Game On

by Seressia Glass

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Multicultural & Interracial Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

When an unexpected Player Two enters her life, a gamer must decide if their relationship is worth leveling up in this new romance from the author of The Love Con.

Samara Reynolds has built a large following as a gamer under an anonymous screen name, and uses her skills as a DEIA consultant to advocate for equal representation in video games. When she posted a video critiquing the popular game Legendsfall, she knew she’d get a reaction from her fans, but the video leads to hundreds of female gamers critiquing the game and its company, Artemis Games. The only thing more unexpected than starting an online movement is getting a job offer from the handsome CEO of Artemis.

Aron Galanis has been on a mission to get his company certified to create gaming content for people with disabilities. When he sees Artemis trending online for all the wrong reasons, he’s determined to right his wrongs and offers the originator a mea culpa, as well as a job offer to overhaul the character options in Legendsfall.

Working together turns Aron and Samara from adversaries into allies, allies into friends, and after that—something more. But once their relationship goes public, will Aron and Samara be able to weather the storm and fight for their happy ending, or is it game over?

Release date: December 12, 2023

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 400

Sample

Chapter 1

"What the hell?"

Aron Galanis scrolled through his social media stream, his frown deepening. What had begun as a pleasant Saturday morning ritual quickly descended into chaos.

#LEGENDSFOUL was trending, and from what he could see, every post with the hashtag also tagged Artemis Games. His Artemis Games and Legendsfall, his flagship game. None of the posts were complimentary. Dozens of female gamers had latched on to the negative hashtag in relation to the depiction of women in gaming from working to playing, but by far the majority of the posts used another tag, #MISOGYNOIR.

His alarm and confusion deepened as he scrolled through post after post. He'd vaguely heard of the term before but couldn't remember the context. A quick search gave him the answer, but he couldn't believe it. Someone had accused Artemis Games of hating women in general and Black women in particular.

It made no sense. Aside from his brother, his mother was the most important person in his life. So important that he'd named his company Artemis to honor her. His goal from the time he'd developed his first game was to make games for everyone. To that end, he wanted his company to be a safe space for anyone and everyone regardless of who they were. As long as they had the talent and the desire and the motivation to help him with his vision, they could have a place on his team.

The company's vision statement held a prominent place on the website and in the break room at the office. He did his best to walk the walk. He couldn't understand why someone would accuse Artemis of something so heinous and then blast it all over social media. A viral complaint against Artemis Games was the last thing he needed. Not when he was this close to sealing an agreement on a partnership with WeCAN, the World Consortium on Autism and Neurodiversity.

While many called it a CEO's passion project, he called the certification process the culmination of three years of hard work to move his plan of making gaming even more accessible from idea to reality. These charges of discrimination could very well doom the certification and torpedo the promise he'd made to the board of directors. He couldn't allow that to happen.

He placed a call to the company's public relations head, speaking as soon as it was answered. "Mark. Who's monitoring our social media platforms today?"

"Give me a moment." Mark paused. "Should be one of our junior assistants, Paul, I think."

"Pull them off immediately and put someone with more experience on it instead."

"Did something happen?"

"The hashtag LegendsFoul happened. It's been trending for a while on every social media site. We need someone other than a junior assistant dealing with it."

"Let me take a look." A heavy sigh. "Dammit, this doesn't look good for us and it's the last thing we need right now. I'll get the team on it immediately."

"Good. While they do that, I want you to craft a strategic response that can go out today. We also need people mining the hashtag on all platforms. Find out who started this, who they are, what they want."

"Probably some disgruntled former employee looking to create a fuss ahead of the certification. It will be my pleasure to ferret them out."

"Once you get that response drafted, send it to me for review. I'll contact the rest of the leadership team so that they're aware of what's going on and that we'll have a statement ready soon. Get Legal to take a look at it too."

"Of course."

"So, damage control this weekend, Mark. I don't want anyone thinking that we're ignoring this, or worse yet, unaware of the accusations. Then make sure your team is ready to launch an action plan Monday morning. I'll contact the WeCAN selection committee myself."

"I'll make sure the statement says something along the lines of us believing in equity and inclusion and taking these accusations very seriously," he said. "Once approved, we'll release a statement on our website and all platforms. If we're lucky, there will be some new celebrity scandal before the weekend's over and this will be a bad memory for us. Netizens have a short attention span."

"I'm not going to rely on luck when it comes to the bottom line for this company," Aron retorted. "Just like I don't care whether or not it's a former employee making these charges. Have you seen how many posts with this hashtag there have been in the last hour? And that's just one platform. If we do nothing, this could become a pile-on that gets picked up by all the tech sites and then breaks onto mainstream media outlets."

His stomach soured at the thought. "If these accusations have any grain of truth, I can't let it just blow over. I'll take action so that the public, our team, and our customers know how serious we-I-take this. I don't need something like this hanging over my head when I'm trying to win that accessibility certification."

"Understood."

He tightened his grip on his phone. "GamerCon is coming up. Even if the hashtag dies down now, it could easily be revived that weekend when the focus should be on our latest development and not social media accusations. If the certification committee hears about this before I can contact them . . ." All his plans would be ruined.

"I'll have a plan ready to go Monday morning."

He had no doubt that Mark would take care of it. He was good at his job. Aron was good at his too, and there was no way in hell that he was going to sit on his thumbs and do nothing while some unknown poster took potshots at the company. He'd worked too hard to lose everything over some sour-minded social media posts. But if the accusations were true . . .

Pushing back from his desk, he made his way to the digital whiteboard that took up a large chunk of wall in his home office. He wasn't about to mount a defense without a strategy, and he wasn't going to wait for Mark and his team to produce results. He would do his own research, make a contingency plan, then turn his defense into offense. He would be the one to turn this around.

He quickly created a list of objectives: Find the originator of the hashtag. Do a deep dive on the OP-the original poster. Discover if any of their claims were true or an attempt to sabotage Artemis Games. Gather evidence to refute or prove the claims were valid. Praise or punish based on the outcome.

Mark sent the statement as Aron finished his initial plan. He reviewed it, made changes, then sent it back before revisiting his whiteboard. With the game plan in place, it was time to do the work. Returning to his desk, he turned his attention to his laptop. Most of the quote posts and replies were to an account named @ReyofSun.

Aron frowned. Why did that name sound familiar? The account's picture was of a Black Wonder Woman. No, that was Nubia, Wonder Woman's sister. Was the account holder really a Black woman or was it just a sock puppet?

The account name and profile picture remained consistent across most of the social media platforms. He scrolled back through the history on each platform but couldn't find an actual photo of the person behind the handle. All of the posts dealt with gaming in one way or another. She didn't appear in any of her video reviews or gaming live streams, instead using only audio to accompany her screenshots. No matter how long he searched, he couldn't find any identifiable information-not her legal name, location, nothing. If not for the voice in the audio, he'd think the accounts were fake.

So why did her handle sound familiar? Digging some more, he came across another hashtag frequently used by the account: #LiteThemUp.

That was it. ReyofSun used the LiteThemUp hashtag for game reviews, particularly for games and their creators that fell short in the diversity department. There was nothing wrong with campaigning for equality and access in gaming, but reviews with that hashtag were scorching. Now she'd apparently set her sights on Artemis Games.

Why? Was she trying to up her clout and follower count by taking on Artemis? He dug a little deeper. She didn't seem to be having any problems monetizing her streams, especially with her inclusion reviews of several games both online and off. Of course taking potshots at gaming companies would be profitable. Those "Lite Them Up" reviews got her the most attention, got her panel invites to numerous gaming conventions, and apparently, got her paid.

He frowned. He or Artemis reps had been to nearly all the cons she had mentioned in her posts, yet he had never seen her. Although he usually flew under the radar at cons, he hadn't heard reports from his conventions teams of being approached by ReyofSun. Maybe if she had, he wouldn't be dealing with a social media firestorm now.

A sense of dread rolled through him like an icy fog as he clicked on her review of Artemis Games' flagship first-person shooter game, Legendsfall.

"Hey everyone, ReyofSun here with a new review of Legendsfall by Artemis Games. It's been out for a minute and has been pretty successful since its release. I think Artemis Games said it was their best release to date."

It had been and still was. An interview from one of the tech sites popped up on-screen, highlighting the actual quote. ReyofSun obviously did her homework and backed her statements with proof. His foreboding grew.

"It's a very playable game, blending really intense maps with some that are low-pressure for experienced players. Overall I've liked each iteration even though the character offerings are not as robust or customizable as other games, and none of the cast of playable characters are a Black female. But now I have to light them up. Legendsfall is now LegendsFoul."

"What the hell," he muttered again as he looked at a Photoshopped copy of the Legendsfall cover art with her new, derogatory title. She'd liked the game initially but now wanted to trash it? Why?

"You're probably wondering why I changed my review. Remember how I said none of the playable characters were a Black female? That's true. But there is one non-playable Black female character, and she's in this urban warfare map. Surprised? I sure was. I cleared this level and never encountered this character. That's because it's an Easter egg. If you encounter this character, she gives you a gift to use on a later map and a key to clear the current map. As soon as she does, she gets killed, more graphically than any other character in this game. I'm talking a total fridge moment."

A screenshot of the character appeared. "Weirdly enough, no one has commented on this character in the months that this release has been out. Do you wonder why that is? I'll tell you why. That Easter egg wasn't meant for us to find. I'm talking general us, not just Black women us. Somebody deliberately programmed that scene into the game to satisfy a certain segment of gaming fans."

What was she talking about? Aron would never let anything like that fly. Neither would the head of the development team. There was no way-

An image of a message forum flashed on-screen behind her. "Someone tipped me off to this forum. I don't know how long this discussion will still be visible, but screenshots last forever. It's apparent from some of the comments that a certain segment of gamers were extremely happy to find this Easter egg."

The forum screen peeled away to the screenshot of the NPC, the non-playable character. "Let's recap. The only Black female character in this entire game is a non-playable character who is literally a Magical Negro. A no-name, unnecessary plot device that you don't even need to visit to complete the level? A forum of male gamers gleefully playing the map just for that scene? That, my friends, is misogynoir. A hatred of Black women built into a game."

Righteous anger burned through her voice. "That's why I had to light them up. This is worse than not being represented. I'm going to be charitable and say that I don't believe the Artemis Games execs know about this, but the questions need to be asked: How did this get past the gatekeepers at the company? How many people looked at this and said okay before its release? Either people knew about it and thought it was okay, or there's a rogue developer coding whatever the hell he wants-because let's be real, it certainly wasn't a female coder-into a game. Either way, Artemis Games, you have a problem."

The view changed to a split screen of the NPC and the two hashtags superimposed over the Artemis Games logo. "You need to fix this, Artemis Games. You know better. And now that you know better. Do. Better."

The video ended with DO BETTER in large white letters against a black background.

Aron sat back in his chair. What. The. Hell? There was no way Legendsfall had something like that in it. He'd played the game through several times before and after each update, and he'd never encountered that NPC.

If ReyofSun's claims were true, he had more than a trending hashtag to worry about. The claims weren't something he could leave to others to investigate; he'd have to do it himself. Even if it took the remainder of the weekend, he'd review every piece of code and uncover which of his developers had decided to have some fun with the company's reputation, which supervisor had signed off on the code.

If the claims were true, he'd have to publicly own it as the head of the company. He would do what he had to do even though he absolutely hated public appearances. That alone was reason enough for someone's head to roll.

The next event that Artemis was slated to attend was GamerCon, in two weeks. A quick check revealed that ReyofSun would also be there.

Perfect. Two weeks gave him enough time to create and implement an action plan. He'd present the plan to the WeCAN certification committee after his phone call with them on Monday. After he ensured that the certification was still on track, he'd refine the plan and focus on presenting it during the main Artemis Games panel at the con. Hopefully, that would be enough to take the steam out of ReyofSun's crusade before the Q and A.

But if this wasn't real, if it was something cooked up by a former employee or ReyofSun herself, she would have to own that. Fair was fair, after all. Her retraction needed to be as loud and public as her claims. If she refused . . . well, that's why he had lawyers.