EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a follow-up on the bomb threat column from Monday. You can read it here

GUEST EDITORIAL by @FraserAust (#GGinMelb) 

Lead Up 

We announced the August meet about 6 weeks ago. It was at the same venue we had the original meetup at, so the management knew us and had zero issues with us being there. We drink and eat a lot, and bars always love that. As soon as the meet was announced though, the venue started getting both walk ins, and phone calls trying to get them to ban us.

It’s wasn’t that many, but at least a few a week. We touched base with the venue a couple of days before the meet, and the manager we dealt with was keen to have us back.

The Meetup

The meetup kicked off at about 1pm in the afternoon, and it was nothing out of the ordanary. We had a bunch of people return as well as a lot of new faces. So we all started eating, drinking, and talking. You know, what normal people do.

At about 6pm-ish the manager came over and had a chat to see how we were going, and casually mentioned they’d had a bullshit bomb threat, but it was so laughable and vague that he just laughed and hung up.

For something to be considered a credible threat, it needs to have time/ locations etc.. details. So while it was technically a bomb threat, it wasn’t legally one so the venue didn’t care.

Anyway, we all started joking about it which got the attention of a “journalist”, Patrick Stafford.

The rest of the night went off without a hitch and we all had a blast. Ashion and I left about 10pm.

Aftermath

Well the next day, I get a tweet from Stafford wanting to make contact, so I give him the meet email address, and he starts asking specifically about the bomb threat, while ignoring any mention of the other harassment.

See the venue didn’t call the cops because pissweak bomb threat was pissweak, so officially the venue is denying there was one.

So I expect a “OMG GG IS LYING!” story sooner than later.

Some of the local Melbourne people pointed out this article he’s written about GG. The butthurt is palpable.

We had members say that they had IGDA member friends, who almost came along but were afraid of being black listed and sacked.

I have also been in discussions with a local dev, who is wanting to support GG at PAX but I had to talk him out of it, because of PAX Australia’s vague rules around what exhibitors can show. They 100% control the space, so anything they don’t like must be removed else you get kicked.

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I’ll be back with an explosive editorial about our old friend Arthur Chu. See you then.