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Alec Holowka (Night in the Woods, TowerFall) accused of sexual assault [Update: Alec Holowka has reportedly passed away] [See staff posts/threadmarks]

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Wok

Wok

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Oct 26, 2017
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Edit: Removed misleading content.

He was using the "Eron told me that Zoe" sarcastic line when tweeting back at an alt-right person (Skiba) and a banned account (Lester).
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I believe he is very ironic in his everyday life:
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However, he is definitely anti-GG, as pointed by another poster below.
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dabbling

dabbling

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Dec 3, 2018
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He pretty unambiguously says he knows the people involved in the gamergate controversy personally and that they're not involved in a conspiracy. That is to say: he is anti gamergate.

It doesn't matter though. His views on gamergate are immaterial to the legitimacy of this accusation.

All of the following things can be true: Holowka abused and sexually assaulted Zoe Quinn, Holowka publically implies Quinn is a liar when discussing their relationship (pretty textbook behaviour for an abuser to cast doubt on their victim's integrity tbh), Holowka is anti gamergate.

In fact I think they are all true and I believe Quinn.

People can be awful in complex ways. He can have a good stance on gamergate and still be an abuser. He can claim Quinn is a liar and still be an abuser. He can carry his own scars from that relationship... and still be an abuser.
 

Deleted member 46948

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Wok said:
Just checking his old Twitter account, which for some reason Alec decided to protect and leave behind last January, in favour of a fresh Twitter account.



Alec Holowka went to an indie game conference (#IGS) with his wife in March 2013.



I don't know if I am missing the context, but it seems he was fantasizing to name the baby Zoe.



If the abuse happened at that time, then he called it a "ragequit" when Zoë Quinn managed to escape.



Two months later, he answered to a (deleted?) tweet by co-dev of Night in the Woods, I assume it is an innocuous joke, but cannot be sure.



In 2014, we can see that Zoe Quinn and him likely do not talk to each other, since he mentions an intermediate person reporting what she told.



His last tweets, published in early August, are unfortunate.



I would rather post the info now in case he deletes some stuff.
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I'm confused (and haven't been really following Holowka or Quinn's personal lives), she was his wife? Is someone else his wife? They had a daughter? What the hell was he talking about?
 
N64Controller

N64Controller

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Nov 2, 2017
8,330
SparkleMotion said:
Is it not okay to play Night in the Woods now? I have it downloaded on my PS4 and was looking forward to playing it. How involved was this guy with the product?
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It's a small studio.

Very involved.

People have got to stop with this idea that if you're "just" a programmer, or "just" a composer, or "just" a game designer you don't contribute a lot to the games. Programmers don't simply write code and get told what to do by others. They are active part of the development of the game. It's true in any studio. If it's not, then the studio has a huge issue. I've seen this argument made many times in this thread. Alec Holowka was a huge part of Night in the Woods. It doesn't matter if you tell yourself he was not. EDIT : Just to make it clear, not talking about the person I quoted in this part.

Whether it's ok or not to play is irrelevant. Not that your feeling is, but there is no right answer here. It's about how you feel about playing it. From all accounts it's a great game. Personally, I wouldn't. But it's not like I have never played/watched/listened to work done by horrible people ... we all did.
 
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mbpm

mbpm

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Oct 25, 2017
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Claven said:
I'm confused (and haven't been really following Holowka or Quinn's personal lives), she was his wife? Is someone else his wife? They had a daughter? What the hell was he talking about?
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It reads like metaphorical fanfiction to me (don't think they were ever married.) Disturbing.
 
deepFlaw

deepFlaw

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Wok said:
Alec Holowka went to an indie game conference (#IGS) with his wife in March 2013.



I don't know if I am missing the context, but it seems he was fantasizing to name the baby Zoe.



If the abuse happened at that time, then he called it a "ragequit" when Zoë Quinn managed to escape.

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So uh...

Maybe I'm wrong, but... are you absolutely certain the #IGS stuff isn't just him live tweeting a talk? Because that's really what it seems like to me? I can't think of any other way those tweets make any sense given how they're written; it looks exactly like how devs I follow livetweet talks/postmortems, with the conference tag there and all. Those tweets absolutely read like him sharing/paraphrasing someone else talking about the experience of making their game.

I get what you're going for, but that's the problem with digging through old tweets like this. You're gonna get a ton of things out of context, and just imagining context for them without thinking it through isn't really helpful for anything.
 
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Wok

Wok

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deepFlaw said:
Maybe I'm wrong, but... are you absolutely certain the #IGS stuff isn't just him live tweeting a talk?
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You are right. It is not easy to find the context of a tweet with Twitter search features. I have managed to find the one about the baby, and it is from a live-tweet:

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I have not checked the context of the other tweets. I have edited my previous posts to remove the ones which are tagged #IGS.
 
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deepFlaw

deepFlaw

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Wok said:
You are right. It is not easy to find the context of a tweet with Twitter search features. I have managed to find the one about the baby, and it is from a live-tweet:



I have not checked the context of the other tweets. I have edited my previous posts to add a disclaimer.
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I would just remove the #IGS tweets entirely instead of having the disclaimer, personally, though that much is appreciated. They very clearly have nothing to do with this situation (and beyond that, any mention of "wife" doesn't matter as a result?), and it's kinda just spreading misinformation to keep them there.

The GG related stuff matters far far more, anyway.
 

XSystem

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Apr 1, 2019
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The whole situation sucks, but it's good to see the team around Night in the Woods handle it like this.
 
Dice

Dice

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Oct 25, 2017
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What a heartbreaking way to tarnish your game's legacy. I do hope time heals and people can still enjoy NitW for what it is and the passion behind its writers and other staff –– but this does feel a bit like a scar on a great game.

I still look forward to more from them in the future and glad they're free one asshole.
 
wrowa

wrowa

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Wok said:
Edit: Removed misleading content.

He was using the "Eron told me that Zoe" sarcastic line when tweeting back at an alt-right person (Skiba) and a banned account (Lester).
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I'm not sure whether searching for damming things he said on Twitter is really helping. I think by trying to show "See? He was a bad guy all along!" we're burying the actual issue here: That even people, or men specifically, like Alec or Alexis who do seem to share progressive ideals and earned high respect for the kind of work they put out aren't safe from turning out to be asshats. That believing in and being convinced of certain ideals is nevertheless not a guarentee that you yourself won't become a monster if given the chance and opportunity.

It's a deeply, deeply rooted problem and to me searching for past corpses just feels a bit like trying to look away from the issue. "Phew, he wasn't one of us after all".
 
LaneDS

LaneDS

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Very sad situation for Zoe and others who were directly impacted by his actions.

Like many in the thread this was difficult news to hear having such a personal connection to the game, its characters, and more specifically its music but I was relieved (a strange word to use here, I guess) that the characters and their words weren't from Alec as that would have just invalidated the whole experience. I'm glad they'll be moving forward without him in the future, and I hope Zoe and others impacted are able to heal from what happened.
 
CannonFodder52

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spineduke said:
Some positive news

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This is a good response from Scott, especially in contrast to the regular game industry responses.

Absolutely disgusting what's happened to Zoe. Can't believe all the shit she's been through.

Obviously how this affects me is irrelevant, but it feels gross that I had a vinyl for the game on my wall yesterday morning. I don't think I'll be able to, or want to hear the soundtrack again.
 
ThreepQuest64

ThreepQuest64

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"He said he loved me in a way no one else would." This really sounds like psychopath who's about to murder you. Poor Zoë, wish her all the best and recovery from all this.
 
Candescence

Candescence

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spineduke said:
Some positive news

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manchego obfuscator said:
and from Scott Benson's personal account


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Excellent response. Alec's involvement will still be something of a scar on the game going forward, but at this point it really can't be helped. Hopefully Scott and Beth still have access to the original source code, but I don't see why they wouldn't.

Unfortunately, a chunk of the Twitter replies are utterly predictable ("innocent until proven guilty", "Zoe is a manipulator and a liar", etc).
 
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Terrysaur

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Jun 14, 2019
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Scott Benson's response was beautiful and was definitely the one Night in the Woods fans needed at this moment. Obviously Scott, Beth, and the rest of the game's dev team don't deserve this shitstorm, and I hope they can find some way to move on from Alec and the angry mob that comes with him. I think most of us would be comfortable with crossing Alec's name out if it means Night in the Woods can somehow get back the reputation it rightfully earned and deserved before this happened. Likewise, I hope Derek Yu similarly doesn't have to be ashamed of Aquaria because of Alec – the game is an important part of Derek's story too, much like how Night in the Woods is for Scott and Beth.
 
Detail

Detail

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Dec 30, 2018
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OmegaX said:
Like clockwork. Another "male feminist" that turns out to be an abuser.


This. I don't take anybody "being woke" on Twitter seriously anymore. Too many people doing shit for the likes and e-fame.
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Sadly Twitter does seem to be a platform where people are performative as the other poster mentioned.

Lots of words but the actions very rarely back them up, being "woke" at this point for many companies and people searching for fame online is more a selling point than it is genuine empathy.

Which is incredibly upsetting and frustrating because it only serves to take away the power from the voices that truly do care when the disingenous ones are held up as an example of why you can't trust them.
 
AntiMacro

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He's not talking to his team, leaving them in the dark about what's going on. I worked with Astrid when she was in PR, just a shitty situation for her.

 
Boy Wander

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Candescence said:
Excellent response. Alec's involvement will still be something of a scar on the game going forward, but at this point it really can't be helped. Hopefully Scott and Beth still have access to the original source code, but I don't see why they wouldn't.

Unfortunately, a chunk of the Twitter replies are utterly predictable ("innocent until proven guilty", "Zoe is a manipulator and a liar", etc).
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I have to admit being an old git, the whole Gamer gate thing passed me by to a large extent. There seem to be a number of accusations online about Zoe Quinn being a serial liar and manipulator. Was that all just made up by Gamer Gate supporters? If so, it's very brave of her to come forward with this.
 
Craymond

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Oct 28, 2017
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Boy Wander said:
I have to admit being an old git, the whole Gamer gate thing passed me by to a large extent. There seem to be a number of accusations online about Zoe Quinn being a serial liar and manipulator. Was that all just made up by Gamer Gate supporters? If so, it's very brave of her to come forward with this.
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It was/is. GamerGaters are known conspiracy artists/liars/manipulators. Very conservative, no amount of empathy-sympathy. A lot of them involved with the growing white supremacy. They deserve to be dragged out into the light and judged for how shitty they are. Give gaming a bad name all around and are regressive in most thoughts.
 
Goat Mimicry

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Boy Wander said:
I have to admit being an old git, the whole Gamer gate thing passed me by to a large extent. There seem to be a number of accusations online about Zoe Quinn being a serial liar and manipulator. Was that all just made up by Gamer Gate supporters? If so, it's very brave of her to come forward with this.
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Yep, it was all bullshit from them. They wanted to kicked women and minorities out of the video games industry. If you want a rundown, Rational Wiki's Gamergate page is good.
 
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OP
TacomaSCDisaster

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Boy Wander said:
I have to admit being an old git, the whole Gamer gate thing passed me by to a large extent. There seem to be a number of accusations online about Zoe Quinn being a serial liar and manipulator. Was that all just made up by Gamer Gate supporters? If so, it's very brave of her to come forward with this.
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Gamergate was, in many ways, the flashpoint for the rise of the modern alt-right.
 
Wok

Wok

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Part of the post is a separate issue from the sexual assault described in the OP, and sexual harassment described by several people (including Albertine). It is a description of abusive behaviour in the workplace. To the least, Alec has some serious anger issues, and should not be managing a team. Alec needs to see a psychiatrist and work on himself. And he should have done so years ago, rather than keeping on with his awful (and extremely harmful) abusive behaviour!
 
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hyouko

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Wok said:
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Part of the post is a separate issue from the sexual assault described in the OP, and sexual harassment described by several people (including Albertine). It is a description of abusive behaviour in the workplace. To the least, Alec has some serious anger issues, and should not be managing a team. Alec needs to see a psychiatrist and work on himself. And he should have done so years ago, rather than keeping on with his awful (and extremely harmful) abusive behaviour!
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Going by the NitW backer update that went out tonight, he was in fact "working on himself" after these issues last surfaced during development of that title.

For those who backed the project, the update is (I thought) a worthwhile read.
 
low-G

low-G

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Always had a feeling about the guy and was one piece of why I never picked up NiTW.

I think it's about time we stop idolizing those who put on any face on social media. Support good words on social media, but don't judge the people behind the words good or bad unless we know them or see lots of substantial actions.

It is easy to fake morality on social media. Some of the worst nazis on the net today went through a 'not a complete fucking shithead creep' phase.

Mainly, here is someone who talked good but did tons of fucking abhorrent stuff.
 
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