"Chris Avellone is an abusive, abrasive, conniving sexual predator." - UP: Claims dismissed - threadmark

[Famassu]

Read my James Gunn post again because I did not engaged in any kind of "whataboutism" in it.

I was just making the point that it is normal for game studios to have gotten rid of Avellone because employing an alleged sexual abuser is not good for business.

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Well no. Plenty of accused people are still employed by big companies because accusations weren't believable enough (for people making these decisions) or internal investigations (however valid or not) didn't turn up anything. They don't fire people just because it looks bad. Plenty of shitty people still employed who make companies look bad. There generally needs to be something to the accusations.


Also, as support of my previous post, see:

Real cool to be posting videos by a guy who likes and retweets Erik "Gamersgate is not a hate movement it's a consumer rights movement" Kain on Twitter. Who I might add is also trying to discredit the victims and "exonerate" Avellone.

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Lol, two minutes after my own post about not wanting to give misogynist shitlords the time of the day.

 

[Vonocourt]

Some years ago, Disney cut their ties with director James Gunn as soon as the internet tried to get him cancelled because of some racist joke Gunn posted on Twitter nearly 15 years ago, but now that dust has settled, you've got Gunn back at Disney directing the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie.

What does that tell us? That Disney didn't "fire" him 'cause he was a racist, but because they didn't want any of the bad buzz surrounding Gunn at the time to be associated with the MCU brand.

Employing an alleged racist, homophobe or sexual predator is just bad publicity for your brand/studio, so it is a logical move for Techland/Hardsuit Labs to cut their ties with Avellone given the accusations against him.

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You're kind of missing the bit where the James Gunn firing was spearheaded by CHUD Mike Cernovich after Gunn criticized Trump. As far as I've seen there's nothing to say that the multiple allegations were put up and/or signal boosted by bad-faith actors in the year since this story broke out... so it doesn't seem comparable.

 

[stupei]

Yeah, I have better things to do then watch a random video "exonerating" someone on Youtube which as far as I can tell is that persons only video.

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Weird. I wonder how someone stumbles across a video like that.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Some months ago I stumbled upon this video:




And after watching it, I have to say that there are some notable inconsistencies to what's being claimed by the accusers, which have led me to believe that Chris might be telling the truth here.

We shall see what happens in court.

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This is the ultimate in "just asking questions" bullshit.

That video is literally the only one on that account. The YouTube account exists specifically to defend Chris Avellone. And this person's Twitter is filled with likes and retweets of people like Colin Moriarty, an alt-right Candace Owens-like grifter, a GamerGate defender and someone who tweeted "stay strong, Chris Avellone and Joss Whedon."

 

[RaySpace]

What argument does the video present for why sending sexually harassing texts to a coworker isn't a big deal?

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I don't remember. As I said in my first post, it has been a long time since I watched it, but I remember it making some pretty good points by the time I was finished watching it.

But if you're curious about the arguments presented in the video, why don't you give it a shot?

 

[Hailinel]

I don't remember. As I said in my first post, it has been a long time since I watched it, but I remember it making some pretty good points by the time I was finished watching it.

But if you're curious about the arguments presented in the video, why don't you give it a shot?

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It's the only video posted to that account. How did you find it?

 

[Famassu]

I don't remember. As I said in my first post, it has been a long time since I watched it, but I remember it making some pretty good points by the time I was finished watching it.

But if you're curious about the arguments presented in the video, why don't you give it a shot?

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Conveniently ignoring all the misogynist alt-right connections being brought up, I see.

 

[Ocean Bones]

Yeah that post said a whole bunch of nothing and mostly repeated himself. The only thing of note that he said was that Karissa had deleted 60k tweets, which is odd.

 

[stupei]

I don't remember. As I said in my first post, it has been a long time since I watched it, but I remember it making some pretty good points by the time I was finished watching it.

But if you're curious about the arguments presented in the video, why don't you give it a shot?

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Are you really going to pretend you don't know why nobody wants to click on a link you just happen to still have saved and felt a desperate need to share even though it's been so impossibly long you can't provide us with any information about the arguments inside?

Really?

 

[The Lord of Cereal]

Some years ago, Disney cut their ties with director James Gunn as soon as the internet tried to get him cancelled because of some racist joke Gunn posted on Twitter nearly 15 years ago, but now that dust has settled, you've got Gunn back at Disney directing the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie.

What does that tell us? That Disney didn't "fire" him 'cause he was a racist, but because they didn't want any of the bad buzz surrounding Gunn at the time to be associated with the MCU brand.

Employing an alleged racist, homophobe or sexual predator is just bad publicity for your brand/studio, so it is a logical move for Techland/Hardsuit Labs to cut their ties with Avellone given the accusations against him.

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I really don't think that the James Gunn situation is anywhere near what happened with Chris Avellone. Disregarding just how disingenuous your point being made is, I feel there are a few things to clarify:
- James Gunn's tweets were on his page and easily visible and verifiable, and he had not at the time directly apologized for them in an easily visible manner. The Disney exec (I think it was Alan Horn) woke up one morning and saw lots of people upset about these older tweets and cut their losses quickly and easily. It's also worth noting that said rash decision may have also been because of the Fox merger that was going on at the time. James Gunn's firing happened within a day of the tweets resurfacing. Gunn had also apologized that morning and offered explanations to those tweets as well in a meaningful way.

- Chris Avellone had multiple allegations being brought against him by a multitude of women who often didn't even know each other. These allegations were all investigated by the different companies employing him independantly from each other and went on to sever ties. As far as I can tell, Avellone never apologized or issued any statement until yesterday.

I also just don't like your whataboutism with Gunn over this whole thing. I don't get why you're over here simping for a potential sexual predator and so willing to ignore the victims.

Dismissing the content of a video and calling its creator a "fanboy" without watching the video its not a very good argument :/

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Youtube is a shitty place full of shitty and bigoted creators. I don't know who made this video, but a video basically calling the victims liars and ignoring everything else from some no name creator is going to be an instant ignore for me. If it were someone such as Jim Sterling or someone else who has offered more thoughtful insights into things, I might be so inclined, but a video trying to say Avellone is innocent outright is just no good to me.

 

[Famassu]

Yeah that post said a whole bunch of nothing and mostly repeated himself. The only thing of note that he said was that Karissa had deleted 60k tweets, which is odd.

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People do it all the time, especially people who (I assume) are being targeted by angry, sad misogynists for her accusing one of their heroes. That alone means nothing without knowing what those tweets included.

 

[RaySpace]

This is the ultimate in "just asking questions" bullshit.

That video is literally the only one on that account. The YouTube account exists specifically to defend Chris Avellone. And this person's Twitter is filled with likes and retweets of people like Colin Moriarty, an alt-right Candace Owens-like grifter, a GamerGate defender and someone who tweeted "stay strong, Chris Avellone and Joss Whedon."

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You're kind of missing the bit where the James Gunn firing was spearheaded by CHUD Mike Cernovich after Gunn criticized Trump. As far as I've seen there's nothing to say that the multiple allegations were put up and/or signal boosted by bad-faith actors in the year since this story broke out... so it doesn't seem comparable.

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Well, I didn't knew those specifics in regards to James Gunn's firing or the background behind the person who did the Chris Avellone video (I just stumbled upon it at the time and didn't dig any deeper than that), so yeah, y'all might be right in that it's most probably biased towards Avellone then 🤔

 

[Griffith]

I don't think that's been posted but holy shit that's one hell of a shittly written SLAPP suit damn. Will be entertaining to see this play out honestly.

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The point of a SLAPP suit is not to win, it's to shut someone up. Regardless of the result of this lawsuit, which I doubt will come to any meaningful conclusion, he will have put both defendants in considerable financial strain because he is (I think) more wealthy than them and while the lawsuit is ongoing they can't say anything about him because they will be, rightfully, advised to not speak about him or the case, by their lawyers, while it is ongoing.

For the price of hiring a lawyer, you can essentially shut someone up for a significant period of time. That's a SLAPP suit in a nutshell. He already won, because the purpose of the lawsuit is already fulfilled.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Weird. I wonder how someone stumbles across a video like that.

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Well, I now realize where I remember interacting with this poster before.

They recently entered this thread about Ben Moore from Easy Allies making a "if you're transphobic, we don't want your support" statement on Twitter to post this:

Emmmm... alright, sure... but how is this threadworthy? Ain't this off-topic considering this is the gaming forum?

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Starting to see a pattern here.

 

[RaySpace]

It's the only video posted to that account. How did you find it?

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I don't know. Someone probably posted a link to it in the comments section of some tweet or maybe it was the YouTube algorithm, no idea.

Conveniently ignoring all the misogynist alt-right connections being brought up, I see.

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I was just made aware of all that stuff some minutes ago, which makes me think that y'all are probably right after all.

I guess that this is settled then.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

The point of a SLAPP suit is not to win, it's to shut someone up. Regardless of the result of this lawsuit, which I doubt will come to any meaningful conclusion, he will have put both defendants in considerable financial strain because he is (I think) more wealthy than them and while the lawsuit is ongoing they can't say anything about him because they will be, rightfully, advised to not speak about him or the case, by their lawyers, while it is ongoing.

For the price of hiring a lawyer, you can essentially shut someone up for a significant period of time. That's a SLAPP suit in a nutshell. He already won, because the purpose of the lawsuit is already fulfilled.

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Surely for it to be an effective SLAPP, it needed to have been done 12 months ago? Is anyone still talking about Avelone now?

 

[RaySpace]

Are you really going to pretend you don't know why nobody wants to click on a link you just happen to still have saved and felt a desperate need to share even though it's been so impossibly long you can't provide us with any information about the arguments inside?

Really?

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I didn't "saved the video", I just remembered about it's existence thanks to the recent news in regards to the Avellone topic, so I looked up for it and shared it because I remembered it making some interesting points such as some 2020 statements by the victims not matching up with things they've said on social media 6 to 8 years ago in regards to the game conventions where Avellone allegedly assaulted them.

That's it, but now, after some people here pointed out some of the social media behaviours by the video author, I have serious doubts about his impartiality at the time of producing this video.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

For the price of hiring a lawyer, you can essentially shut someone up for a significant period of time. That's a SLAPP suit in a nutshell. He already won, because the purpose of the lawsuit is already fulfilled.

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He went about a year before attempting the current whatever this is. There's not much to silence per se, everything has been aired publicly, widely reported on, the consequences have happened (everyone dropping him), and now it's old news. As such, I suspect this is an attempt to salvage reputation, either because he thinks he has a case, or by believing that whatever he can bring to bare will make him look better even if the case is ended inconclusively.

 

[Griffith]

Surely for our to be an effective slaap, it needed to have been done 12 months ago? Is anyone still talking about Avelone now?

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I think you misunderstood, we can talk about Avelone as much as we want, but the two people who know the most about what he did can not. I don't know their Twitter and I don't know if they've remained quiet about him and the case since it was filled about June last year, but if they received any legal advice from a decent attorney they would have been advised to not talk about him or the case while it is ongoing.

SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

He went about a year before attempting the current whatever this is. There's not much to silence per se, everything has been aired publicly, widely reported on, the consequences have happened (everyone dropping him), and now it's old news. As such, I suspect this is an attempt to salvage reputation, either because he thinks he has a case, or by believing that whatever he can bring to bare will make him look better even if the case is ended inconclusively.

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I thought that some of the actions companies were taking against him (by trying to distance him from certain projects) were more recent than that. If they are not then the purpose of this lawsuit may be less about quieting the defendants and more about putting financial strain on them.

Regardless of why he's doing it though, it's a poor outlook for him. At least in my opinion.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

I thought that some of the actions companies were taking against him (by trying to distance him from certain projects) was more recent than that. If they are not then the purpose of this lawsuit may be less about quieting the defendants and more about putting financial strain on them.

Regardless of why he's doing it though, it's a poor outlook for him. At least in my opinion.

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Yes it's possible it's simply a kind of vengeance motive too.

 

[Primus]

Regardless of why he's doing it though, it's a poor outlook for him. At least in my opinion.

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Considering the quality of the filing, it doesn't look very good for him legally. He has extremely little to stand on since he's decided to immediately say he's a public figure (which means the legal bar for winning this suit has very very high) from the get go.

 

[Griffith]

Considering the quality of the filing, it doesn't look very good for him legally. He has extremely little to stand on since he's decided to immediately say he's a public figure (which means the legal bar for winning this suit has very very high) from the get go.

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I understand that, but the quality of the filing is irrelevant for its purpose. The purpose is to silence the defendants and put financial strain on them. The scenario I expect is for the case to either be dropped when it's nearing the trial date, or to be dismissed, but at that point it already fulfilled its purpose and there's hardly a penalty for him having done it outside of having paid a lawyer.

For a person with a reasonable amount of wealth paying for the lawsuit is of little consequence but for someone less privileged, it can put a significant emotional and financial strain over the course of months or years. It's a spiteful act designed to damage and silence the defendant.

 

[Reinhard]

Why wait a year if it was simply to shut people up as no one was talking about it anymore and everything that was going to come out about it came out months ago. If it was just something without merit just to punish the accusers, again why wait a year to do that? We'll know soon enough if he actually built a case or if it is a frivulous suit just to harass the accussers, so we should just wait for that instead of immediately saying he is abusing the legal system.

 

[Primus]

I understand that, but the quality of the filing is irrelevant for its purpose. The purpose is to silence the defendants and put financial strain on them. The scenario I expect is for the case to either be dropped when it's nearing the trial date, or to be dismissed, but at that point it already fulfilled its purpose and there's hardly a penalty for him having done it outside of having paid a lawyer.

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California has a very strong (one of the best in the country) anti-SLAPP law. Not only can Avellone's case be thrown out almost immediately *and* he'll have to pay legal fees for the defendant's side, but the defendants can also sue him back (referred to as a SLAPPback suit) for damages.

 

[Hella]

He went about a year before attempting the current whatever this is. There's not much to silence per se, everything has been aired publicly, widely reported on, the consequences have happened (everyone dropping him), and now it's old news. As such, I suspect this is an attempt to salvage reputation, either because he thinks he has a case, or by believing that whatever he can bring to bare will make him look better even if the case is ended inconclusively.

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He kinda says in his first, smaller statement that he's doing this to (in his own words) silence the others:

A long list of digital evidence and witness testimony has been compiled over the past year. With that in hand, I filed a formal response last week, not to silence Karissa and Kelly, but to encourage them to speak more.

Other women came forward, but addressing them is easier done by first challenging Karissa's statements. This is because Karissa's claims were, unfortunately, echoed by others as truth, which allowed these falsehoods to spread and seem to be true via repetition. Whether this was done out of malice or ignorance doesn't matter. They are untrue.
<https://chrisavellone.medium.com/ending-silence-c48e86f7c523>​

It's a SLAPP!

Though I'd also agree that he wants this to be the first step in his redemption tour back into the games industry. Folks like RaySpace are already opening the door, intentionally or not.

He just wants that one lawsuit trucking to sow doubt as he rides the alt-right crowd back into the industry. Anyone bringing up complaints will be pointed to the lawsuit, he'll get some work, and even if the lawsuit gets dropped he'll point to the work he did while it was ungoing as proof of his decency, and he'll float back into the status quo. Or so he thinks.

 

[Famassu]

Why wait a year if it was simply to shut people up as no one was talking about it anymore and everything that was going to come out about it came out months ago. If it was just something without merit just to punish the accusers, again why wait a year to do that? We'll know soon enough if he actually built a case or if it is a frivulous suit just to harass the accussers, so we should just wait for that instead of immediately saying he is abusing the legal system.

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Maybe it took him a year to find lawyers morally corrupt enough to take on his case (since it seems to be bad according to lawyer Twitter), or someone hooked him up with these lawyers more recently & they managed to speak him into suing.

Also, "why do this". Have you followed Vic Mignogna's case? You could ask "why has he wasted 2 years of everyone's time with his SLAPP-crap" when his case is even worse. Some people are just stupid this way.

 

[Griffith]

California has a very strong (one of the best in the country) anti-SLAPP law. Not only can Avellone's case be thrown out almost immediately *and* he'll have to pay legal fees for the defendant's side, but the defendants can also sue him back (referred to as a SLAPPback suit) for damages.

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Do you have access to a public record to see the status of the case? I tried searching for it but I couldn't find a way to. Would be interesting to see what came or is to come of this case.

 

[Gay Bowser]

Why wait a year if it was simply to shut people up as no one was talking about it anymore and everything that was going to come out about it came out months ago.

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"Just asking questions!"

If it was just something without merit just to punish the accusers, again why wait a year to do that?

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"Just asking questions!"

We'll know soon enough if he actually built a case or if it is a frivulous suit just to harass the accussers, so we should just wait for that instead of immediately saying he is abusing the legal system.

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You sure aren't waiting to see if he has a case with merit to simp for him, though.

 

[Primus]

Do you have access to a public record to see the status of the case? I tried searching for it but I couldn't find a way to. Would be interesting to see what came or is to come of this case.

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Unfortunately not, it looks like basic info on cases at the Superior Court level in California is restricted to actual lawyers, law enforcement or public officials, and I am neither of those.

 

[mbpm]

I hope this is as successful as Mignoga's case. I liked his writing but it's immaterial to these kinds of harmful actions.

 

[Deleted member 12867]

Don't know how I missed all this, but it's incredibly disappointing I really enjoyed a lot of his work.

 

[sredgrin]

Should be a rule that if you're dropping videos longer than 20 minutes as food for thought you need to explain in depth why you think the video is good, and summarize it. 45 minute long videos as the counter argument serve no one.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

This is an extremely embarrassing lawsuit.

 

[take_marsh]

I'm imagining a lawyer type "emotional distress", shake his head, and then backspace it.

"Hurt feelings."

I think this will get to the judge, for sure.

SLAPP deez nuts, predator.

 

[sangreal]

Unfortunately not, it looks like basic info on cases at the Superior Court level in California is restricted to actual lawyers, law enforcement or public officials, and I am neither of those.

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They're not, you just have to pay a nominal fee

at any rate, the complaint was just filed and the next hearing is not until the end of september

 

[Arm Van Dam]

 

[Primus]

They're not, you just have to pay a nominal fee

at any rate, the complaint was just filed and the next hearing is not until the end of september

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Oh that's cool, I just got confronted with "YOU NEED AN ACCOUNT TO DO THIS" when I tried to search for case details.

EDIT: Oh hey, Avellone does actually pull a Mignogna in the filing, admitting that the event Karissa talked about happened, she just misinterpreted it.

Is "heavy-petting" the new "hair pulling"?

EDIT 2: And apparently Nick "Screech" Rekieta is starting the grift wheels up as well, so I am officially calling a Mignogna.

 

[We_care_a_lot]

You're kind of missing the bit where the James Gunn firing was spearheaded by CHUD Mike Cernovich after Gunn criticized Trump. As far as I've seen there's nothing to say that the multiple allegations were put up and/or signal boosted by bad-faith actors in the year since this story broke out... so it doesn't seem comparable.

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Also.....Avellone didn't make a racist joke 15 years ago ffs like how is this even remotely comparable.

UGH

 

[We_care_a_lot]

Some months ago I stumbled upon this video:




And after watching it, I have to say that there are some notable inconsistencies to what's being claimed by the accusers, which have led me to believe that Chris might be telling the truth here.

We shall see what happens in court.

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yah I flipped through this, it's fucking nothing. Like, really fucking nothing.

The fact that you'd even post this here and call it credible in any way is just gobsmacking.

Actually it's worse than nothing. It's offensive. The guy spends a good 30 minutes trying to slut shame Jacqui Collins for the unwanted sexual messages Chris Avellone sent her.

Like this dude obessively dug through a bunch of womens tweets to do the equivalent of 'why didn't they out him right away' for 45 minutes.

Fuck off with this.

 

[We_care_a_lot]

Well Erik Kai n put out a video. I won't link it but it's basically just

Wahhhhh people are making fun of me on twitter


what a loser

 

[devSin]

Pathetic, and pathetically on-brand for him.

And he knows all it's going to do is hurt other people. He's not ever going to be approached for serious work in this industry again.

Are you really going to pretend you don't know why nobody wants to click on a link you just happen to still have saved and felt a desperate need to share even though it's been so impossibly long you can't provide us with any information about the arguments inside?

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You know exactly what's happening here. Always trust your gut.

I had this one clocked from the second post.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

Here are the upcoming games he's involved in:

System Shock remake
Dying Light 2
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

For anyone interested in not financially supporting him in any way.

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I think his work on those is already done. He's been working as an independent story consultant for a while now.

 

[wwm0nkey]

I think his work on those is already done. He's been working as an independent story consultant for a while now.

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Yeah, no money would be going to him at this point from those projects

 

[Hella]

I think his work on those is already done. He's been working as an independent story consultant for a while now.

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(that post is from a year ago~)

I can't remember if the SS folks said anything, but Techland and Paradox both publically disavowed him and stated his work with their respective titles was long done.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

Dismissing the content of a video and calling its creator a "fanboy" without watching the video its not a very good argument :/

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Statistically, only something like 3% of abuse claims are made up.
So while a single accusation might conceivably be false (even though it's very unlikely), it's almost impossible (or incredibly unlikely) for multiple accusations made by unrelated victims to be false.
Hence, believe the victims.

 

[Primeau31]

Not gonna lie, when you see "Sexual harrasser sues their victims for defamation/libel" it's generally safe to assume it's a SLAPP suit.

Also they had a section in their lawsuit hammering home that they're a public figure? Well at least his victims are gonna get paid lmao

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This, these people will never learn.

Being involved in a SLAPP suit myself along w several others in the last year, it's not easy though - the defendants need to be able to afford counsel. Hopefully they can or someone will do the work pro Bono for them.

It costs less than ~$500 to file a lawsuit that could cost someone $10k just to get it dismissed on grounds of lack of jurisdiction, $25-30k to actually defend against it.

Our system for defendants in these cases is so broken.

 

[Zor]

Has this been posted yet? Popped up in my timeline because I followed a lawyer (who retweeted these) that was compiling police brutality cases last year. Lawyers on Twitter seemed to think Avellone's lawsuit/lawyers are a joke.

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I wish I understood more about law but just to be clear, there's no way tweet threads like this can actually help someone like Avellone right? Now that his lawsuit has already been fired, they can't amend it can they? Because I want this to go as embarrassingly as it sounds like it might well go for this piece of shit.

 

[JohnPaulv2.0]

I read Avellone's blog post and it was quite convincing, as one might expect from a professional writer. However, while it might help him change the narrative around specific allegations it seems to intentionally not address the pattern of inappropriate behaviour he's accused of from a variety of women.

 

[Messofanego]

I read Avellone's blog post and it was quite convincing, as one might expect from a professional writer. However, while it might help him change the narrative around specific allegations it seems to intentionally not address the pattern of inappropriate behaviour he's accused of from a variety of women.

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I was not convinced as soon as he said he knows a good about "cancel culture" and seems to fully believe in the myths about it. There's quite a bit of pretentious writing in there and discrediting the victims while contradicting himself that he wants them to speak up more (yet gives them a SLAPP lawsuit).

 

[Psittacus]

Not gonna lie, when you see "Sexual harrasser sues their victims for defamation/libel" it's generally safe to assume it's a SLAPP suit.

Also they had a section in their lawsuit hammering home that they're a public figure? Well at least his victims are gonna get paid lmao

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My partner got SLAPPed because they were on a committee investigating allegations and someone else on the committee leaked the report. They still haven't financially recovered.