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Professor Beef

Official ResetEra™ Chao Puncher
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,509
The Digital World
The white knighting for "lower level workers" that's happening in the wake of Schrier's story, and in response to fan backlash from Taylor's original videos, is interesting. Who in their right mind would want employees unrelated to these decisions and events to be "harassed?" It's almost a straw man argument. Furthermore, is there any evidence to support that these "low level employees" are being harassed?
i WORKED for nintendo and was on their customer service team, the employees there get the worst of it from idiot fans because they're the only ones fans can actually contact and bitch at

you using the term "white knighting" just says it all about how much you give a shit
 

JBoogieG

Member
Aug 2, 2022
3,404
SW Virginia
Do I have to explicitly state that there are more than two stances? I wasn't trying to list every possible stance , I was commenting on the two stances that I wanted to comment on at that moment.

If you had no leaning whatsoever and can't claim to be right or wrong now, bully for you. I don't think I expressed support one way or the other either, and I got called a sexist for it too. It wasn't nice.
I'll say that no, you don't have to, it just wasn't very clear when you said it. But I'll offer a mea culpa on that.

And I'm sure being called sexist for your stance didn't feel good. That downright sucks. I just wanna make sure that some people don't try to just skip over how others were treated in that other thread.
 

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,134
Actually, let me return to this post again, since it's useful to highlight a point of frustration I've had in this entire situation:

it really reads like trying to apply sour grapes in a blanket way.

You're projecting a position I hadn't stated onto me in order to frame this into a situation that's around winning or losing, that I'm bitter about losing based on a position that you've arbitrarily assumed that I hold to fit your chosen narrative, when the position that I had been trying to argue was that I don't think winning or losing is important.

That's why I'm saying that I don't feel good about this whole conclusion. The last thread went off the rails because it quickly devolved from what it was supposed to be, a discussion about a labour issue in a situation of incomplete information where we're all collectively trying to figure out what going on, and instead became a team sports situation where one side was trying to undermine the other side to claim superiority for themselves. This new thread is dissecting that previous thread, but still often framing it as team sports. This is telling me that the result of this is going to be some people lifting their head high and learning absolutely nothing.
 
Last edited:
Oct 25, 2017
3,973
Osaka, Osaka
i WORKED for nintendo and was on their customer service team, the employees there get the worst of it from idiot fans because they're the only ones fans can actually contact and bitch at

you using the term "white knighting" just says it all about how much you give a shit

This^
The companies may be faceless, but they're filled with working class folks like you and me that will be the first ones to take the brunt of whatever consequences there are, be it from above, or from consumer anger.

It's like when people dont want to tip wait staff (which is an issue in itself) because of how the food was cooked at a restaurant. It's just an outlet for their emotions at that particular moment in time. It's disposable.
 

AgeEighty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,644
I'm unsure of what you mean by the last sentence though. Are you asking that I don't immediately believe/side with a person when they claim they were wronged by a corporation in the future?

That's not gonna happen. I will, like this time, always be open to reevaluating my opinion/stance as more information drops though.

The trouble with this approach is that it starts to become a boy who cried wolf scenario. Be a part of too many outrage episodes over things that end up being completely unfounded, and you're diluting the impact of events that actually deserve that outrage. It's all well and good to say you'll re-evaluate with more info, but once you've contributed to one of those snowballed outrage events, there's really no putting the genie back in the bottle, and many people will never even hear about the corrected version of events. And if they do, they'll just stop paying attention to you next time you get mad about something, even if it's real this time.
 

kimbo99

Member
Feb 21, 2021
4,814
If a "lower-level worker" isn't making decisions about how much money a VA gets paid, then of course they shouldn't be targeted for backlash and especially not harassment. Please don't assign me a stance I never took.

The white knighting for "lower level workers" that's happening in the wake of Schrier's story, and in response to fan backlash from Taylor's original videos, is interesting. Who in their right mind would want employees unrelated to these decisions and events to be "harassed?" It's almost a straw man argument. Furthermore, is there any evidence to support that these "low level employees" are being harassed?

Unfortunately people attack whoever is first in their line of sight. I worked a Customer Service job and ultimately people complained to me about stuff that I couldn't fix because of company policy. So when I tell them "No", i am the bad guy, not the Execs or C-Suite people who made the decisions.
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
117,038
This^
The companies may be faceless, but they're filled with working class folks like you and me that will be the first ones to take the brunt of whatever consequences there are, be it from above, or from consumer anger.

It's like when people dont want to tip wait staff (which is an issue in itself) because of how the food was cooked at a restaurant. It's just an outlet for their emotions at that particular moment in time. It's disposable.

The poor fucking Treehouse staff get so much shit just for existing. This is one of the reasons I FUCKING HATE nerds doing Twitter and LinkedIn sleuthing to find out who works at what company. Because this shit gets weaponized as soon as someone has the stupidest, pettiest grievance. They find the low-level staff's twitters and harangue them over things they can't change. ESPECIALLY when you're talking about Nintendo of America, a company with no actionable power.

The trouble with this approach is that it starts to become a boy who cried wolf scenario. Trigger too many outrage episodes over things that end up being completely different, and you're diluting the impact of events that actually deserve that outrage. It's all well and good to say you'll re-evaluate with more info, but once you've contributed to one of those snowballed outrage events, there's really no putting the genie back in the bottle, and many people will never even hear about the corrected version of events.

Correct. These kinds of things, once they snowball, become "real", even when the truth comes out.
 

Viale

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,638
The trouble with this approach is that it starts to become a boy who cried wolf scenario. Trigger too many outrage episodes over things that end up being completely different, and you're diluting the impact of events that actually deserve that outrage. It's all well and good to say you'll re-evaluate with more info, but once you've contributed to one of those snowballed outrage events, there's really no putting the genie back in the bottle, and many people will never even hear about the corrected version of events.

Some people probably won't hear the corrected version, sure.

But if the opposite is that someone is taken advantage of and no one knows/nothing is done about it, forgive me if I don't particularly care as much if some people have a lower opinion of a company.
 

AgeEighty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,644
Some people probably won't hear the corrected version, sure.

But if the opposite is that someone is taken advantage of and no one knows/nothing is done about it, forgive me if I don't particularly care as much if some people have a lower opinion of a company.

But again: all you're doing is convincing people not to listen to you next time you want to call out something like this, because they'll assume it's another lie. It's not wisdom to throw unvetted outrage at every corporation someone accuses of something, because half the time you'll be wrong and then all you're doing is harming your own message. Think critically and judge things case by case. This shouldn't be controversial at all.
 

Renna Hazel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,745
Some people probably won't hear the corrected version, sure.

But if the opposite is that someone is taken advantage of and no one knows/nothing is done about it, forgive me if I don't particularly care as much if some people have a lower opinion of a company.
If a company was all that was effected then that's fine. That's usually not the case though.
 

Viale

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,638
But again: all you're doing is convincing people not to listen to you next time you want to call out something like this, because they'll assume it's another lie. It's not wisdom to throw unvetted outrage at every corporation someone accuses of something, because half the time you'll be wrong and then all you're doing is harming your own message. Think critically and judge things case by case. This shouldn't be controversial at all.

Again though, sitting and waiting for more information that might not even come is exactly how companies could easily get away with this, and it *does* happen all the time.

If this didn't blow up, it probably wouldn't have even been looked into.

If a company was all that was effected then that's fine. That's usually not the case though.

Sure. Harassment of other individuals is never the answer and was very wrong to be done here, but that is a different topic from what I am saying.
 
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JBoogieG

Member
Aug 2, 2022
3,404
SW Virginia
Actually, let me return to this post again, since it's been a point of frustration I've had in this entire situation:



You're projecting a position I hadn't stated onto me in order to frame this into a situation that's around winning or losing, that I'm bitter about losing based on a position that you've arbitrarily assumed that I hold, when the position that I had been trying to argue was that I don't think winning or losing is important.

That's why I'm saying that I don't feel good about this whole conclusion. The last thread went off the rails because it quickly devolved from what it was supposed to be, a discussion about a labour issue in a situation of incomplete information where we're all collectively trying to figure out what going on, and itself became a team sports situation where one side was trying to undermine the other side to claim superiority for themselves. This new thread is dissecting that previous thread, but still often framing it as team sports. This is telling me that the result of this is going to be some people lifting their head high and learning absolutely nothing.

If that's how I come across then I'll apologize. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I believe that's the nature of the text medium in which it's very easy to misconstrue things or assume. But this is also why I try to go out of my way to say 'it seems' or 'it feels' rather than using more blanket statements on the off chance that the way I read things wasn't exactly it and I can be corrected.

Sour grapes wasn't necessarily used to say you were bitter about things but I can see how that can be read, so I'll also apologize about that. And from your previous response I even agree with you if there's anybody saying they deserve praise for turning out to be right shouldn't be. There's nothing really praise worthy that happened here overall. All it did was create a mess of the issues about VAs deserving better pay.
 

The Adder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,324
This whole situation sucks. I definitely regret downplaying the targeted harassment of Hale, especially considering that Taylor egged it on. That's far beyond a pay dispute and, assuming the media reports are correct, was outright malicious. Kamiya definitely exacerbated the decision and he should probably consider consulting with his PR team before putting out statements, but in this case it seems like he was in the right, so he deserves an apology as well. I wish that this whole thing didn't seem to undermine the very real struggles of underpaid and underappreciated voice actors, and can only hope that VAs that came out in Taylor's defense can be, at the very least, sympathized with.

There's a lot to be said about where the burden of proof lies in an accusation like this, especially when hard evidence, more often than not, never comes to light. Is there a danger in overanalyzing someone's statement, trying to poke holes in their testimony like a defense lawyer for the accused? Does the inherent imbalance of power in these situations benefit those who withhold evidence and hide behind expensive legal teams? A position of neutrality can often be dangerous in its own right, and the supposition of "innocent into proven guilty" can often mean that the person making an accusation is considered a liar until proven correct. I'm not trying to compare this situation to something like accusations of sexual assault, which I believe should be taken more seriously and that victims should be believed as the default, but the difference is often lost in the torrent of opinions on social media.
It's simple:
You don't need evidence to support someone
You do need evidence to attack someone for not doing so

and on the other end

You don't need evidence to be skeptical of an accusation
You do need evidence to call the accuser a liar
 

mugurumakensei

Elizabeth, I’m coming to join you!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,390
Sure. Harassment of other individuals is never the answer, but that is a different topic from what I am saying.
I don't think you can decouple the too in scenarios like this. The entire purpose is to get the mob to do what the justice system does not. That often or almost always means harassment.
 

Paula B.

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Nov 13, 2021
314
Rio de Janeiro
How likely is Hellena going to be taken to court over this issue? After all, she broke an NDA, publicly lied, and weaponized a fanbase against a franchise asking for a boycott. I saw some people commenting that it wouldn't be worth it for either Nintendo or Platinum to do it, but if she gets a free pass after everything she did, then what stops others from doing the same?
 

Viale

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,638
I don't think you can decouple the too in scenarios like this. The entire purpose is to get the mob to do what the justice system does not. That often or almost always means harassment.

I disagree. There wasn't a need to bombard Kamiya or Hale (or whoever else) specifically. It could have been limited to corporate Twitter accounts, and it didn't have to be something of a mob shooting insults and rage.

You can definitely have an outcry and a public desire to acquire more information without harassing specific people.

That being said, is that expecting too much from random people on the internet? Probably.

It's simple:
You don't need evidence to support someone
You do need evidence to attack someone for not doing so

and on the other end

You don't need evidence to be skeptical of an accusation
You do need evidence to call the accuser a liar


This is very well put.
 

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,197
I don't expect those apologies to happen. People seem to be rationalizing that he "brought it on himself" and "had it coming", when I think most rational folks would try to block folks when being harassed by a mob on Twitter.
Also he's an Asian man, and definitely won't be ge getting the same kind of empathy from folks.

After the Bloomberg and VGC reports, Bayonetta didn't trend on Twitter, Kamiya did, and it was a lot of folks rationalizing their actions and saying that it was somehow his fault that other people harassed him.

People of color have the burden of being expected consider whether their actions in the face of racism is the correct response or not, while the same scrutiny isnt given towards the aggressor.
All this.

Nobody is talking about the mostly White American mob that harassed Kamiya over the weekend.
 

Phendrift

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,428
Nintendo has yet to tweet about the game this week. I'm hoping they're not dialing back marketing because of this. Bayo needs it
 
How likely is Hellena going to be taken to court over this issue? After all, she broke an NDA, publicly lied, and weaponized a fanbase against a franchise asking for a boycott. I saw some people commenting that it wouldn't be worth it for either Nintendo or Platinum to do it, but if she gets a free pass after everything she did, then what stops others from doing the same?
They're well within their rights to do so, but Taylor basically screamed to be permanently blacklisted from the industry with this stunt, so there's not much else they can really do to her that she hasn't already done to herself.
 

Professor Beef

Official ResetEra™ Chao Puncher
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,509
The Digital World
How likely is Hellena going to be taken to court over this issue? After all, she broke an NDA, publicly lied, and weaponized a fanbase against a franchise asking for a boycott. I saw some people commenting that it wouldn't be worth it for either Nintendo or Platinum to do it, but if she gets a free pass after everything she did, then what stops others from doing the same?
depends on if they think it's worth it to sue at all, considering Helena basically removed herself from the VA industry
 

viskod

Member
Nov 9, 2017
4,398
How likely is Hellena going to be taken to court over this issue? After all, she broke an NDA, publicly lied, and weaponized a fanbase against a franchise asking for a boycott. I saw some people commenting that it wouldn't be worth it for either Nintendo or Platinum to do it, but if she gets a free pass after everything she did, then what stops others from doing the same?
I don't think its in Platinum or Nintendos interests from a financial or publicity point of view to try to go after her from here on out. She's not a regular VA, she won't be trying to get jobs in the industry again, she says she just wants to put the whole "bloody franchise" behind her and move on now.

Considering how this all blew up in her face with Schreier's article yesterday it's probably best just to drop it.

After all, she broke an NDA to..... lie about what was covered by her NDA. She didn't actually reveal anything truthful. It's not like she broke an NDA and started spilling Platinum or Nintendo contract information, payments, or details about upcoming projects they wanted to keep under wraps.
 

JasoNsider

Developer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
2,184
Canada
It's simple:
You don't need evidence to support someone
You do need evidence to attack someone for not doing so

and on the other end

You don't need evidence to be skeptical of an accusation
You do need evidence to call the accuser a liar

Yeah, I think this mostly covers it for me as well.
I'm trying to find common ground for those who are hashing this out, and I wonder if this is the closest breakdown we could get to something people would agree with.
 

Amauri14

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,713
Danbury, CT, USA
Man ngl this is maddening. Jason is as good as a source we will ever get, if PG could send receipts to him then the same could be said for Taylor, so if this is the conclusion he's reporting then I'm going to have to take his word over hers.

But man, the idea that she WIDELY misled people in the guise of worker rights when by all accounts they actually respected her well is really damn gross
As I don't doubt Jason's report is accurate, to be honest, I'm just surprised that she did that considering that it can easily be proven by PG what actually happen. Whatever her real intentions were, I just don't get why would she burn that bridge and who knows how many more the way she did.
 

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,134
If that's how I come across then I'll apologize. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I believe that's the nature of the text medium in which it's very easy to misconstrue things or assume. But this is also why I try to go out of my way to say 'it seems' or 'it feels' rather than using more blanket statements on the off chance that the way I read things wasn't exactly it and I can be corrected.

Sour grapes wasn't necessarily used to say you were bitter about things but I can see how that can be read, so I'll also apologize about that. And from your previous response I even agree with you if there's anybody saying they deserve praise for turning out to be right shouldn't be. There's nothing really praise worthy that happened here overall. All it did was create a mess of the issues about VAs deserving better pay.
To be clear, I wasn't insulted or anything, you don't have to feel bad. I just wanted to illustrate my thoughts on the matter.

It's not good enough to say "I was in the right and someone else was in the wrong", we need to understand the nature of the ongoing discussion that we're all participating in and take pains to keep it from becoming something purely destructive, because that's something that it might be drawn to organically. We don't get to stay in the right for free, and it shouldn't be a free pass to cause harm when we're there.
 

JBoogieG

Member
Aug 2, 2022
3,404
SW Virginia
Personally, I feel like a lot of these stories can have some things that don't add up to a person on the complete outside of the situation while being, in general, correct, so I think it's still best to give the benefit of the doubt to the individual over the corporation.

Taylor also had *a lot* more to lose in this situation than Platinum did, so it made less sense for her to be lying.

I'm unsure of what you mean by the last sentence though. Are you asking that I don't immediately believe/side with a person when they claim they were wronged by a corporation in the future?

That's not gonna happen. I will, like this time, always be open to reevaluating my opinion/stance as more information drops though.

Taylor did have more to lose, that's correct. And it did indeed make very little sense for her to be lying in this case. But even if we side with her and I *did* initially side with her I still had some concerns with bits of her story.

And, no, I'm not asking you to not immediately side with the person when they claim they were wronged by a corporation in the future. I'd obviously hope you'd do that. But does that mean if a company hadn't actually done what they were accused of it doesn't matter what damage might have been done? Like, you say here:

Some people probably won't hear the corrected version, sure.

But if the opposite is that someone is taken advantage of and no one knows/nothing is done about it, forgive me if I don't particularly care as much if some people have a lower opinion of a company.
Do you really not see a problem with this stance? Are all companies really the same in your eyes that with the way this reporting is done that their reputation was lowered for something they actually didn't do? I'm very much not trying to assume here but this is the way it's reading.
 

Viale

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,638
Taylor did have more to lose, that's correct. And it did indeed make very little sense for her to be lying in this case. But even if we side with her and I *did* initially side with her I still had some concerns with bits of her story.

And, no, I'm not asking you to not immediately side with the person when they claim they were wronged by a corporation in the future. I'd obviously hope you'd do that. But does that mean if a company hadn't actually done what they were accused of it doesn't matter what damage might have been done. Like, you say here:


Do you really not see a problem with this stance? Are all companies really the same in your eyes that with the way this reporting is done that their reputation was lowered for something they actually didn't do? I'm very much not trying to assume here but this is the way it's reading.


If it's between some people(who were likely not that invested anyway) having their opinion lowered on a company vs the chance of a company getting away with treating someone like shit, then yeah, I'd rather people have a lower opinion of a company. The company is much more likely to come out of the situation relatively unscathed.
 

Cow Mengde

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,795
Just asking for clarification, is this a hunch or do you have information that they are definitely not tweeting more Bayo this week because of the controversy?

Like I said earlier, this outrage partly has nothing to do with people's concerns for better treatment for voice acting (and I do think there are people with good intentions and genuine concern posting in the other thread), people just wanted to turn it into a silent console war.
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
117,038
It is not a hunch. Their reaction to this news was to dial back marketing and interviews.

I'm not even remotely surprised. The last thing Nintendo wants right now is their staff getting slammed with a bunch of interview questions they can't answer about a labor dispute Nintendo may or may not be involved in in any way. Radio silence until a formal statement is released (if one is ever released at all) is the wise way to go.
 

Hero

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,024
Like I said earlier, this outrage partly has nothing to do with people's concerns for better treatment for voice acting (and I do think there are people with good intentions and genuine concern posting in the other thread), people just wanted to turn it into a silent console war.
I don't disagree with you on this one for a good chunk of people that posted in the original thread. Bayonetta has been a weird console war focal point ever since Bayo 2 was announced and as a Wii U exclusive.

It is not a hunch. Their reaction to this news was to dial back marketing and interviews.

Yeah, I think we all see it, just wasn't sure if you were speaking as a journalist with knowledge that the marketing team is pulling back.
 

Zimmiwood

The Wise Ones
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,114
As I don't doubt Jason's report is accurate, to be honest, I'm just surprised that she did that considering that it can easily be proven by PG what actually happen. Whatever her real intentions were, I just don't get why would she burn that bridge and who knows how many more the way she did.
Tbf Chaos2Frozen clarified with a tweet from Jason that the receipts werent actually from anyone in PG, so PG hasn't come out in any measure yet to disprove the allegations themselves

But yeah, talk about taking out a whole town with that rage. Real bitter person
 

Ailanthium

Shinra Employee
Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,285
It's simple:
You don't need evidence to support someone
You do need evidence to attack someone for not doing so

and on the other end

You don't need evidence to be skeptical of an accusation
You do need evidence to call the accuser a liar

Frankly speaking, I don't think it's quite that simple at all (though I respect the use of green and red to illustrate your point). While hurling insults like "corporate bootlicker" is unnecessarily hostile at best, I also think it's entirely fair to question the motives behind whether someone vocally supports or vocally doubts an accusation. While there were plenty of folks who were legitimately concerned about the harassment Kamiya and Hale received, how many others were searching every nook and cranny of Taylor's social media to discredit her, including random people she follows on Twitter, just so that they could defend their favorite game developer or feel okay buying and playing Bayonetta 3? Of course, there's a case to be made that some people who supported her already disliked PlatinumGames and never had any intention of playing Bayo 3 anyways and were happy to find another villain in the games industry (God knows there are plenty of them). From my perspective, a lot of folks who claim that they've been attacked were simply disagreed with. The line, I think, is less clear-cut than you're suggesting.

I also question whether being "skeptical" of an accusation is all that far from calling the accuser a liar, at least in practice. In theory, yes, a healthy dose of skepticism towards any situation is a good thing. But when you're spending more time being skeptical of an accusation than you are supporting it, then you've taken a side, whether that was your intention or not. If all I did was compile a list of every inconsistency in an accusation, loaded it up onto my favorite social media site, and watch it get clicks, I don't have to suggest that the person is a liar. But in practice, I've added a whole lot of fuel to the fire, and lent credence to the conclusion that they are, in fact, a liar. In this case, my skepticism would be rewarded! And even if their accusations turned out to be true, I could simply argue that I wasn't taking a side at all.

It's a win-win illusion of neutrality that, in practice, largely benefits the accused. The social media mob mentality, meanwhile, benefits the accuser (at least in this case—there are at times, like the Depp trial, where the reverse is true). There is no position of neutrality. That's not necessarily an ideal conclusion, but I think it's important to consider. Or not, that's up to you.
 

PAFenix

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Nov 21, 2019
14,976
The poor fucking Treehouse staff get so much shit just for existing. This is one of the reasons I FUCKING HATE nerds doing Twitter and LinkedIn sleuthing to find out who works at what company. Because this shit gets weaponized as soon as someone has the stupidest, pettiest grievance. They find the low-level staff's twitters and harangue them over things they can't change. ESPECIALLY when you're talking about Nintendo of America, a company with no actionable power.

Reminded again of essentially doxxing Alison Rapp by GGers and getting her fired in the fallout.

All for a game that in hindsight, is viewed by many as the worst entry in it's series (FE Fates) over changes that didn't even get reversed anyway.
 
Oct 26, 2017
13,657
I think the game got FAR more exposure from all of this than literally anything Nintendo could do, especially after the fact. With all of the stuff that came out, things will only get better as folks who were boycotting will likely now buy the game (if they were going to in the first place). I'm not certain if even the initial bits by Helena were "harming" the game from the mass amount of eyes on the game due to how viral it got.
 
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