A weird however extraordinarily thorough new report at IGN claims {that a} distinguished advocate for accessibility in videogames, who co-founded the Can I Play That? web site in 2018, could not have truly existed in any respect—however as a substitute seems to be the creation of her purported romantic accomplice, Coty Craven.
Banks first appeared as One Odd Gamer Girl in 2015, and rapidly grew to develop into a well known member of the disabled gamer group, in accordance with IGN’s report. In 2018, for example, she was featured in an interview with main videogame accessibility web site CapableGamers; in 2019, following her reported loss of life, the positioning paid tribute to Banks in “A Farewell to a Friend,” calling her an “superb ally” and “a superb gentle within the struggle for accessibility.”
But 5 years later, the IGN investigation has discovered no proof that she was an actual particular person. Quite the other, if something. The report is deeply detailed, however one significantly damning declare comes from a supply who employed a non-public investigator to substantiate Banks’ existence previous to her loss of life. The investigator was unable to give you something demonstrating Banks was an actual particular person: No immigration file (Banks was supposedly Turkish), employment file, handle, beginning certificates, or the rest was discovered.
In reality plainly no person had direct contact with Banks. The report says interviews and different interactions had been performed solely by way of electronic mail or Twitter DMs, facilitated by Craven. Steven Spohn, senior director of growth at CapableGamers, confirmed he by no means straight spoke to Banks however stated it did not appear uncommon on the time as a result of many deaf folks—Banks was reportedly deaf—desire text-based communications over voice calls.
That’s not incriminating in its personal proper, and loads of folks (myself included) would reasonably ship an electronic mail than make a telephone name, disabled or not. But the IGN report says nobody it spoke to for the story had ever seen or heard Banks by herself, “outdoors of her social media profile or with Craven.”
The report particulars varied different oddities associated to Banks and Craven: In 2021, for example, the Game Accessibility Conference introduced the Susan Banks Advocacy Award for “an advocate utilizing their voice to make a distinction throughout the broader [videogame] business.” But a 12 months later the International Game Developers Association obtained an electronic mail questioning whether or not Banks was actually an actual particular person; when Craven was informed about it, he stated the incident was impacting his psychological well being and merely requested that Banks’ title be faraway from the award, a place he maintained even after being supplied authorized help. The award was subsequently renamed to the Advocacy Award.
The full report goes very deep into the weeds, together with protection of two of Craven’s subsequent romantic relationships, each of them additionally with accessibility advocates whose existence is doubtful. Craven wrote concerning the mom of a type of purported companions on Medium in 2023, claiming that his tutelage “ignited a love of video games for a 96-year-old girl” named Bess; eight months later he introduced on Twitter that Bess had died, however IGN was unable to search out any file of the reported loss of life.
Craven declined to touch upon the IGN report, though he did apparently ask the positioning to not publish it in any respect. Since the report went stay, he is deleted most of his social media accounts, in addition to his private web site. The Can I Play That? web site has additionally taken motion, eradicating a reference to Banks and Craven as the positioning’s founders on its “About” web page. (The authentic can nonetheless be seen through the Wayback Machine.)
The entire scenario is deeply bizarre, particularly since so far as I can inform, the one motivation for this complicated, persistent, practically decade-long rip-off—whether it is actually a rip-off, which technically at the least stays unproven—is clout. And I do know folks do loads of wild shit for clout, however this? This is quite a bit. It’s additionally a exceptional piece of investigative reporting—test it out in full at IGN.
