I don't think there's a "right answer" except to have maybe googled her name once in passing prior to hiring her, but without a time machine, there's no real solution. The taint is present now. Ousting it publicly would get tentative buy-in from true gamers, but would lose the sheep who read Kotaku who would inevitably write many smear articles.
There's no solution because the only reason you hire her is to pay tithe to the libshit temple. You can't spin your way out of eating babies, there are some things where the intent and the action are synonymous.
I could see one out, thanks to Black Myth Wukong airing their own dirty laundry during its development, about SBI: Find some communique, some email or phone record or meeting minutes, prior to the hiring, that shows it was done under duress. BlackMyth went on public record stating that the wokists blackmailed and threatened their business, and they chose to not engage, and got a massive smear campaign as a result.
Of course, they should only do this if such is true. If they engaged in this practice willingly, they should be full-throated supporting their own decision, not whinging and half-backtracking-but-not-really about it. But if they came out and said "Yes, Sarkessain is in the credits, we were extorted and afraid, and didn't know what to do, but now that its out and can stand on its own merits without the journo's threats... fuck 'em." it MIGHT help.
It probably would help, but I would argue that in this case, it shouldn't and if it did help, the wrong lesson would be learned. StS1 might have a lifetime revenue of $100M. If you can't use that to tell your blackmailers to fuck off, you don't deserve to get out of it.
I don't think there's a "right answer" except to have maybe googled her name once in passing prior to hiring her, but without a time machine, there's no real solution. The taint is present now. Ousting it publicly would get tentative buy-in from true gamers, but would lose the sheep who read Kotaku who would inevitably write many smear articles.
they deliberately hired her because the devs are shitlibs
There's no solution because the only reason you hire her is to pay tithe to the libshit temple. You can't spin your way out of eating babies, there are some things where the intent and the action are synonymous.
I could see one out, thanks to Black Myth Wukong airing their own dirty laundry during its development, about SBI: Find some communique, some email or phone record or meeting minutes, prior to the hiring, that shows it was done under duress. BlackMyth went on public record stating that the wokists blackmailed and threatened their business, and they chose to not engage, and got a massive smear campaign as a result.
Of course, they should only do this if such is true. If they engaged in this practice willingly, they should be full-throated supporting their own decision, not whinging and half-backtracking-but-not-really about it. But if they came out and said "Yes, Sarkessain is in the credits, we were extorted and afraid, and didn't know what to do, but now that its out and can stand on its own merits without the journo's threats... fuck 'em." it MIGHT help.
It probably would help, but I would argue that in this case, it shouldn't and if it did help, the wrong lesson would be learned. StS1 might have a lifetime revenue of $100M. If you can't use that to tell your blackmailers to fuck off, you don't deserve to get out of it.