https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1000045432007938048, sound like the kind of person that should be working in the service industry? I doubt this was the first time anet had to talk with JP regarding her professional conduct.
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Kotaku: GW2 writers fired after Twitter argument. GG pressured firing.
- Thread starter Don Fluffles
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Because he defended her in saying that it was a gender issue. He should not have gotten involved in that. Anytime sex, race, or sexual orientation comes into play and you are in the wrong, and are representing a company, and are making the situation worse, you're probably going to get fired.
He should have known better.
I also think that senior developers should be punished for the mere crime of defending coworkers. We can't have insubordination in MY office.
yeah there's nothing fucked up and sexist at all about calling a woman you're mad at unstable or saying it was justified to fire a man who visibly didn't commit a fireable offense just to make sure no one says you were sexist for firing the woman
Is her Twitter account one that she uses to keep in touch with her family and friends or is it an account on which she interacts with customers who use the product she works on?
But the harassment she got from it, was definetly a gender issue.
What are you on about? Talking ill of the dead in that way shows character flaws, this isn't opinion.
...on Twitter too. If you're a dev posting stuff on Twitter, what do you expect to happen? It's literally a platform for people to interact with each other.
I'd love to know a single other industry where you could work for an employer, launch unhinged attacks on your paying customers (and indeed, partners of the company), and not expect to be fired. The whole "these opinions are my own" disclaimer DOES NOT WORK people. It never has and it never will. If you include your employers credits in your profile, then you're acting as a mouthpiece for them. If you don't want this, then stay off of social media or make a separate, private account.
Yeah and it appears there was no past disciplinary action; otherwise ArenaNet would have stated as such.
I don't support a "workers right to say whatever they want online on a profile they link to their company", but I do support the idea that firing someone should go through a disciplinary process. A 2 or 3 strike process like most unions manage to enforce for instance (with exceptions like criminal behavior.)
They should have publically reprimanded her (and maybe Fries) and been done with it. Feel like they kind of messed up.
It is possible they didn't straight fire them. The response wasn't instant. Maybe they had a talk and that's when the firing was decided. I would hope they at a least gave them a chance to apologize instead.
It's probably the first 3 altogether, like I said in the very beginning, nothing malicious at all. That's why I don't blame anyone in this situation other than ANet for not having a better disciplinary protocol in place. I've seen far worse exchanges on Twitter go by without any consequences.
If only that our definitions of "welcoming criticism" differ.
Welcoming criticism to me is just not denouncing it, to you it's telling other people not to say anything.
Specifically:
No, they (the criticizers) don't have to keep the opinions to themselves, and the hell is more appropriate that openly public social media? The entire point of social media is communicating, and no, people shouldn't go through specific channels to talk to a person who bares their heart all the time. No, they shouldn't have to go to the Guild Wars 2 forums to talk to the writer about writing when they are talking about writing on Twitter.
You (the criticized) however have the absolute right to not say anything anyway. Not a "shut up", not a "you're right", just nothing. If you find it not worth your time, don't make a Twitter thread calling them an asshat. If it's not worth your time, don't make it your time.
According to Price at least, that didn't happen.
And ArenaNet is refusing to comment on this story outside of their official PR response, which did not indicate that there was anything involved other than what was said on social media.
ArenaNet's official stance is basically "they were fired for what they said online" and it appears we have no reason to believe that anything else went on behind the scenes (no one was asked to apologized, no one refused any other disciplinary option, etc.)
I'm talking about all developers here. Prices Twitter is maybe a preferred way of communicating with players, but that doesn't mean every dev uses their Twitter for the same reason.
Fair enough. I don't like the fact that they summarized the response from Arena Net however. I would have liked to have seen it in full. Context is everything, and so are the words attached by it. By not including their response in full, it seems even more disingenuous in my opinion.
they are fucked no matter what, they don't fire them then the whole compony is a target, fire them but they look like cowards. people will shit on anet no matter what if it gamergate or other groups. in the end they fucked up their cred for being a progressive componey.
He wasn't simply defending her in a neutral position. He double downed on her accusations of it being a gender issue.
Thank you for saying this stuff so I don't have to do it myself.
I don't necessarily think he meant anything bad, and he was "polite" enough in his tone.
But in what he actually says... he starts by saying she's entirely wrong, act so very patronizing, and the suggestion is not only a "you should do this" but it's an implied "this is the reason you should do this, which you haven't considered" when... it's multiple choice dialogue. They have absolutely considered the use and player impact of one of the oldest tricks in the book, dude.
There's no underpinnings of structural sexism if people believe both male and female CEOs have the right to be as much of an asshole as they want on Twitter without the fear of getting fired for having, you know, no one above them. It doesn't matter if they got those positions through luck, privilege, nepotism, etc. The onus ends up being on the consumer to not support those kinds of people if they so wish.
Yes, most other devs make their Twitter private anyway. They have a small cafe that opens at 11 and closes at 6. That makes more sense.
Anyone arguing against this is incapable of critical reasoning and is letting the rest of the human race down.
the adjectives and descriptors people have been using to describe her and her tweets/tweet history are illuminating. really intense levels of animosity present in the phrasing.
Even if her response is bad, I don't think she's supposed to be in a customer-facing position, is she? This feels more in the territory of a person overreacting than something that would make me go "wow, I can't believe they hired this person". She was just rude.
I tried to look at the original Reddit thing but it's not loading for me. I'm wondering exactly what the reaction that the fandom had was, and if it looked different before it hit KotakuInAction.
I tried to look at the original Reddit thing but it's not loading for me. I'm wondering exactly what the reaction that the fandom had was, and if it looked different before it hit KotakuInAction.
Wow, better off working somewhere else if there going to be fired because some troll won't shut the fuck up about how to make dialogue branches in games, this sad bastard probably scratches his balls all day and closest he could ever get to working on a game is crying on the reddit page
If me stating that I don't think devs should welcome constant feedback from players 24/7 via every avenue is somehow saying that people should shut up at all times, then this discussion is over. They have every right to dismiss or ignore it.
And even if they don't, I hope most players have the decency of not using their Twitter page as dumping ground for every bit of criticism they might have. It's not that I don't value player's input, but I also value devs not having to work 24/7 and player's not being entitled to their time 24/7.
To be perfectly honest, not really. For every reasonable "she overreacted for no reason", there was a "fucking feminazis". But there's a good chance it was brigaded too.
User Banned (3 Days): Accusing a target of hate movements as "playing the gender card" + spreading disinformation
She is the one that pulled out the gender card and she got called out on it by the community, and gaming communities at large. You can't make baseless accusations like that and not expect to get hit back. The toxic bs you're seeing now didn't come until after the firings.
I mean you're ALLOWED to engage 100% of the time. Just be ready for them to not give the response you were expecting. The easiest way to know if they'll give you a nice response is if they're asking a nonrhetorical question.
The streamer is actually a popular one and I read he's actually partnered with ArenaNet (sponsored by them in some way.)
He has no history of trollish behavior; there's actually a clip of him praising Jessica Price I believe that was recorded before the Twitter thing.
She probably shouldn't have been fired, but her response to that dude was needlessly rude and you don't clap at your employer's business partner in public.
The comparisons to male devs who are their own bosses makes no sense.
The comparisons to male devs who are their own bosses makes no sense.
You outright said they need to "keep their opinions [of the content of creators who publically share and distribute their content] to themselves". That is pretty much telling people to shut up.
I've said that several times already. Mostly ignore it, because, as this entire thread has shown, dismissing benign criticism will get your ass lit.
FIrst of all, decency, ha, second of all, in an age where making a text or, say, paragraphs long comments on an enthusiast board is only seconds away from the recipient they have every right and ability to make use of this. Finally, if you don't want to hear it, don't put yourself in public. Put your cafe in the alley and save money on advertising. You either accept it all and filter it out or you live comfortably as your own and only critic.
For what it's worth, having seen this situation play out tons of times before on the developer side, while this kind of incredibly ignorant type of "feedback" gets sent at both men and women pretty much all day, peoples' reaction to a developer basically telling them off (which is not actually that rare) definitely varies based on gender. That is super obvious.
I heard so many stories of people working on jobs were they face customers and they were rude to shitty "polite" customers...luckily a lot of placers dosn't really accept angry sexist mobs as a cause for firing.
So what's up with the title? GG-pressured firing? Huh? Reading through this thread I get the opposite feeling of that. They reacted to an employee acting like an ass towards a customer, a famous one inside the community, while speaking on social media while addressing her self with the name of the developer. Anyone should see how this is grounds for firing. Calling it gamergate pressured is just reaching for something that isn't there.
The whataboutism is real here.
Also, are you implying they don't get their fair share of shit?
The thing that sucks about handling Twitter in the position she's in is there's no way to do certain things without criticism. Even just blocking those who come at her in bad faith is seen as a sin to these kind of people; "she blocks us just for replying!" only fosters more hatred. There's no way to win.
I can say that when I saw the stuff about it on Reddit myself, the comments were both gross and seemed to discuss the game itself in enough detail that it couldn't have just been KiA. Potentially people who overlap that had already had a grudge against her, sure, but that stuff was definitely coming from people who were players, or at least could talk the talk. I did have someone tell me on Twitter that the sub basically changed tone overnight, though, so it's possible that kind of overlapping poster wasn't very active before and brigading led to 100s and 100s of upvotes on them, etc. but... I don't think that can purely explain it.
I can say that when I saw the stuff about it on Reddit myself, the comments were both gross and seemed to discuss the game itself in enough detail that it couldn't have just been KiA. Potentially people who overlap that had already had a grudge against her, sure, but that stuff was definitely coming from people who were players, or at least could talk the talk. I did have someone tell me on Twitter that the sub basically changed tone overnight, though, so it's possible that kind of overlapping poster wasn't very active before and brigading led to 100s and 100s of upvotes on them, etc. but... I don't think that can purely explain it.
I didn't. I said use the appropriate avenues. But this discussion is over.
If it's true, it's true. Especially Kamiya is an apt comparison.
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No, but it seems you don't want an honest discussion and are just stirring shit up with remarks like these.
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I would like to add the following points to the discussion:
1. She didn't just go off on Deroir, a well known and respected content creator in the community, but also MMOINKS (another well known & respected creator), and in the past Jebro (over a fucking MARVEL movie). Jebro, for example, has been a significant driver of the competitive community and a well known shoutcaster. All of these are ANet partners, and pissing off business partners is a bad idea, particularly when your company needs every bit of media it can get (Mike O'Brien begged the community to help with spreading the word about GW2 around Path of Fires release).
2. ANet does/has had many prominent women in the team and these were/are all very respected by the community. Examples include Gaile Gray, Linsey Murdock, Lena Chappelle, Kate Welch, Kristin Perry. Yes, when the community is pissed at the area they work in or they make a gaffe, they may catch some heat. But that includes the men in the company too. If you aren't aware of the anger that has been directed to the likes of Mo, Colin J, Izzy (still waiting for smiters boon balance bro), the PvP team (I will not name names, but signet warrior really??), the WvW team (again, will not name names but you know who you are...) and so on. The idea that the guild wars community is a gamergate heaven, or only goes after women, is frankly nonsense.
3. Nobody knows what exactly happened in the background, or what Jessica was like day to day in the office, or what additional factors fed into the firing. Interviews with her are useless because of course she will try to paint herself in the best light possible for future employment. What is well known though is that employees have made gaffes i the past insulting players and NOT been terminated. An example was when two guilds were fighting off in a "private" match in the corner of the world versus world map, and a developer tried to break it up and said "stop shitting on my game mode" or something similarly arrogant. There was an apology on the forum and that was that. The fact that this escalated to TWO employee terminations, including Peter who was there for 13 years, shows there were other things going on behind closed doors. This situation could easily have been de-escalated by an apology from Mo on behalf of Jessica and Peter for example (if this was the only transgression), but instead this was the outcome.
4. There is a disgusting amount of politicisation going on hereby people who didn't know what GW2 was 2 days ago and want to score points for their team. This place is behaving like some conservative shithole.
1. She didn't just go off on Deroir, a well known and respected content creator in the community, but also MMOINKS (another well known & respected creator), and in the past Jebro (over a fucking MARVEL movie). Jebro, for example, has been a significant driver of the competitive community and a well known shoutcaster. All of these are ANet partners, and pissing off business partners is a bad idea, particularly when your company needs every bit of media it can get (Mike O'Brien begged the community to help with spreading the word about GW2 around Path of Fires release).
2. ANet does/has had many prominent women in the team and these were/are all very respected by the community. Examples include Gaile Gray, Linsey Murdock, Lena Chappelle, Kate Welch, Kristin Perry. Yes, when the community is pissed at the area they work in or they make a gaffe, they may catch some heat. But that includes the men in the company too. If you aren't aware of the anger that has been directed to the likes of Mo, Colin J, Izzy (still waiting for smiters boon balance bro), the PvP team (I will not name names, but signet warrior really??), the WvW team (again, will not name names but you know who you are...) and so on. The idea that the guild wars community is a gamergate heaven, or only goes after women, is frankly nonsense.
3. Nobody knows what exactly happened in the background, or what Jessica was like day to day in the office, or what additional factors fed into the firing. Interviews with her are useless because of course she will try to paint herself in the best light possible for future employment. What is well known though is that employees have made gaffes i the past insulting players and NOT been terminated. An example was when two guilds were fighting off in a "private" match in the corner of the world versus world map, and a developer tried to break it up and said "stop shitting on my game mode" or something similarly arrogant. There was an apology on the forum and that was that. The fact that this escalated to TWO employee terminations, including Peter who was there for 13 years, shows there were other things going on behind closed doors. This situation could easily have been de-escalated by an apology from Mo on behalf of Jessica and Peter for example (if this was the only transgression), but instead this was the outcome.
4. There is a disgusting amount of politicisation going on hereby people who didn't know what GW2 was 2 days ago and want to score points for their team. This place is behaving like some conservative shithole.
That's kind of what I figured. If that's the sort of reaction it was getting, then it's pretty clear who you'd be appeasing through this firing, I'd think.
Shows just how much research you've bothered to do in this story.
The issue made it onto r/all, which means you'll never be able to parse apart the "true fans" from the brigadiers from other subs. There's probably overlap, but I have no idea how you'd get an accurate reading on the temperature of the room.
He should be on the writing team since he seems to be a contributor to the games popularity and is a positive influence going by his twitch clips and tweets, unlike her.
This thread is ridiculous.
So it's okay? Then Kamiya is an apt comparison. Price's twitter bio is this:
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