "half-apology," as per Distractify.

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Artists are leaving the Yandere simulator game

People from the gaming community are banding together to boycott the game Yandere Simulator and the developer Yandere Dev. Michaela Laws, the voice actress and voice director of Yandere-Chan posted a note on X, saying she has officially stepped down from her roles after supporting the project for nearly a decade.

Famous gaming YouTubers like Bijuu Mike have refused to post content related to the game. Other voice actors and staff members are also leaving the game after the controversy arose.