“Hopefully we will keep getting better” – Penny Arcade’s Mike Krahulik Apologizes

If you’ve somehow missed the controversy, you can read more about it here. 

After re-opening the whole Dickwolves controversy Monday, Mike Krahulik (aka Gabe) from Penny Arcade posted a blog post titled “Some Clarification.” In the post,  a decent read if you’ve been offended by PA’s recent activities, outlines the situation and his personal feelings on the matter. 

Mike says that the whole rape culture statement that he was accused of making with the initial comic was never the intention of Penny Arcade;

the comic itself obviously points out the absurd morality of the average MMO where you are actually forced to help some people and ignore others in the same situation. Oddly enough, the first comic by itself is exactly the opposite of what this whole thing has turned into.

The Dickwolves situation bloomed into something else because of the response Penny Arcade made to the hurt feelings expressed by fans and critics alike. Instead of moving on or issuing a sincere apology, they made a joke out of the discomfort of others. 

Mike apologizes for the follow-up strip, expressing regret for what he calls…

“a knee jerk reaction…it was a massive AOE that hurt a lot of innocent people. We should have just stopped right then but we kept going and made the merchandise.”

The merchandise he discusses is a shirt with the a wolf’s head and with the word “Dickwolves” on it. People who were initially unaware of the conflict became more aware and became much, much angrier. 

“I apologized for it at the time and I will still apologize for it. Everything we did after that initial comic strip was a mistake and I regret all of it.”

According to Mike, what he meant when he said that they never should’ve pulled the Dickwolves merch (the statement made this Monday), was the pulling the merchandise reignited the dying controversy. He believes that if they had just stopped talking about Dickwolves it would’ve gone away. 

You can read the entire statement on the Penny Arcade website. 

What do you think about Mike’s apology?