Last week, a civil jury in Ireland ruled against Conor McGregor in a civil case where a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2018. As a result, game developer IO Interactive has announced that he will be removed from Hitman: World of Assassination.
The professional fighter – one of the most well-known and infamous in the world – has his likeness appearing as part of a temporary mission in the stealth game. The mission first appeared in July but was brought back earlier this month (while the court case was ongoing), with intentions for it to run until December 8.
Why Poke The Bear?
This has always been a very suspect collaboration, because McGregor was a controversial figure long before this recent ruling. He’s been accused of making racist statements to Floyd Mayweather. He’s been charged with assault several times, and pled guilty to punching a man in a pub in 2019. The allegations of sexual assault he was just ruled against for have been known of as early as 2019, and another allegation of sexual assault was made against him as recently as 2023 (the accuser dropped the case weeks after a brick was thrown through the window of her home and someone tried to set her car on fire).
There’s more I haven’t mentioned here – the ‘Controversy’ section of his Wikipedia page is ridiculously long and includes robbery, driving offences, and more assault causes.
So why did this Hitman mission exist in the first place, and why on earth would IO bring it back now, of all times? It was in incredibly bad taste, to the extent that it defies reason. I don’t think this collaboration should ever have happened with McGregor specifically, but there’s a larger ethical issue regarding collaborations in the gaming space to examine here.
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Hitman: World of Assassination was basically made like an early access game.
Celebrity And Video Games Are Too Intertwined
Video games have long collaborated with celebrities. It’s very obvious why they do this – publicity. It’s the reason celebrity endorsements exist in the first place. Want people to get curious about your game? Bring in a really famous person. Pedro Pascal probably got paid a ton to be in those weird Merge Mansion ads. There’s been much online confusion about The Boys’ Antony Starr featuring in ads for a mobile game. Fortnite has put countless celebrities in the game – same with Call of Duty.
Many of these celebrities have said, done, or otherwise been accused of otherwise controversial things. Any of these celebrities could, at any point, do something very bad in the public eye and make everyone affiliated with them look guilty by association. Tying publicity stunts to public figures – especially controversial ones – is a huge risk. Whether the initial collab is made with good intentions is irrelevant.
Another obvious example is Dr DisRespect, real name Guy Beahm. The streamer was banned from Twitch, and it was later revealed the ban was for sending inappropriate messages to a minor. He was quickly dropped by multiple sponsors and partners, including his own studio, which cut ties with him almost immediately.
Beahm was already controversial before this – he’s been accused of racism and was banned from E3 for livestreaming in a public restroom in 2019, which also led to a Twitch suspension. It’s not hard to imagine that controversial figures, while great for publicity (if you think all press is good press, I guess) will eventually do something to throw existing plans and collabs into limbo.
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Celebrity Cameos Add Little Apart From Novelty Anyway
There’s a larger problem here with the celeb collab culture in gaming as a whole. Celebrities that aren’t controversial now can easily become controversial. For example, Mr Beast used to be fairly widely beloved, and now the tide of public opinion is turning against him in the wake of multiple controversies.
It’s a horrible practice, and should be the impetus for studios to start being more critical about who they associate themselves with. But even setting the ethics of collaborating with terrible people to make both your studio and them richer, just from a practical standpoint, studios are taking huge risks in doing this. Collaborating with the wrong person can affect a studio’s reputation and derail their plans through little fault of their own. And for what? Clout?
I like collaborations between different studios, to an extent. While the endless Fortnite crossovers are insufferable, it’s pretty cool when Among Us works with smaller indie studios to platform games you otherwise may never have heard of. It’s also cool when Balatro features art from other games. It’s also far less risky because it isn’t capitalising on one person’s reputation to get more eyes on your product. A studio can be rebranded and reformed much more easily than a celebrity with multiple assault charges.
By and large, celebrity cameos in games add little to the experience other than a reason to point and laugh. We can do without them. At the very least, they can be better thought out. And since the bar is already on the floor, we can at least all agree that paying celebrities who are most known for being controversial in the pursuit of clout is bad… Right?
Hitman 3 rounds out the World of Assassination trilogy from IO Interactive. Agent 47 defects from the Agency in order to take down Providence, a shadowy organization that wields incredible influence.
