General Video Game Thread

[Auspice]

@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:

@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

She didn't engage in hate speech herself, but she sure did encourage it.

Also... are we talking about the same thread? The one I read was just her rant-replying to somebody whom she perceived as mansplaining and calling them an "asshat" for doing it. I don't think that's how people should treat each other on the internet, but that's still a far cry from "encouraging hate speech".

In the tweet where she RT'd him, a lot of her fans insulted him, lashed out at him, etc., and she agreed with many of them. That can easily be seen as encouraging the behavior. She may have later deleted those tweets since it very quickly blew up. But a few of those tweets did delve into hate speech. She should have ignored those. But again, she shouldn't have RT'd him in the first place. That was where the mistake was made and where this incident diverges from most others.

[Kanye Qwest]

Arenanet is garbage, nice of Senor to let me know so i can delete their garbage from my life.

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:

Nevertheless I believe that "don't ever say something dumb that makes the company look bad or we'll fire you on your first offense" is an idiotic company policy. Counsel her, make her apologize if she's wrong, tell her to stop even vaguely representing the company on twitter... there are any number of reasonable approaches short of the "off with their head!" that the internet clamors for these days.

I must agree that firing someone on a first offense would be a real knee-jerk reaction for sure. Worst case scenario just tell her to stop twitting anything work-related; that'd be well within their prerogative. But as everyone has noted, we don't know what was really happening within that workspace.

[faraday]

@arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:

But as everyone has noted, we don't know what was really happening within that workspace.

Absolutely, but we do have the company's own statement about the incident, and I'm just taking them at their word here.

"Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company."

@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

In the tweet where she RT'd him, a lot of her fans insulted him, lashed out at him, etc., and she agreed with many of them.

Like you said - that may have been deleted. I can only comment upon what was reported/what I can read on her thread.

But even so - calling somebody an idiot is not hate speech, nor is agreeing with somebody calling somebody an idiot. Unless there was doxxing, RL threats, etc. involved, I'm still not seeing how this is some horrific job-endangering action. She was rude, yes, and I believe people should treat each other better.
But do you honestly believe that should be a fireable offense? Or even if more than a "hey chill out on twitter girl" offense? If so then we will just have to agree to disagree.

[Auspice]

@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:

But do you honestly believe that should be a fireable offense? Or even if more than a "hey chill out on twitter girl" offense? If so then we will just have to agree to disagree.

Like I have said, prior in the thread: as a first time offense? No. But it is indicative of a greater problem. It was a massive overreaction (the guy was very polite; we have all seen vitriol and 'nerd rage' and that was very, very much not it) and she's a professional.

We probably won't find out how she is towards her coworkers / in the office unless someone comes out and tells us. But maybe this was a 'final straw' situation. Maybe she's been warned before.

And if she has? Then they did what they had to do.

[Rucket]

I don't think she should have been fired necessarily, but what she did was wildly unprofessional and so I can't really blame Arenanet for doing what they did. I also find most of the response from 'games media' to be laughable at this point too. Simple fact is, if you are posting on your twitter or Facebook and you have your employer clearly visible for the world to see, it's on you how you behave on those platforms. If someone is being an asshat? Block or ignore them, don't engage. This is one of the major downsides to social media and there are a lot of companies that have pretty clear social media policies because of things like this.

[Rucket]

@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:

But even so - calling somebody an idiot is not hate speech, nor is agreeing with somebody calling somebody an idiot. Unless there was doxxing, RL threats, etc. involved, I'm still not seeing how this is some horrific job-endangering action. She was rude, yes, and I believe people should treat each other better.

I think the problem with the situation is that the person she called out is a major community contributor to ArenaNet, someone who streams and makes videos for the game to the point where they have an NPC in the game named after him. So it wasn't some "rando" trying to engage, it was someone who has ties with the company engaging with a developer on a topic he had interest in (and it later came out he had a speech in one of his streams wildly praising her work).

[faraday]

@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

Maybe she's been warned before. And if she has? Then they did what they had to do.

I understand. I’m just saying that given the facts in evidence (two people being fired, the company’s statement, the lack of reports of her going on twitter rampages before...) the “maybe she deserved it for a pattern of behavior” argument seems pretty unlikely to me. Possible? Sure. Likely? Not IMHO.

I think it’s more likely that this is just another in a growing trend of companies sacking employees over one bad decision in response to internet mobs with torches and pitchforks. There have been plenty of instances of this. (To be clear, I’m not talking about those who are using social media to promote violence or hate speech or credibly accused of a crime or things like that. I’m just talking about garden variety Dumb Decisions that somehow go viral.)

I think that trend is a Bad Thing for society and that disadvantaged people are more likely to be hurt by it.

But at any rate ... I agree she was being a nitwit and out of line. I just think the punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime.

[Auspice]

@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:

the lack of reports of her going on twitter rampages before

She celebrated the death of TotalBiscuit, who died from cancer. That was just at the end of May.

Now, a lot of people didn't like him, but she didn't even give the people who did (or his family) time to mourn before doing so. And his death wasn't from something self-destructive. It was cancer.

She has had a definitive record of poor behavior on Twitter before. This was not a one-off.

[Misadventure]

I'm good with these firings. I am pretty sure if any male had done the same they would have the same responses and be fired too.

***=Tone***

click to show

Guess what my tone is. I don't have the energy to use tone markup.

[Insomnia]

@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

She celebrated the death of TotalBiscuit, who died from cancer. That was just at the end of May.

While there were some game devs who did celebrate TB's death, I don't think she was one of them. Maybe tacky making the comment she did on the day of his death? Sure. But there were a lot of people who disliked TB and had good reason to who voice very similar sentiments who actually worked with him. And everyone reacts to and handles death differently. Yeah, he died of cancer, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone (of which TB did on Twitter on multiple occasions) , or want any family to have to go through losing someone, but he wasn't exactly always praise-worthy himself before he died.

But getting cancer or dying doesn't absolve anyone of having been an asshole before hand, and if her comments on the day of TB's death were an issue they should have been addressed back in May, and that still doesn't explain why she wasn't the only one fired.

Also we only have her side of things because ArenaNet hasn't commented, but they knew full well what she was like on Twitter before she was hired, and was never talked to about her behavior on Twitter, or talked to about it before this happened. Her behavior on Twitter previously wasn't an issue

And even if she did celebrate TB's death previously (which there were people who did in the gaming community I'm not arguing that it didn't happen, or was right) there are still two families who now have to deal with the loss of a job, one person who was there for 13 years... for standing up for a co-worker. Even if people can say she made a distasteful tweet in the past it not a reason for people to continually harass her and gloat after the fact that she was fired.

There is just so much toxicity on both sides of this that no one comes off looking good in this at all.

ETA: Sorry, I just see celebrate over and over again whenever it comes up, and she's not the guy from EA who DID celebrate his death. People are allowed to dislike people you like. Disliking someone doesn't mean a person is happy they are gone, either.

[Packrat]

I have been enjoying 'Star Traders: Frontiers'

It is obviously very much a budget title and the UI is kind of ropy but it seems to be some kind of Rogue Trader alike in a vaguely Duneish universe, crossed with simplified Darkest Dungeons.

I have been working through the main plot and it has some pretty great and well written political shenanigans whilst the plot itself moves on without you even as it responds seamlessly to your actions. Definitely recommended if you want a genuinely interesting RPG where you also have a spaceship in some Dune type universe that is collapsing into chaos as the social order breaks down.

Also I advise boarding actions, you can do a lot of work by having a very fighty crew and captain then defeating your enemies through swording their crew up. As an added bonus engaging in combat is a big xp earner so you can level up very quickly.

[Wretched]

Re:Arenanet

So I play a lotta GW2 and keep on on their reddit off an on. The Gaming Website Articles about the incident and what people talk about on the forums are so very different.

The Articles on Polygon and whatnot are very pitchfork-y

Price has allegedly been fired from other companies for similar behavior, and seems to as @Auspice mentioned, go off like this from time to time.

It seems to me (A mostly CiS White Male) that this might be the case of someone using the current social justice movements to give herself power and allies after she fucked up. Considering her history we also dont know how many other straws that were laid on the camels back before this one that broke it.

Also: She works at a video game company writing stories. Every game developer in the history of developing plots for the game, male or female, since the internet and likely before, has had people thinking they could do it better, and vocally explaining how it's done. So the 'If i was a male this wouldn't have happened' is, In this case i feel, grasping at straws.

[Auspice]

@wretched said in General Video Game Thread:

Every game developer in the history of developing plots for the game, male or female, since the internet and likely before, has had people thinking they could do it better, and vocally explaining how it's done.

And some of them are very, very wrong.
And some? Aren't terribly far off-base. This guy had a few good points. He wasn't spouting off on some mythical, insane concept that is just... not possible or making accusations that are just sigh worthy (let's look at PUBG and Assetgate there).

I've had a lot of chats lately with narrative designers and how some of them have broken in and suggest doing so. Twine. Of which I've built a small game in and I'm working on another small narrative piece for. Twine is available to anyone.

Now, it used to be that everyone used Excel and there's a certain standardization within Excel that gets used for narrative design. I know this standard because of school. It's kind of weird, clunky, and confusing. Would Average Joe Gamer know it? Probably not.

But Twine? Well. It's open source! The most basic functionality of it is pretty gosh darn easy! Anyone can write a narrative little fun game. Spend some time with it, you could do a fair bit. Companies like Telltale Games require their narrative design apps to come with at least two Twine games in the portfolio.

Then, you have Unity having gone open source. A lot of people are using it and Udemy courses to learn how to build their own games.

So the era of 'pish posh you have no idea what you're talking about!' is coming to an end. A lot of people don't. Some are still assholes. But you can't blanket assume that no one does. Some of these people may be designing things on their own time. Writing on their own time. How many authors wrote award-winning novels alongside their full-time job (The Martian, Andy Weir)? There's been breakout, indie games that have been developed the same way. There's other aspiring devs, writers, etc. who are on Twitter, networking, doing the grind (like me) who do know things and...

...it's disheartening when some of these people will take that stance that 'if you don't work for a major company, I'm going to discredit whatever you have to say right off the bat.'

Fortunately, a lot of them don't, but I could see the ones that do just absolutely crushing an aspiring dev early in their school career. And that's sad.

[Insomnia]

@wretched said in General Video Game Thread:

So I play a lotta GW2 and keep on on their reddit off an on. The Gaming Website Articles about the incident and what people talk about on the forums are so very different.

Really depends what articles you look at; as either side is heavily slanted one way or another. Either down a "She was fired for complaining about mansplaining" or "She was rude to a customer!" side with usually the being rude to a customer equating the streamer to being a college or fellow employee. Both sides are very pitchfork and knee jerk-y.

Price has allegedly been fired from other companies for similar behavior, and seems to as @Auspice mentioned, go off like this from time to time.

She worked for the table top company that does Pathfinder. There was no announcement as to why she was gone, just a question about it on the forums, with most users saying there were surprised, and sad she was gone. So again, much like this case we don't know what happened behind the scenes. And her previous behavior doesn't explain why her male co-worker was fired as well. He'd been there for 13 years and no one brings up his former employment, or social media history. Neither side has been non-toxic.

@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

Fortunately, a lot of them don't, but I could see the ones that do just absolutely crushing an aspiring dev early in their school career. And that's sad.

Having had to deal with being a female gamer online for way too long, plus things like this on both sides, and just people's attitudes of entitlement in general have certainly made me re-consider going back to school to have a career in this field, yep.It's also why I've written and changed so many scripts and haven't made a video on it; there is just so much toxicity on both sides.

[Misadventure]

Video games are a field where broflakes will not just think, but post that the appearance of a graphic on their optional screen is enough to not only prevent them from ever buying from a company again, or from enjoying anything they previously enjoyed by that company, but that they indeed can no longer face turning on their computer.

Don't do it. The field sucks.

[Packrat]

@Misadventure You are so right here, the sheer quantity and volume of the screeching that Battletech generated over the simple inclusion of another pronoun option in character generation was disgusting.

This is not people being 'oppressed', it is misogynistic man babies who wail and shit themselves because they feel they are not being utterly pandered to and solely accommodated as they believe is their natural due. Anything that they even think looks like it is not specifically designed to fit their particular narrow world view is a fundamental attack on them and a sign of wicked prejudice.

[Arkandel]

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth's pre-expansion patch is coming this Tuesday, a month before the main act launches.

Lok'tar ogar!

[Thenomain]

@arkandel

Are we still battling for Azeroth?

We've been doing that since Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.

Did we take a break to battle for Pandera (Pantera, Panthera, whatever) or Demontailpeople, and now we're back to basics?

More importantly, if we put all the Blizzard-produced cinematics together, would we end up with a better movie than the Warcraft movie?

Trick question: The answer is yes.

[Jaded]

@packrat
I had to hit up google to learn how much of a thing that pronoun issue was. I did not even think anything of it when making my characters in the game.

Just goes to show how much a vocal minority can put a ruinous spin on something.