Indie developer The Fullbright Company has announced it will not be attending PAX this year due to Penny Arcade’s stance on several social issues.

Fullbright’s upcoming exploration game Gone Home had been accepted into the Indie Megabooth at the PAX Prime expo, but company founder Steve Gaynor outlined on Fullbright's blog why it wouldn't be there.

"We’ve been bothered by the public stances that Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the founders of PAX’s parent organization Penny Arcade, have taken on a number of issues," he wrote.

Gaynor cited Penny Arcade’s “dickwolves” debacle, its Kickstarter intern tier, and its opinion on the recent Dragon’s Crown artwork as reasons why he was uncomfortable presenting at its expo.

"When critics recently raised objections about the over-the-top depiction of female characters in Dragon’s Crown, Jerry [Holkins] referred to opinions that differed from his own as 'censorship'," he wrote.

Gaynor also mentioned a PAX Australia panel about gender and race called “Why So Serious?”, as well as Krahulik’s recent “ignorant dismissals of transgender people” as things he was not comfortable tacitly supporting.

“This morning we stopped pushing those long-held reservations about Jerry and Mike into the back of our minds,” he wrote.

“We talked to each other and did a simple show of hands – do any of us feel comfortable presenting Gone Home at PAX? No hands went up.”

People’s opinions and actions on social issues and business ethics were important, added Gaynor.

“We believe that agreeing to pay the organizers of PAX over $1,000 for booth space, and to present our game on their showfloor for four days, provides explicit support for and tacit approval of their publicly demonstrated positions on these subjects.

“And we have finally come to the conclusion that we cannot support Jerry, Mike, and their organization by participating in this event.”

Gaynor acknowledged that Penny Arcade wouldn’t be harmed by Fullbright’s absence, “but this is not something that we’re doing for practical reasons”.

“We are a four-person team. Two of us are women and one of us is gay. Gone Home deals in part with LGBT issues.

“This stuff is important to us, on a lot of different levels. And Penny Arcade is not an entity that we feel welcomed by or comfortable operating alongside.

“We wish all the best to the organizers and participants in the Indie Megabooth, as we really do believe that it is an incredibly positive force for indie games and video games in general.

“We just wish it weren’t at PAX.”