This guy is straight up bullshitting in the interview. The usage of "both sides" make my eyes roll so hard. I'm very happy that Era called him out on his bigotry, especially that transphobic tweet.
he's definitely responsible for the most recent transphobic tweet, but the older, 'did you just assume their gender?' one was ostensibly written by someone else, working for a different team.This guy is straight up bullshitting in the interview. The usage of "both sides" make my eyes roll so hard. I'm very happy that Era called him out on his bigotry, especially that transphobic tweet.
For me I'm leaving it at this.
It's one thing to slip up and make a bigoted "accidental" tweet once, but it happened 3 times, and his excuses are disingenuous at best even though I fully sympathise with the situation of being left in the dirt and figuring out where to go next - I've been there myself in my life as a student. However, for fuck's sake, he was the COMMUNITY MANAGER, hello?? Reading a bit into the article he mentions how WoW saved him from growing up socially awkward. I'm sorry to hear that and I don't wanna slight WoW fans but honestly if you're socially awkward unless there's a disorder at play it's most likely from not going out enough - again, been there myself... and WoW is not going to be the one-size-fits-all solution to that, and the point I wanna get at is that it's no wonder you become a community manager who makes cluelessly bigoted jokes, if your one frame of reference for social banter is a video-game.
Honestly, my feelings on this is like "godspeed to him" but he NEEDS to be honest with himself and others that he was saying these things because he wanted to cross a line, the excuses make no sense to me, it was 3 times! He needs more PR training and more knowledge of what it means to be a community manager, and then if he can help himself from posting tweets at the expense of entire demographics, he can get a second chance if it was up to me, but he needs to mature.
And he finds one: #WontBeErased. "I clicked on it and it was just people talking about their favourite games or films or music they wouldn't get rid of," he tells me. "I was like, 'OK, this fits perfectly with what GOG does,' so I put the tweet out.
"They are not people who enjoy games, they are people who enjoy power and accolades, even if that means stomping on the hopes of a movement, while dehumanizing [sic] anyone who dare question them."
CDPR and Bethesda are seemingly in a race to show whose the biggest idiots in the industry for some reason.
I'm comparing two companies that keep fucking up for no good reason.
Repeated racism and a bungled game release are not even on the same spectrum of comparison.
Your trade and expertise is social media engagement with the gaming community and you don't know what GamerGate is until you 'stumble' into amplifying their talking points..?
Dude. You're either incompetent or disingenuous and neither is a good look.
"We are not apologising for this," Halliday was apparently told, and his manager wrote the GOG response instead
I look forward to people trying to ignore this growing pile of hate-filled garbage because they lack the moral fiber to not play a shiny new video game."The Cyberpunk [tweet] isn't anything to do with GOG," he says. "CDP Red have their own social media team - there's five or six of them. The Cyberpunk tweet, the 'Did you just assume their gender?' one: GOG has nothing to do with that. It's a whole CDP Red thing. They have their own PR plans, their own staff."
he's definitely responsible for the most recent transphobic tweet, but the older, 'did you just assume their gender?' one was ostensibly written by someone else, working for a different team.
CDPR's just a fountain of garbage at this point.
You seem to be assuming this guy, who was proven to be a liar, is telling the truth when trying to make himself look less horrible. "Oh yeah, that non-apology wasn't me, I *totally* had a better apology, but *they* wouldn't let me use it!"Serious props to Eurogamer for doing a full investigation on this. Looks like suspicions were right and the whole company, including Team Red, is rotten to the core.
I look forward to people trying to ignore this growing pile of hate-filled garbage because they lack the moral fiber to not play a shiny new video game.
Except that he wrote an article referencing the event that basically started GamerGate.I'll always give anyone the benefit of the doubt, even this guy.
Believe it or not, I've worked in video games (reviews and news side) for 6 years and just now I had to go and look up what gamer gate is. Not defending him, but just saying that he's not the only one who may have missed the boat. He may be, just as I am, an idiot and/or doesn't care too much about the non-games related political stuff.
I suppose that could be a lie (though even then, it's not presented as "his account", so you'd have to further assume he successfully misled a journalist conducting a third-party investigation). But it seems verifiable that there is a separate PR team for Team Red, who were independently posting the same kind of transphobic shit on their feed. That is evidence of a wholly toxic and phobic corporate culture.You seem to be assuming this guy, who was proven to be a liar, is telling the truth when trying to make himself look less horrible. "Oh yeah, that non-apology wasn't me, I *totally* had a better apology, but *they* wouldn't let me use it!"
The problem is that still makes GOG/CDP look bad, because even if the apology posted was his (which is super likely) they didn't bother to get rid of it and post a better one.You seem to be assuming this guy, who was proven to be a liar, is telling the truth when trying to make himself look less horrible. "Oh yeah, that non-apology wasn't me, I *totally* had a better apology, but *they* wouldn't let me use it!"
I do have a small amount of sympathy for the guy- maybe just because he's from my part of the country. He just seems like a real clueless idiot, who uses "I'm not political" as an excuse for being politically cynical in a right-leaning way.
This is the only bit that I do believe tbh. Like the "how's that for the use of a hashtag" bit seems to basically be saying he can pick any trending hashtag and make it relevant to GOG. I'm pretty sure he at least didn't understand the implications of piggybacking off that hashtag- the vast majority of other hashtags, even political ones, you could appropriate without controversy, after all- e.g. if GOG tweeted "Preserving old games #ForTheManyNotTheFew" no-one would care, but there is obviously an extra level of sensitivity when it comes to vulnerable groups. I can understand someone not knowing the extent of that sensitivity, although as a social media manager, they obviously should, but that is also GOG's responsibility in terms of diversity training.
I think this is because an apology can really open up an organisation or individual to attacks, because they've admitted something. Even though non-apologies infuriate people, I always think that they play better than actual apologies, which people on twitter or message boards pick apart and deem insincere no matter what. Non-apologies are often quickly forgotten and people move on, while a proper apology is viewed as both insincere and as absolute proof that an organisation or individual knowingly did something wrong, and is therefore actually much worse than just "we didn't mean to cause offence" type stuff.
But that's not what article is saying. This particular closure starts with saying things CDproject red does right, and that's hwere 'gamers first" statement goes, and THEN it adds that "now we are hearing things we rather wouldn't". The enitre point is that what we heard and wanted to hear, and now there are things that undermine that confidence in them. There's a timeline of before after in that statement.
I'll always give anyone the benefit of the doubt, even this guy.
Believe it or not, I've worked in video games (reviews and news side) for 6 years and just now I had to go and look up what gamer gate is. Not defending him, but just saying that he's not the only one who may have missed the boat. He may be, just as I am, an idiot and/or doesn't care too much about the non-games related political stuff.
It was definitely shit especially since internet detectiving usually finds the wrong person. The ban was warranted and was dished out quickly. But it isn't doxxing either.He messed up too many times, so makes sense that he'd get the boot.
After people had his name it probably wasn't hard to find out where he lives. It was a really shitty thing to do, especially when people weren't even sure if he wrote the tweets.
How hard can it be to find a good PR person for such a big company?
They need to hire people with diplomas in Marketing, Public Relations etcetera.More than likely, they are sourcing people firmly embedded in gamer culture. Unfortunately, that isn't the best culture. You need more outsiders.
It's why I decide to stop dancing around the issue and come straight out and ask him: do you support GamerGate?
There's a pause while he thinks.
Your trade and expertise is social media engagement with the gaming community and you don't know what GamerGate is until you 'stumble' into amplifying their talking points..?
Dude. You're either incompetent or disingenuous and neither is a good look.
I actually believe him. He seems like the type of dumb motherfucker who has his head shoved so firmly up his ass that he can't be bothered to look beyond his own personal, anecdotal experiences of the world to inform his job as a public mouthpiece for a popular game company.
What a knob.
Given his explanation of how little research he did on #WontBeErased, I can totally see him shitting out some article about her because she's trending in the zeitgeist.Nah, you don't write an Anita Sarkeesian article and not know about Gamergate. It's just not possible.
Given his explanation of how little research he did on #WontBeErased, I can totally see him shitting out some article about her because she's trending in the zeitgeist.
Fair enough. I'm certainly not trying to defend him; he just seems completely oblivious to an astounding degree.Go read the article. He references the "movement". By July 2015 Antia and GG were synonymous because of the harassment she received from the hate group. There is no way anyone could have possibly done even cursory research on her and John Macintosh without knowing what GG was.
He's a liar.
"Don't know much about Gamergate
Don't know much about online hate
Don't know much about how I look
And when I say that, I bait the hook
'cause the truth is that I want to
Be free to foster bile and spew
To make sure that this world stays for me"
Go read the article. He references the "movement". By July 2015 Antia and GG were synonymous because of the harassment she received from the hate group. There is no way anyone could have possibly done even cursory research on her and John Macintosh without knowing what GG was.
He's a liar.
I may be missing some context here, but isn't it the case that they've historically handled things very badly on their forums? So I think framing these things that undermine this as an "after" is iffy, because they're not actually all recent.
.
Given his explanation of how little research he did on #WontBeErased, I can totally see him shitting out some article about her because she's trending in the zeitgeist.