PlayStation UK confirms London Pride 2017 sponsorship

The UK arm of PlayStation has confirmed that it will sponsor London Pride 2017.

The announcement was made using the hashtag #forALLthegamers.

Been off the grid for a few days. Came back to incredible response to our #ForALLthePlayers news. And of course, the bigoted responses…” PlayStation UK social media manager Eric Whelan said on Twitter.

We’ve been working on this for about eight months, so it’s a big deal. #Pride2017 is the best place to show PlayStation’s inclusivity. And it’s not some kind of corporate step. #ForALLthePlayers is a project of the UK team and PSEU’s LGBT group, so it means a lot to us.”

Bigoted responses there have been, too. The announcement tweet has been met with criticisms of the supposed politicisation of video games, and of course religion-fuelled remarks about the morality of certain lifestyles.

Although such dated attitudes remain sadly present in all walks of life, there is no escaping the the fact that minority groups – or indeed anyone who strays from the white male demographic – continue to face particular hostility from parts of the video games community. This makes it all the more important that the likes of Sony and EA stand up for tolerance and equality.

London Pride 2017 kicks off on June 24th and will run for two weeks. Other sponsors include Barclays, the Mayor of London, Tesco, Starbucks, PWC, Transport for London, NBC, Virgin Atlantic and Vodafone.

PlayStation is very proud to be sponsoring this year’s Pride in London #ForALLthePlayers #Pride2017 pic.twitter.com/nwFxOLUuBv

— PlayStation UK (@PlayStationUK) June 3, 2017