A weird however extraordinarily thorough new report at IGN claims {that a} distinguished advocate for accessibility in videogames, who co-founded the Can I Play That? web site in 2018, could not have truly existed in any respect—however as a substitute seems to be the creation of her purported romantic companion, Coty Craven.
Banks first appeared as One Odd Gamer Lady in 2015, and rapidly grew to change into a well known member of the disabled gamer neighborhood, in accordance with IGN’s report. In 2018, as an illustration, she was featured in an interview with main videogame accessibility web site AbleGamers; in 2019, following her reported demise, the location paid tribute to Banks in “A Farewell to a Good friend,” calling her an “wonderful ally” and “a superb gentle within the combat for accessibility.”
However 5 years later, the IGN investigation has discovered no proof that she was an actual individual. Fairly the alternative, if something. The report is deeply detailed, however one notably damning declare comes from a supply who employed a personal investigator to verify Banks’ existence previous to her demise. The investigator was unable to give you something demonstrating Banks was an actual individual: No immigration report (Banks was supposedly Turkish), employment report, deal with, beginning certificates, or anything was discovered.
In reality evidently no one had direct contact with Banks. The report says interviews and different interactions had been carried out solely by way of e mail or Twitter DMs, facilitated by Craven. Steven Spohn, senior director of improvement at AbleGamers, confirmed he by no means straight spoke to Banks however stated it did not appear uncommon on the time as a result of many deaf individuals—Banks was reportedly deaf—choose text-based communications over voice calls.
That is not incriminating in its personal proper, and loads of individuals (myself included) would quite ship an e mail than make a cellphone name, disabled or not. However the IGN report says nobody it spoke to for the story had ever seen or heard Banks by herself, “outdoors of her social media profile or with Craven.”
The report particulars numerous different oddities associated to Banks and Craven: In 2021, as an illustration, the Recreation Accessibility Convention offered the Susan Banks Advocacy Award for “an advocate utilizing their voice to make a distinction throughout the broader [videogame] business.” However a 12 months later the Worldwide Recreation Builders Affiliation acquired an e mail questioning whether or not Banks was actually an actual individual; when Craven was informed about it, he stated the incident was impacting his psychological well being and merely requested that Banks’ identify be faraway from the award, a place he maintained even after being supplied authorized help. The award was subsequently renamed to the Advocacy Award.
The total report goes very deep into the weeds, together with protection of two of Craven’s subsequent romantic relationships, each of them additionally with accessibility advocates whose existence is doubtful. Craven wrote in regards to the mom of a kind of purported companions on Medium in 2023, claiming that his tutelage “ignited a love of video games for a 96-year-old girl” named Bess; eight months later he introduced on Twitter that Bess had died, however IGN was unable to search out any report of the reported demise.
Craven declined to touch upon the IGN report, though he did apparently ask the location to not publish it in any respect. Because the report went stay, he is deleted most of his social media accounts, in addition to his private web site. The Can I Play That? web site has additionally taken motion, eradicating a reference to Banks and Craven as the location’s founders on its “About” web page. (The unique can nonetheless be seen through the Wayback Machine.)
The entire state of affairs is deeply bizarre, particularly since so far as I can inform, the one motivation for this complicated, persistent, almost decade-long rip-off—whether it is actually a rip-off, which technically no less than stays unproven—is clout. And I do know individuals do a variety of wild shit for clout, however this? That is so much. It is also a exceptional piece of investigative reporting—test it out in full at IGN.