THQ Nordic holding an AMA on... 8chan (UP: website linked to multiple mass shootings) READ THREADMARKS

[Deleted member 1849]

New page, new reminder of who THQ Nordic are supporting for people entering the thread and somehow unaware of why people are mad.

Note that I say THQ Nordic, and not just "THQ Nordic's PR guy", because multiple people were taking part, including a member of their upper management, and their CEO currently seems okay with letting things blow over with no consequences. If you want to read more into what THQ Nordic actually did, please read this great summary: https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...read-threadmarks.102061/page-67#post-18334080

 

[Fanta]

You don't accidently visit and post on 8chan.

You have to go out of your way to find the website to begin with, look at what it contains, and then decide that its still a place you should hold an AMA.

 

[Herey]

Out of curiosity I thought to myself if yongyea had made a video regarding this, due to this being his bread and butter of making money. Reading articles about game companies doin


I checked yesterday to see if yongyea had made a video regarding this, because it just seems like something he would jump at the chance to cover (not a fan at all of the dudes videos, but was just curious especially considering hes gathered an alt right audience now)

All he had was just more videos of slaming EA & video game studios, laughable at the level of forced outrage to minor issues with one huge out in the open

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That's exactly who I thought of. Considering how quick he and other similar content creators jump on controversies and how much he covered the 'outrage' of subjects like the Jessica Price fiasco, you'd think he'd be first in line.

I don't know enough about him to demonise him but he sure does attract a certain crowd.

 

[m_dorian]

It is sad that Resetera will not ban any THQ related discussions until they somehow make proper apologies and act with remorse.
I feel that they get to get away with it unharmed thus signaling the normalizing of garbage communities.

Yes, the people that participated in this madness are safe behind their desks laughing about the whole situation since that stupid Wingefors is covering their backs.

 

[funky]

Maybe the PR guy is the bosses relative so they cant fire him.


That's literally the only reason outside of management is a bunch of edgelords / pedos that I can think of for the inaction.

 

[grunkleFungus]

What I figure is people were too scared to object to this. These are high up people, and if you make too much noise they could fire you because of a "legitimate" reason they make up. They're fans of 8chan, of course they abuse their employees enough to where they can't object to their coke fueled idiocy.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Maybe the PR guy is the bosses relative so they cant fire him.


That's literally the only reason outside of management is a bunch of edgelords / pedos that I can think of for the inaction.

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A member of upper management was taking part in the AMA.

Reinhard Pollice
Director of business and production development, employed 2011

Holdings in the Company: As of the date of the Prospectus, Reinhard Pollice holds, through companies, 115,681 class A shares and 655,524 class B shares in THQ Nordic AB (publ).

http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/board-and-management/

 

[Gifmaker]

Marketing people don't generally fly solo in bigger companies with whole teams handling these things. I very much doubt this was the doings of a single person. And please, I'm throwing no one (in particular) under the bus. I'm not pointing fingers at any specific people (other than the head of marketing & that other dude) and I'm not saying everyone on the team is such. But the culture would seem to be the kind that (not enough) people aren't the kind that they would go "hold on, maybe we should rethink this whole deal"

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Further information is needed to know how the whole deal came to be in the first place, but judging from the time of when the AMA happened, this was after regular working hours. I wonder how many of the team were even around at the time. Then again – I don't work in PR, so it seems highly irregular to me that someone would get, like, a late evening e-mail invitation to host an AMA in say ten minutes on their website, and would think "Yeah, this might be a great thing to do before I go home" and just jump right in. Such things usually don't happen on such a short notice, especially when higher ups get involved along the line to join in. Surely this must have been scheduled somehow?

 

[CortexVortex]

Maybe the PR guy is the bosses relative so they cant fire him.


That's literally the only reason outside of management is a bunch of edgelords / pedos that I can think of for the inaction.

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They will let him go, that's obvious. But this is not the US, it takes time and they can't just fire somebody with a snap of their fingers.
Firing Pollice will be even more difficult though, as he is also a stakeholder.

 

[RedSparrows]

It is sad that Resetera will not ban any THQ related discussions until they somehow make proper apologies and act with remorse.
I feel that they get to get away with it unharmed thus signaling the normalizing of garbage communities.

Yes, the people that participated in this madness are safe behind their desks laughing about the whole situation since that stupid Wingefors is covering their backs.

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Why ban discussion of it? Do not get.

 

[rras1994]

That's exactly who I thought of. Considering how quick he and other similar content creators jump on controversies and how much he covered the 'outrage' of subjects like the Jessica Price fiasco, you'd think he'd be first in line.

I don't know enough about him to demonise him but he sure does attract a certain crowd.

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It's actually really obvious who he is courting. He did numerous videos covering every little detail about Cyberpunk but did not do a single one about the transphobic tweet from Cyberpunk Twitter account. In contrast he has something like 5 videos vilifying Jessica Price. It's pretty clear that he knows who his audience is at the very least.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

What I figure is people were too scared to object to this. These are high up people, and if you make too much noise they could fire you because of a "legitimate" reason they make up. They're fans of 8chan, of course they abuse their employees enough to where they can't object to their coke fueled idiocy.

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If raising concerns about an AMA on 8chan is putting your job on the line, I highly doubt the work environment is healthy to begin with. This is a slam dunk thing to object to.

 

[bell wood's jet cola]

Why ban discussion of it? Do not get.

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Some are going to demand discussion of these titles be banned as well:

Deep Silver is the video game publishing division of Koch Media. The company started to collaborate with Sega of America and Atlusin 2016 to publish their games in Europe. This was due to Sega Europe shifting their focus away from publishing physical games and more towards developing digital PC games

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If you're European and buy physical copies of Sega or Atlus games, you now support THQ and 8chan, evidently.

 

[GhostTrick]

I don't know about ERA ban, but I wonder if any publication will refuse to review their games if they maintain their stance. :)

 

[Herey]

It's actually really obvious who he is courting. He did numerous videos covering every little detail about Cyberpunk but did not do a single one about the transphobic tweet from Cyberpunk Twitter account. In contrast he has something like 5 videos vilifying Jessica Price. It's pretty clear that he knows who his audience is at the very least.

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Oh right, it's not hard to imagine that but I've tried to steer clear of channels like that for a while until this broke out. Thanks for the confirmation to steer clear of him for good.

 

[Sabin]

I don't know about ERA ban, but I wonder if any publication will refuse to review their games if they maintain their stance. :)

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99.99% sure that won't happen.

 

[m_dorian]

Why ban discussion of it? Do not get.

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It is pointless to discuss it any further since there is a decision i will respect even if i voiced my displeasure on it.

 

[Deleted member 888]

So if you search for 8ch or 8ch.net, it's not actually banned under Google. Comes up as one of the first results.

8chan doesn't bring up a direct Google result. So if Google is filtering results they've kind of half-assed it.

 

[GhostTrick]

99.99% sure that won't happen.

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Yeah, as I thought.

 

[Vash]

I hope more developers will speak up, and loudly, not just through emails. But yeah, I can completely understand their embarrassment.

https://twitter.com/imranzomg/status/1100953733628747776

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I hope more developers will speak up, and loudly, not just through emails. But yeah, I can completely understand their embarrassment.

https://twitter.com/imranzomg/status/1100953733628747776

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Most of these devs have jobs to worry about, so them wanting to remain anonymous is understandable.

Satisfactory devs at least tried to distance themselves publicly.

 

[The Vathlonian]

You don't accidently visit and post on 8chan.

You have to go out of your way to find the website to begin with, look at what it contains, and then decide that its still a place you should hold an AMA.

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for real. I've been posting on the old forum since like 2001 and I've never been to a Chan in my life.

 

[LewieP]

Most of these devs have jobs to worry about, so them wanting to remain anonymous is understandable.

Satisfactory devs at least tried to distance themselves publicly.

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Yeah I think the responsibility more so falls on studio management than regular employees, the management have far more power in this type of scenario.

 

[Busaiku]

How can this possibly be fixed.

It wasn't some intern randomly going out of their way to be edgy, this involved the head of PR and a freaking board member. The CEO is also trying to handwave this away.

How can this possibly be rectified short of the entire company going up.

 

[Eumi]

How can this possibly be fixed.

It wasn't some intern randomly going out of their way to be edgy, this involved the head of PR and a freaking board member. The CEO is also trying to handwave this away.

How can this possibly be rectified short of the entire company going up.

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Point at the person or people who set it up (regardless if they actually were the only people behind it) and publically fire them.

Apologise as a company and condemn the site. Make it clear why you're doing so, and leave zero room for interpretation. Clearly state that you're company doesn't in no way endorsed any of the stuff 8 chan stands for, not just the pedophilia.

Honestly, had they reacted right, this would pretty much be done with. The only reason it's still ongoing is because the company has yet to respond beyond in a way that actually addesses the issue.

People are willing to forgive if a company is willing to make amends. But you have to do it quick and right.

 

[marrec]

How can this possibly be fixed.

It wasn't some intern randomly going out of their way to be edgy, this involved the head of PR and a freaking board member. The CEO is also trying to handwave this away.

How can this possibly be rectified short of the entire company going up.

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By not making any further public statements on the matter until a path forward has been worked out. He has apologized (though, falsely, as we know) and for most that will be enough for now.

The statement included a refutation of the of 8chan, so officially they don't support the image board.

So... while some of you may continue to have righteous anger... I'm not at all sure what you'd want from here beyond "firing the dude who did it". While THQN may be working toward firing him, that won't be accomplished overnight.

In the end, this was a major cock-up by a small group of people in a single department of a much larger company.

 

[Aeana]

So... while some of you may continue to have righteous anger... I'm not at all sure what you'd want from here beyond "firing the dude who did it".

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That is exactly what people want.

 

[marrec]

That is exactly what people want.

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Then why the call to ban THQ discussion on ERA? Or the insistence that journalists put pressure on THQ? Obviously not everyone is requesting these things but enough are (and continue to do so) that it makes it difficult to understand what would be acceptable for most people.

Or the odd open ended question "How can this possibly be fixed?" I think many people agree that Philipp should be let go if anything for the gross incompetence shown, but do we require some elaborate mae culpa as well?

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear from THQ on this, but until their internal process and plan forward is established the official statement by Philipp is as good as it's going to get.

 

[Alavard]

By not making any further public statements on the matter until a path forward has been worked out. He has apologized (though, falsely, as we know) and for most that will be enough for now.

The statement included a refutation of the of 8chan, so officially they don't support the image board.

So... while some of you may continue to have righteous anger... I'm not at all sure what you'd want from here beyond "firing the dude who did it". While THQN may be working toward firing him, that won't be accomplished overnight.

In the end, this was a major cock-up by a small group of people in a single department of a much larger company.

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For the 1000th time, where's the apology for the content of the AMA itself?

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Then why the call to ban THQ discussion on ERA? Or the insistence that journalists put pressure on THQ?

Or the odd open ended question "How can this possibly be fixed?" I think many people agree that Philipp should be let go if anything for the gross incompetence shown, but do we require some elaborate mae culpa as well?

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear from THQ on this, but until their internal process and plan forward is established the official statement by Philipp is as good as it's going to get.

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Because nothing will be done unless THQ are put under pressure. They have already shown that they have no intention of doing anything as it stands.

Bad media coverage is the most important step in putting them under that pressure.

And can we stop pinning it all on Phillipp. He wasn't the only one involved.

 

[marrec]

For the 1000th time, where's the apology for the content of the AMA itself?

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From THQ or from Philipp?

Because nothing will be done unless THQ are put under pressure. They have already shown that they have no intention of doing anything as it stands.

Bad media coverage is the most important step in putting them under that pressure.

And can we stop pinning it all on Phillipp. He wasn't the only one involved.

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That's presumptive. Internally THQ is likely working out how to prevent this kind of bullshit from happening in the future.

 

[Velezcora]

I hope more developers will speak up, and loudly, not just through emails. But yeah, I can completely understand their embarrassment.

https://twitter.com/imranzomg/status/1100953733628747776

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Imagine working for 2-3 years on your passion project only for the people who cut your cheque to do something so monumentally stupid. I feel really bad for the devs over there. It's a shame the only way to truly fight against this is to not buy THQ's games.

 

[Aeana]

Then why the call to ban THQ discussion on ERA? Or the insistence that journalists put pressure on THQ?

Or the odd open ended question "How can this possibly be fixed?" I think many people agree that Philipp should be let go if anything for the gross incompetence shown, but do we require some elaborate mae culpa as well?

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear from THQ on this, but until their internal process and plan forward is established the official statement by Philipp is as good as it's going to get.

Click to shrink...

Those things are all intended as temporary measures to put pressure on the company to take action. Telling people to sit down and wait patiently for a company who wants nothing more than for this just to blow over to take action on its own doesn't make any sense.

 

[Sean]

Then why the call to ban THQ discussion on ERA? Or the insistence that journalists put pressure on THQ? Obviously not everyone is requesting these things but enough are (and continue to do so) that it makes it difficult to understand what would be acceptable for most people.

Or the odd open ended question "How can this possibly be fixed?" I think many people agree that Philipp should be let go if anything for the gross incompetence shown, but do we require some elaborate mae culpa as well?

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear from THQ on this, but until their internal process and plan forward is established the official statement by Philipp is as good as it's going to get.

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Part of the point of the boycott is to end the boycott when things are fixed. If they fired the people involved and apologized and made it clear that associating with Child Porn and White Supremacy is wrong, then you lift the boycott and any bans.

I will not touch a single thing under any THQ umbrella until said things are done. Child Porn should be the #1 line in the world that is never crossed.

 

[Alavard]

From THQ or from Philipp?

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Or Reinhard Pollice, the one who actually posted those things on the AMA. But there isn't an apology for those comments from any of them.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Or Reinhard Pollice, the one who actually posted those things on the AMA. But there isn't an apology for those comments from any of them.

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To make it clear:

Reinhard, Phillipp, and Fabian were all posting things in the AMA.

THQ apologised for making the AMA without knowing what the website was about (which is known to be BS). But they have never apologised for any of the things they said in it.

 

[Siresly]

The CEO has declared that the false and insufficient apology by the PR & Marketing Director has addressed the matter.

I do not understand why anyone would take it on faith that THQ is in the process of attempting to rectify the situation.
Thus it's bizarre to me when the question is raised what the point of applying pressure to THQ is. The answer should be obvious?

 

[marrec]

Those things are all intended as temporary measures to put pressure on the company to take action. Telling people to sit down and wait patiently for a company who wants nothing more than for this just to blow over to take action on its own doesn't make any sense.

Click to shrink...

I'm not part of the board at THQ, but surely they don't want this to just blow over right? That'd be an AWFUL decision from a personnel perspective. They'd want to take steps to ensure this kind of bad PR doesn't happen in the future. In my opinion that involves firing people who were involved in this bad decision, but I'm part of an at will company who can make firing decisions easily. THQ may instead want to put quality processes in place that prevent these kind of things from being decided by a small group of people. Maybe they'll do both!

Listen I'm not trying to dampen the spirit of a grass roots boycott, I just think people should maintain expectations and have a bit more understanding of how the internal machinations would work.

 

[Aeana]

I'm not part of the board at THQ, but surely they don't want this to just blow over right? That'd be an AWFUL decision from a personnel perspective. They'd want to take steps to ensure this kind of bad PR doesn't happen in the future. In my opinion that involves firing people who were involved in this bad decision, but I'm part of an at will company who can make firing decisions easily. THQ may instead want to put quality processes in place that prevent these kind of things from being decided by a small group of people. Maybe they'll do both!

Listen I'm not trying to dampen the spirit of a grass roots boycott, I just think people should maintain expectations and have a bit more understanding of how the internal machinations would work.

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So far, there is no indication that they intend to do anything further. The CEO has pointed to the Twitter apology as the last word. Another company who actually intended to do something might say that they are examining the situation, or throw any other kind of bone, but instead we got a flimsy apology with actual lies in it, the CEO pointing to said apology, and then radio silence for two days. I don't think we're getting anything else, and that is not acceptable.

 

[TheRuralJuror]

I'm not part of the board at THQ, but surely they don't want this to just blow over right? That'd be an AWFUL decision from a personnel perspective. They'd want to take steps to ensure this kind of bad PR doesn't happen in the future. In my opinion that involves firing people who were involved in this bad decision, but I'm part of an at will company who can make firing decisions easily. THQ may instead want to put quality processes in place that prevent these kind of things from being decided by a small group of people. Maybe they'll do both!

Listen I'm not trying to dampen the spirit of a grass roots boycott, I just think people should maintain expectations and have a bit more understanding of how the internal machinations would work.

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Hell yeah they want it to blow over. That's a silly question for someone who's implied they have a bit more understanding of how internal machinations would work. If pressure kept up from the press, then we'd most likely hear about it further. In this case, it sounds like they've gone radio silent and I don't see them raising the issue again and making news to announce that they made some policy changes.

 

[Amnixia]

So wait, even the CEO is doubling down on the half assed non-apology?

Man, I love to hate on EA but at least they go against the ring wing crazies.

 

[Weltall Zero]

That's presumptive. Internally THQ is likely working out how to prevent this kind of bullshit from happening in the future.

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It takes some monumental lack of self-awareness and double standards to criticise someone as "presumptive" in the same breath that states what THQ is "likely working out internally" based on absolutely no evidence (and against all actual evidence).

 

[Famassu]

I'm not part of the board at THQ, but surely they don't want this to just blow over right? That'd be an AWFUL decision from a personnel perspective. They'd want to take steps to ensure this kind of bad PR doesn't happen in the future. In my opinion that involves firing people who were involved in this bad decision, but I'm part of an at will company who can make firing decisions easily. THQ may instead want to put quality processes in place that prevent these kind of things from being decided by a small group of people. Maybe they'll do both!

Listen I'm not trying to dampen the spirit of a grass roots boycott, I just think people should maintain expectations and have a bit more understanding of how the internal machinations would work.

Click to shrink...

WIth fuck ups THIS big (and even much smaller), companies generally tend to try to answer ASAP or AT THE VERY LEAST give some kind of "we are assessing the situation and will let you know in the coming days what actions we will take and how we will proceed going forward." THQ issued a half-assed non-apology apology on Twitter and have since gone radio silent, apart from an appearance of THQ's CEO in some interview that was probably scheduled before all this shit went down where this deal was hardly even brought up & where the CEO just handwaved the issue away.

What we/I want? Like, the bare minimum would be:

1) A proper acknowledgment & apology of everything. Not just that the 8chan AMA was wrong, but acknowledging & apologizing about the hurtful homophobic shit that they so gleefully supported through their own words & the disgusting loli-hentai shit they partook in and the nazi/bigot-pandering that they supported
2) Stronger condemnation of 8chan & all that it represents. None of this "but Mark was so nice" crap. Use as strong words as is suitable for a press release from a big company to use. Make it clear in no uncertain terms that they do not care to have business from their kind of people.
3) Fire/remove the people responsible. They have absolutely no place in such high positions of a company or PR/Marketing
4) Give the public a clear roadmap of what they are doing behind the scenes and how they are going to make sure that this kind of shit never happens again. Better PR department training? Background check education (since clearly these people do not understand that when a big company commits to public PR appearances, you don't just jump in without knowing who you are dealing with)? Enforcing more respectable values throughout the company and making sure that everyone in the company knows that homophobia, white supremacy, child molestation & all that is something that is not accepted within the company.

At least 2 or 3 of these could've easily been given within the first ~12 hours. The firings might take a bit longer.

 

[romando]

I don't get it... What's the big deal? They already stated they were not familiar with the place and they even apologized. Whatever, happens - let's move on.

 

[RockmanBN]

I don't get it... What's the big deal? They already stated they were not familiar with the place and they even apologized. Whatever, happens - let's move on.

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Nice burner bro

 

[kamineko]

move on you guys

 

[Famassu]

I don't get it... What's the big deal? They already stated they were not familiar with the place and they even apologized. Whatever, happens - let's move on.

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Oh please, how gullible are you? They knew enough that they had gotten "Mark's" promise that they would moderate the worst shit.

Then they didn't immediately jump out of the interview when it started with Heil Hitlers and loli-hentai and gleefully answered & played along with the users among white supremacist, racist & homophobic comments & questions says even more about them..

And their apology was a non-apology apology where they had the NERVE to make themselves appear like they were the victims of "the Interwebz creating a narrative". They only apologized for doing the AMA, not for the homophobic shit & alt-right/Nazi-pandering that they took part in.


EDIT: It seems I was the gullible one, not to check your post count and see you are someone's troll account. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I don't get it... What's the big deal? They already stated they were not familiar with the place and they even apologized. Whatever, happens - let's move on.

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They were familiar with the place. They were made aware before holding it, and had "Mark" promise to handle the "nasty stuff". Even if they didn't know, they would've been aware when various kinds of homophobic, nazi and pedophilic content was being posted in the AMA, and they would have been aware when they fucking responded and even contributed to it. 8chan is also not the kind of place that suddenly pops up on discussion.

A shitty half assed apology which doesn't even cover half the things they did, and then they still advertised it for another 13 hours after, is not enough.

 

[Deffers]

How 'bout let's not move on from these guys hosting an AMA on a website that has dedicated child porn spots, huh, that advertised one of those above the very AMA, huh?

How about let's not move on when their twitter sure does imply that they knew there was something weird about the place, when journos confirmed that this was official and not a rogue thing and that people signed off on this? How about let's not move on when an executive was on the board along with the PR guy? How about that's a BIG FUCKING DEAL and anybody trying to bury it is super fucking sus?

 

[ramoisdead]

Welp congrats, THQN. You've just won a Jimquisition.