The gaming industry has seen its share of passionate creators, heartfelt stories, and deeply personal projects, but sometimes... that very passion and personal investment blurs the lines between authenticity and manipulation. This recently emerged regarding Abubakar Salim, the CEO and founder of the now defunct (for the time being?) Surgent Studios, and his game Tales of Kenzera: Zau...
Following the above conversation on Saturday Night Hypnosis discussing Salim’s approach to promoting the game, Salim responded with a tweet that ...raised some eyebrows:
"Are these your leaders?
Mocking the speech I gave about the game I dedicated to my late father?
The man who told me that games are a great space to enjoy and escape. A place in which community is strong.
Again. My confusion comes from these people not willing to engage on grounds that are civil, when all I’ve offered is transparency and communication.
But no, they wear the same masks that they say they’re fighting against. The clothing of those who ridicule and attack for no reason. Who want division in an industry. Who inject politics in whatever they share.
I’m here if you have questions."
It’s a powerful statement on its surface—an emotional appeal grounded in a deeply personal connection to his late father and a call for civility in the community. But digging just under the surface, there’s a problematic pattern seen happening here. Despite calls for transparency and engagement, his response highlights a much larger issue: his unabashed reliance on emotional manipulation to shield himself from critique. While this does work on simple-minded NPCs on twitter, those who see what he's trying to do here are being far more grounded on their approach.
The “Actor” Factor: Why Salim’s Approach Feels Disingenuous
Salim’s career as a professional actor is well-known - especially when it comes to his small role in House of the Dragon. Personally, I watched the show with my wife and we think he genuinely did a fantastic job.
While there’s nothing wrong with anyone jumping from acting to game development, his methods of engaging with the public raises some concerns. Actors are trained to evoke emotion, to make people feel, to craft a narrative—skills that are powerful, but also - problematic when used to manipulate discourse.
You can hear this come through in his initial appeal to attempting to deal with 'racism' in the game community (above), or using his father' passing to potentially try and push sales of his game (below).
His tweets and messages to the community are the perfect example of this consistent emotional play that he continues to fall back on. The immediate reference to his late father at the Game Awards and the subsequent dedication of the game, while on the surface, could be perceived as honorable, unfortunately also acts as a shield. It instantly frames any criticism of his approach as heartless, as if opposing views are somehow mocking the memory of his father. This isn’t to say that his dedication isn’t genuine, but it’s clear that he knows how to play the perpetual victim card to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor. As Grummz summed it up so eloquently:
At the same time, Salim frames himself as the reasonable one, simply offering “transparency and communication,” while anyone who disagrees is depicted as an aggressor, injecting politics and creating division. This narrative creates a stark divide between himself and his critics, casting those who don’t see eye-to-eye with him as somehow 'malicious' or 'unreasonable', when in reality, the situation is far more complex...
The Real Issue: A Breakdown in Trust
At its core, the problem isn’t about race, politics, or any of the other divisive topics that tend to come up in discussions like these. It’s about trust—or more specifically, the lack thereof.
The starting point with Salim is broken because his communication feels staged. It’s hard to take his words at face value when they seem so rehearsed, so carefully curated to evoke sympathy and rally his supporters.
Seemingly every time Salim is challenged, his response is to immediately lean into emotion, to appeal to the “community” and call out supposed division. But this approach only reinforces the perception that he’s not engaging in good faith discussion. Instead of fostering any kind of genuine conversation, he creates this whole dynamic where disagreement is framed as hostility, and that’s a dangerous place for any leader in the industry to be.
The Fix Starts With Salim
If Salim truly wants to foster the strong community he speaks so highly of, it has to start with him. As Ryan Roger Athay always says, be the change you want to see. He needs to stop playing the victim in all this and start engaging honestly with those who challenge him.
Admitting faults—whether it’s his constant race-blaming, deceptive communications, or leaning wayyy too heavily on emotional appeals—would be a good start. No one expects perfection, but sincerity goes a long way in repairing broken trust.
Of course, there are bad actors in the industry. There will always be some people who act out of racism or malice, just as there will always be those who inject politics into everything. But the problem with Salim’s approach is that he uses these extremes as a blanket defense, lumping all that criticism together as part of some sort of 'broader agenda' to divide the industry. In reality, many who question him are doing so in good faith (shoutout to Leon at Words of Paradise for having a very in-depth thread/discussion), not because we seek division, but because we want transparency in the industry without the emotional manipulation attached to it.
A Call for Better Communication
At the end of the day, Salim is smart. He’s a talented actor and, undoubtedly, a capable game developer. He's been exceedingly successful in life and should be so very proud of everything he's already accomplished. But the gaming community deserves better than emotionally manipulative responses to criticism. It’s time for Salim to move past his perpetual victim narrative and start reflecting on his own actions that got it to this point.
If Salim can do that, perhaps there’s a chance for real conversation and growth. But if he continues down the path of emotional appeals and perpetual victimhood, he's going to be alienating not just his critics, but also the very community he claims to care about.
It’s a challenge to any leader in the gaming industry—especially those who seek to create meaningful, lasting communities. Let’s hope Abubakar Salim takes it to heart, and I genuinely wish him nothing but success in the future if he can turn this corner.
~Smash
