To be fair, some (many?) are just duped by the false narrative and not intentionally spreading it. Or atleast that's how I believe.
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The controversial ArenaNet firings of Guild Wars 2 writers (READ OP)
- Thread starter hydrophilic attack
- Start date
Some people will believe whatever they have to in order to convince themselves Price doesn't owe Derior an apology.
Great statements. Can't disagree with a single sentence in either
There's always another layer, there's always deeper, there is no bottom
Yep. Some people here are willing to believe (or claim) anything to support their argument. It's hilarious and scary to read
Price was the one that escalated the situation when she RT'd Deroir's original tweet to make her followers know what an asshat she thought Deroir was. Why would he have to do anything to try to deescalate what she started?
It's been going on here and at the other place forever. But this is the first case where it's just such a reach that I can't help but hope they're just trolling.
Then we wouldn't be having this whole debacle going off as is. :/
This is what I don't understand, even if you are with Jessica Price, why paint Deroir as the villain? What did he do?
Whether you are with ArenaNet or Jessica Price we should all agree that Deroir did nothing wrong here. Why are people suddenly shifting the blame towards him? It's really baffling.
I agree that firing her was too extreme but I think we all know very well that the company didn't just fire her out of the blue, she did something that got her fired. You could argue that she didn't deserve to be fired but that's not really relevant anymore, it's already done.
She could've just ignore Deroir instead of attacking him, and besides that she could've at least said ''sorry dude I had a bad day'' or something like that, like she wasn't even remotely sorry about any of her behavior. I believe it is precisely that attitude that got her fired, not just the tweets.
Again I hate to see another female worker leaving the industry and I hate to see those GGers cheering over this but we can't deny that she brought this onto herself, she probably don't deserve the punishment but there's no doubt she is the one who started it all, in fact Deroir even gave her a chance to stop after her initial ''thanks for telling me what to do my dude'' response, but she just keep going.
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Baffling is definitely the right word. People doing insane gymnastics to paint him as a "toxic element" simply because his post was the catalyst for this incident.
Because if you start with the conclusion he must be sexist or being abusive, as the original accusation suggests so, then you have to find a way to support that being your conclusion.
I understand a debate around whether or not ANet are both entitled and justified to hand down disciplinary action, but going after Deroir is very ill-thought out for anyone actually reading and paying attention here. He genuinely didn't really do anything and even tried to calmly back off and apologise when things blew up. The same people going after him to try and make him fit as the villain here would probably rightfully call out others going on hunts to vilify people incorrectly in other instances.
It's like some sort of progressive catch-22. You don't want to admit someone might have been wrong to go off at someone else this one time, because they are a victim of abuse in other instances, so you have to find a way to say someone who has been on the receiving end of an outburst here they shouldn't have been must somehow be in the wrong. I'm sure his Twitter profile has been combed over 2000 times now to try and find something he's said or done in the past to use as evidence, but as far as I'm aware past transgressions haven't even been dug up to suggest he must secretly be GG or a harasser of women in gaming.
It does seem like he's just a normal gamer who likes Guild Wars, and Jessica, and tried to get involved after an AMA on Guild Wars.
I think it's from this? I am not sure though.
What's even stranger is that nothing Deroir wrote could really be interpreted as telling Price or ArenaNet "what they do internally."
Nah, you're just like, not reading his post right, my dude.
It was totally aggressive, condescending, and reeking of underlying sexist tones.
/s.
Definitely seems to be what's happening in this instance. Because a person has been the victim of abuse in the past, all of their actions and reactions are justified by default seems to be the argument.
User Banned (3 Days): Repeated performative + sarcastic trolling
Because he was micro aggressive in his tweets. It was totally micro aggressive, micro condescending, and reeking of micro underlying sexist tones.
Even if she started it, he seems like a decent guy and might be able to de-escalate this at least a little.
btw my dude's a friendly as hell term!
If you believe Price has been wronged by being fired, then it's important that Price have a shield from accusations of wrong-doing by implicating Deroir. If he initiated the improper behavior through condescension and mansplaining, and then escalated the encounter after her rebuttal, her firing is completely unjust and the subsequent reaction by an internet hate mob and ArenaNET are rooted firmly in pre-existing norms of sexism.
If, however, Price reacted inappropriately then it gives sexists and hate-mobs an out by simply claiming ArenaNET was completely justified in their firing of her and her reaction after the firing is just a continuation of her prior inappropriate behavior and a continued justification of her harassment and firing.
In other words, there's skin in the game on either side.
The reality is, Price acted inappropriately, however in a way most people should be able to sympathize with based on her position and previous encounters with sexism and harassment. ArenaNET's firing was justified, but keeping her on and limiting her social media use would have also been justified. The reaction of feckless neckbeards to organize a campaign of harassment is, as always, terrible. Deroir, for his part, is unfortunately caught up in this as either a unwilling martyr, or a community pariah. Sexism and the way the internet in particular treats women in geek culture is of course a big part of this whole debacle, but the initiation of it (the conversation between Price and Deroir) is not firmly rooted in sexism and pre-existing harassment.
I mean I can totally see why she would be upset about Deroir's feedback given how angry and on edge she usually are (even Jessica herself said that she is kind of an asshole on twitter), but even then why can't she just ignore him? Why is she so pissed off?
Still I think firing her for simply misbehaving on twitter is not right, not to mention she's a very talented female worker. Should've at least warned her and maybe ask her to remove the tweets, or maybe ask her to apologize, anything would be better than just fire someone who worked hard and contributed a lot for your game.
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A lot of them were deleted after the fact. If you want to see them (and don't mind scrubbing through a long video) you could watch the breakdown Wooden Potatoes did on Youtube.
Has been pretty professional about the whole thing, despite the fact that I think his firing was the one that was an overreaction on Arenanet's part.
I think people can offer empathy to that situation, but no one should be lying about the current predicament or falsifying/exaggerating about what happened around Deroir. People can empathize it's easy to lose your cool under circumstances that are influenced by your past/current on-going experiences, but many will still look to you to potentially right any wrongs you might make. Human beings aren't infallible.
The vast majority of employers are probably going to push for an apology before they'll even consider sweeping this under the rug and that isn't coming as Jessica for better or worse seems to be sticking by her guns that Deroir was a suitable target to go off at to the tune of implying he is sexist and condescending.
"Why didn't she ignore it" Is a bad question to ask, even if you think she's completely in the wrong. This line of questioning is used in bad faith by the worst types of people in legitimate cases of sexual harassment on social media.
Why are you comparing legitimate cases of sexual harassment on social media with this?
Except this is nothing close to sexual harassment...
What an odd comparison to make.
People keep asking what Fries said. I have not seen anyone answer and I have not found any good "archive" of his deleted tweets other than an hour long video.
I decided to print screen and upload these for easier viewing, just to answer the question of "what did Fries say". Pardon the clumsy cuts and (lack of) quality.
This first one is just quoted on Reddit, I decided to take all of it as WP had it in the video. The actual quoted tweet is right there at the top. I saw that one myself before it was deleted so if you trust me I can assure you it's properly quoted.
The rest:
Not meant to paint a target on him or anything, just posting because people seem to not know about his tweets.
I decided to print screen and upload these for easier viewing, just to answer the question of "what did Fries say". Pardon the clumsy cuts and (lack of) quality.
This first one is just quoted on Reddit, I decided to take all of it as WP had it in the video. The actual quoted tweet is right there at the top. I saw that one myself before it was deleted so if you trust me I can assure you it's properly quoted.
The rest:
Not meant to paint a target on him or anything, just posting because people seem to not know about his tweets.
Man, firing them was too far, especially poor Fries, man, that guy gently tried to give his coworker some cover and wasn't even rude about it.
Price should've been given an opportunity to apologize first. Given her defiant stance in subsequent interviews she probably would not have done it and then you can take it from there, and maybe that would turn into a performance review issue.
Firing someone right away like that was going nuclear, and you can already see what a mistake it was in terms of PR given the games journalism industry response.
Price should've been given an opportunity to apologize first. Given her defiant stance in subsequent interviews she probably would not have done it and then you can take it from there, and maybe that would turn into a performance review issue.
Firing someone right away like that was going nuclear, and you can already see what a mistake it was in terms of PR given the games journalism industry response.
This is one of the really baffling things to me. Like I mentioned to Relaxed Muscle a couple pages ago who has come out really hard against Deroir.
I really don't get the obsession with hating on the guy.
"These are our private social media accounts".
Except they're public? And they both explicitly mention their job?
I don't think she is completely in the wrong, but I feel like she is being a little bit too aggressive there, even if you believe she is in the right you can't really deny that.
Ignoring Deroir wouldn't be the best action but at least the outcome would be peaceful, and it would make it pretty clear that she is NOT in the mood of having a discussion.
"mansplaining" is not a crime, it is an annoying dynamic in communication that is quite often totally unintentional.
saying that deroir's tweets come off as kind of condescending isn't an impingement of his character, it is pointing out that this was an unfortunate misunderstanding where someone lost their temper in response to something that most likely was not meant maliciously, but still could be taken the wrong way especially if taken as a part of a pattern.
you can't treat a customer that way for pragmatic reasons, of course. but the selective demands for "civility" in the wider context of a community that often balks against attempts to instill civility and launches harassment campaigns at the drop of a hat is foolish to me. it needs to be pointed out that the dynamic is that customers can be as toxic as they like to developers up to the very extremes, whereas developers are expected to deal with all of that with a smile on their face. that dynamic is so well-known that it is a cultural touchstone, but it also runs contra to the desire to have more open and genuine conversations with developers.
deroir did not do anything "wrong" or anything with "bad intentions", but we've all carelessly touched a raw nerve one time or another.
saying that deroir's tweets come off as kind of condescending isn't an impingement of his character, it is pointing out that this was an unfortunate misunderstanding where someone lost their temper in response to something that most likely was not meant maliciously, but still could be taken the wrong way especially if taken as a part of a pattern.
you can't treat a customer that way for pragmatic reasons, of course. but the selective demands for "civility" in the wider context of a community that often balks against attempts to instill civility and launches harassment campaigns at the drop of a hat is foolish to me. it needs to be pointed out that the dynamic is that customers can be as toxic as they like to developers up to the very extremes, whereas developers are expected to deal with all of that with a smile on their face. that dynamic is so well-known that it is a cultural touchstone, but it also runs contra to the desire to have more open and genuine conversations with developers.
deroir did not do anything "wrong" or anything with "bad intentions", but we've all carelessly touched a raw nerve one time or another.
While Fries is more sympathetic, I can't say I think his firing was completely unjustified either. He also attacked the idea of getting feedback from fans, though he did it in defense of his coworker and was generally less rude about it.
You just can't tell your game's community that their feedback is unwanted, especially in an MMO, which are built around communities.
You just can't tell your game's community that their feedback is unwanted, especially in an MMO, which are built around communities.
This is the second time I've seen someone compare this situation to sexual harassment/rape. Fucking stop that. It's gross.
He's the consequential reason Jessica/Fries lost their job, so there is a desire to put that blame on him. Kind of like a wrong place/wrong time blame situation. It's pretty unfair though as at a local level even after having some accusations thrown his way and getting a bit flustered he tried to de-escalate and apologize. Seems to have been completely silent since, so not celebrating and dancing on some grounds of "revenge". I think he's deleted all the tweets as well if this is the twitter account https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming
Just constant GW2 stuff. Clearly likes the game, likes the devs and tried to get involved. Shit blew up and now depending on who's @ replying to him it's probably congratulations or calling him a sexist/misogynist.
And blaming him for ANet's decision/implying he can overpower their HR department
edit: Tweets still up, I got my dates a bit wrong.
Oh. I don't think what Deroir did was sexual harassment at all.
this is a good analogy describing why those tweets irritated Price
maybe the layman is just excited to be talking about observation techniques or wants to impress someone with their own familiarity with the topic? but having your passion or research subject explained to you by someone who knows very little about it is annoying, and i have witnessed female friends and colleagues deal with this dynamic quite a lot
a recent example in my own life was someone (incorrectly) attempting to explain the distinction between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement to a friend who is a psychology graduate student - my friend was very nice about it, but it was clearly an annoying situation and we laughed about it later in private
What was your point then? That people should never ask "why didn't she ignore it?" even in cases that are clearly not sexual harassment or really have anything to do with gender?
Seriously, the idea that any comment from someone without the experience is automatically worthless coming from all of you is a serious display of cognitive dissonance. By this same logic if Donald Trump posts any fucking thing on his Twitter I can't come at him because I haven't had the experience of being President for two years.
Do you see how daft that is? To believe that nobody can give you a helpful suggestion because they don't have your so called experience level is arrogant. That's something I would expect from a GG'er quite honestly. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure they've used that argument before to defend their pig dog devs that make games like Hatred and that school shooter game whatever it was.
C'mon guys, we are better than this. I never expected to see the twisting of facts and logic to such a degree coming from here. Don't be like your enemies.
Do you see how daft that is? To believe that nobody can give you a helpful suggestion because they don't have your so called experience level is arrogant. That's something I would expect from a GG'er quite honestly. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure they've used that argument before to defend their pig dog devs that make games like Hatred and that school shooter game whatever it was.
C'mon guys, we are better than this. I never expected to see the twisting of facts and logic to such a degree coming from here. Don't be like your enemies.
I don't think firing her was out of bounds; in my opinion she went from 0 to 100 real quick and then tried to paint the guy providing innocent feedback as a sexist for daring to have an opinion on what she does - which I might add affects the guy from twitter considering he's a content creator for the game. People get let go for far less infractions and I'd bet the state she works in (assuming she's American) has "at-will" employment meaning the company can fire her whenever and for whatever reason.
Sheesh. That tweet is awful. I posted one earlier where the dude said "You're the type of man women fear being alone with." Like holy shit. And yeah, his twitter responses are a mess of people calling him a sexist/misogynist, congratulating him for taking her down or calling him a cuck and rubbing the entire situation in his face.He's the consequential reason Jessica/Fries lost their job, so there is a desire to put that blame on him. Kind of like a wrong place/wrong time blame situation. It's pretty unfair though as at a local level even after having some accusations thrown his way and getting a bit flustered he tried to de-escalate and apologize. Seems to have been completely silent since, so not celebrating and dancing on some grounds of "revenge". I think he's deleted all the tweets as well if this is the twitter account https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming
Just constant GW2 stuff. Clearly likes the game, likes the devs and tried to get involved. Shit blew up and now depending on who's @ replying to him it's probably congratulations or calling him a sexist/misogynist.
edit: Tweets still up, I got my dates a bit wrong.
While there's absolutely been a harassment campaign generated by the unsavory parts of reddit and twitter towards Price, the fact of the matter is that this stuck a chord with the Guild Wars 2 community for a reason. You can dismiss reddit and twitter where it's free and can be easily flooded with bots, but even on GW2's official forum where there is a paywall and can't be flooded by bots the same way this is the most talked about issue of all time.
This isn't Rian Johnson smarting off towards some whiny Star Wars fan who hated the Last Jedi and is doing something stupid like demand Disney remake the film and remove Last Jedi from canon. This isn't someone shitting on twitter Nazi's or the Trump administration. At least among liberal circles and Resetera no one bats an eye at those.
The reason this blew up is because Deroir is an ideal fan. He's not a big hotshot youtuber twitch streamer like some people here suggest with hundreds of thousands of subscribers he has a couple thousand followers on twitch and twitter. He's no WoodenPotatoes. Almost no one in the GW2 community actually knew who he was compared to other people like WP, PeachyAurora, Jebro and Jawgeous. But he's the exact type of fan you want involved in anything you make. He's positive, passionate. He promotes the game as much as he can. And what criticisms he has come from a good place. He's not some angry relentlessly vicious fanboy like the kind drove World of Warcraft's Tseric into a mental breakdown years ago.
So when a Dev calls him an asshole, talks about how developers are only pretending to like the community, and blasts him for being sexist when he didn't do anything deserving of that label. It's going to freaking upset people. That's why the GW2 community and people on Resetera who don't think Price calling Deroir an asshat was a cool thing to do like Reflexive Muscle, BDS, BoukObelisk do think she stepped out of line.
It's especially hilarious when it comes to video games.
Yeah, I don't have experience developing games. I do have a hell of a lot of experience playing games and know what tends to be fun to play.
Nintendo's implementation of online is shit, I say this based on my experience using other people implementations of online. Am I not allowed to have this opinion because I've never implemented online myself?
What about all the people who were criticizing TLOU2's trailer on this forum. How many of them have made a trailer? Guess they better keep that shit to themselves then.
Why does Price state that those are their private accounts when they're anything but?
Edit: Fries, excuse me.