Game developer and writer Zoe Quinn has accused Night in the Woods developer Alec Holowka of abuse. Quinn posted her accusation on Twitter in a lengthy post that goes into detail about her alleged experience with Holowka.
In her tweets, Quinn explains they started talking to Holowka over Skype, and it seemed as though the two had a connection. Holowka invited them to stay with him in Winnipeg to see if that same connection existed in person and to see if there was interest in starting an indie dev house. The plan was for Quinn to stay for two weeks, buying the plane ticket there, with Holowka paying for the flight home since Quinn couldn't afford it.
Quinn said that Holowka isolated them from everyone in their life, screamed at them for over an hour for saying hello in the wrong tone of voice, and wouldn't let Quinn leave the apartment. Holowka was aware of a previous sexual assault that Quinn was the victim of, and he would bring it up during sex. Quinn added that Holowka was "mean and violent." Quinn said that they would hide in the bathroom from Holowka. "His moods would shift and he'd throw things and hurt himself seemingly at random and blame me. He'd jam his fingers inside me and walk me around the house by them when I told him it hurt."
Since Holowka wouldn't pay for Quinn's plane ticket home, Quinn was stranded in Winnipeg. Eventually, Quinn got help from their roommate back in Toronto, and they were able to leave. Upon arriving home, Quinn sent a breakup email to Holowka. According to Quinn, this led to Holowka getting them blacklisted from industry events.
Quinn explained that they stopped going to the Game Developers Conference partly because of Holowka's presence, and that they are still afraid of him. "I'm afraid that people will care more about their love of Night in the Woods than they will about the safety and truths of women and non-binary people in games."
Zoe Quinn has since posted a followup tweet claiming that they are receiving messages from other people with their own stories of abuse at the hands of Holowka.
Holowka has yet to respond to Quinn's allegations of abuse at the time of this writing.
Source: Game Revolution