Arena Net Firing: Games Media Rally To Defend Fired Guild Wars Dev

MadFrenchie

Quizzical said:

Today, someone who hates you can't sift through your Twitter posts from 20 years ago because Twitter didn't exist 20 years ago.  Twenty years from now, that won't be the case.  And just wait until AI gets good at sifting through someone's posts looking for anything offensive.

I'm not sure how people will come to view stupid things said many years earlier.  Maybe people will eventually regard it as having an implicit statute of limitations and it doesn't matter if you said something stupid and offensive years ago.  Maybe regulations or convention will lead to social media sites hiding old posts after a while.

My argument is that, however insidious social media is now, there's obvious potential to get much, much worse.

While true, that's all the more reason to treat posting on social media sites for what it really is: a public forum.

Wizardry

I did not get the same implied impression of the two combatants as others seem to .
First of all,don't like these two at all,won't be watching anymore of their videos.

Ok so they seem to have taken a definitive stance and imo their reasoning is bullshit but i am going on the VAGUE couple statements they actually show and NOT going on the actual full conversations of which i don't know them.
However,my stance is that you cannot simply show a couple meaningless statements and build a definitive story from those,it shows to me a biased.

I am referring to the two stating the Delorier dude responded rather calm and respectful to which i fully disagree.He is implying nothing wrong with the genre ok maybe true maybe not,the gnere is obviously only as good as it's developers.However he quickly takes a turn to mention the problem is in the Living Story dialogue..ROFLMAO,since when is dialogue anything more to a game than boring reading?

people are USUALLY in the majority,simply looking for FUN game play and NOT reading,so his implying was imo more of a definitive slap at the female and imo NOT respectful and btw just because he used the term "slightly" is just a smokescreen for his true intent which was to point the blame at her or her team members.

Basically the whole ordeal is people,mostly this Deslorier dude trying to insult her and she loses her patience and perhaps her cool.Well simply look at how THIS SITE operates?If someone were to constantly be badgering or trying to insult you,this site would step in and not allow it to get any further,basically meaning ,this Deslorier dude would be told,,ok ENOUGH.However being Twitter it is easy for him and others to keep going and keep trying to needle her,so how she reacted would be considered by THIS SITE,to be TROLLED.

Wizardry

Is it a "professional "way for her to act,nope but she was also reacting within the LAW on her OWN time in Twitter and NOT via the business.

So like i said in the other thread,this is Arena.net acting to save their own face with no care for ANYONE other than the ARENA.net upper brass.
To put this in perspective,if this was a CEO or top shareholder,what would Arena.net do then?Obviously NOT the same result and likely more of a cover up and defending their upper echelon of employees/owners.
My point is that everyone SHOULD be treated equally,however no way would that be the case if this was a top dog.
So in other words,let's just shit on the little guy employee and steer all negativity from our business because our business is way more important than the people who work there.

Sephiroso

Wizardry said:

I did not get the same implied impression of the two combatants as others seem to .
First of all,don't like these two at all,won't be watching anymore of their videos.

Ok so they seem to have taken a definitive stance and imo their reasoning is bullshit but i am going on the VAGUE couple statements they actually show and NOT going on the actual full conversations of which i don't know them.
However,my stance is that you cannot simply show a couple meaningless statements and build a definitive story from those,it shows to me a biased.

I am referring to the two stating the Delorier dude responded rather calm and respectful to which i fully disagree.He is implying nothing wrong with the genre ok maybe true maybe not,the gnere is obviously only as good as it's developers.However he quickly takes a turn to mention the problem is in the Living Story dialogue..ROFLMAO,since when is dialogue anything more to a game than boring reading?

people are USUALLY in the majority,simply looking for FUN game play and NOT reading,so his implying was imo more of a definitive slap at the female and imo NOT respectful and btw just because he used the term "slightly" is just a smokescreen for his true intent which was to point the blame at her or her team members.

Basically the whole ordeal is people,mostly this Deslorier dude trying to insult her and she loses her patience and perhaps her cool.Well simply look at how THIS SITE operates?If someone were to constantly be badgering or trying to insult you,this site would step in and not allow it to get any further,basically meaning ,this Deslorier dude would be told,,ok ENOUGH.However being Twitter it is easy for him and others to keep going and keep trying to needle her,so how she reacted would be considered by THIS SITE,to be TROLLED.

It's perfectly fine if you feel story is simply tacked on to mmorpgs and you don't care for it but for some people it's the main thing they're interested in and they don't feel the same way. Derroir was obviously one of those people. If you'd like a link to the full play by play you can ask for it though. No one here is taking 1 or 2 of his statements from this and siding with him.

If you read the whole "debate" and i really use that term lightly, it's hard to believe from any stretch of the imagination that he was anything but calm and respectful. Seriously your conclusion when you already expressed that you haven't read the whole thing is that he was trying to insult her and she lost her patience?

Take a step back, ask for a link to their back and forth if you'd like to see for yourself, preferably would have been nice had you done this before interjecting your opinion(and incredibly bad one might i add) but as you said...look at how this site operates right?

Lokero

At the end of the show, this Is just another example of someone who became the thing they hate most.  An anti-sexist who is more sexist than the people she's witch-hunting.

It's fairly astounding how blind people are to their own actions and can't even see what they have become.

She's obviously the kind of person who never learns from her mistakes... most like because she's never been wrong or done anything wrong in her life(in her head, of course).  I have a sister who's never been wrong 

postlarval said:

Bakgrind said:

People are never going to learn that Social Media is the bane of mankind and should be avoided at all cost.   

While I agree with you, posting on a forum is not that different than tweeting or posting on Facebook.

You say something. Other people like or dislike it. Some people post their opinions on what you said. Same thing, different platform.

If you feel so strongly about it, why are you posting in forums?

While behavior, in theory, should be the same on a forum as on social media... the truth is that there is one pretty huge difference between posting on a forum vs. social media:

-On a forum(at least, typically) you are in no way linked to your RL identity or job, etc.

People go out of their way to draw attention to themselves on social media(man, people are so vain and narcissistic...).  When you stand on a stage in the spotlight and say/do stupid and offensive things, that attention backfires.

Phry

Asch126 said:

Ungood said:

Asch126 said:

Ungood said:

I hate to break it to most of you.. but Game Devs think most (maybe all) of you are whiny crybaby assholes.. they are just paid to put up with your shit and try to make a pacifier that will shut you up.

If that was true, this would happen a lot in every game company yet ones like Digital Extreme has devs that actively love their community and always try to communicate with them.

Ahem.. Notice there is a massive amount of silence when it comes to game Devs talking with the public. Look at Anet, they have over 200 employees, and outside their direct PR department, I think like 6 actually talked with the general public (in the Sponsored AMA at least), less on Twitter, and now 2 have been fired.

Now.. Love their Community?.. Sure.. did you ever stop to think they are paid to say that? That dealing with the community is their Job, and their social time with any of you, is work related, so they are obviously going to say how much they love it, and how important and valuable you all are to them, and how they enjoy the feedback as it helps them.. or some other canned PR stuff like that.

There might be a few... a select few.. that do in fact enjoy interacting with the public, but they are exception.. the rare exception.

Did YOU ever stop to think that many of them actively go out of their way to interact with the playerbase?

CCP springs to mind, but i would be extremely surprised if they were the exception because i think most developers are also gamers, most of the time i think its a case of them being overly enthusiastic about their games, or games in general. I look at it this way, if a pop star doesn't like the people who listen to their music, chances are this will affect their 'career' too.

Ganksinatra

I guess I don't understand what the big deal is. Did they not look into this woman before? She was fired once before for this same stupidity. It seemed like either they did a piss poor background check on her or knew this might happen. She also gleefully celebrated Total Biscuit dying of cancer a few weeks ago. She's a garbage human being and has been so for years.

This is not even rare, either. I would like to say that this sort of vitriolic hatred for the customer that doesn't fall lockstep in line with their world view is not all that common, but lately, it's more common than I would like to believe. But this is what "progressivism" breeds. Condescension, hatred, and intolerance. When your entire ideology depends on breaking people down to a single facet of who they are and then assigning victim status points based on that, you have to be hateful in order to make sure you have the hate coming back at you.

FlyByKnight

Twitter isn't private unless you make your page private. You don't get to make statements that can show up in my google search then say "I didn't ask for your opinion". 

Why is this such a difficult concept? Has the world gone complete #Idiocracy while I was asleep in my cryo chamber?

Secondly, private page or not how about don't discuss work directly since most corporate gigs have you fill out 20+ public facing media code and ethics packets basically saying "We will f#$%ing fire you if you say some s#!% that forces the boss to get out of bed and do damage control"

MadFrenchie

FlyByKnight said:

Twitter isn't private unless you make your page private. You don't get to make statements that can show up in my google search then say "I didn't ask for your opinion". 

Why is this such a difficult concept? Has the world gone complete #Idiocracy while I was asleep in my cryo chamber?

Secondly, private page or not how about don't discuss work directly since most corporate gigs have you fill out 20+ public facing media code and ethics packets basically saying "We will f#$%ing fire you if you say some s#!% that forces the boss to get out of bed and do damage control"

You have a fucking cryo chamber?  Elon Musk has an Iron Man suit, you got a cryo chamber...  Shit guys, The Incident is coming.

Gaendric

To me it looks like this whole thing is not a SJW or free speech or "private Twitter" issue, it's just a plain old someone was bad at their job issue.

Being able to handle feedback and customer interactions is part of being a game dev.
You either learn how to do it, or you stay out of it and work in the background while others do the frontline work.

Her third option, which was randomly throwing unwarranted insults at loyal customers who are trying to give feedback and then trying to drag them through the mud when she got called out on her behavior is not the professional choice to make.
Insulting and shaming customers will get you fired in most jobs I'd think. Gamedev is not special.

Also, maybe this was the proverbial last drop. ANet surely knew about the earlier things she did.
Publicly cheering about someone dying to cancer.. come on. That's a giant red flag right there.

FlyByKnight

MadFrenchie said:

FlyByKnight said:

Twitter isn't private unless you make your page private. You don't get to make statements that can show up in my google search then say "I didn't ask for your opinion". 

Why is this such a difficult concept? Has the world gone complete #Idiocracy while I was asleep in my cryo chamber?

Secondly, private page or not how about don't discuss work directly since most corporate gigs have you fill out 20+ public facing media code and ethics packets basically saying "We will f#$%ing fire you if you say some s#!% that forces the boss to get out of bed and do damage control"

You have a fucking cryo chamber?  Elon Musk has an Iron Man suit, you got a cryo chamber...  Shit guys, The Incident is coming.

Alright, it's actually seran wrap plus a rolled up comforter but still...

MadFrenchie

FlyByKnight said:

MadFrenchie said:

FlyByKnight said:

Twitter isn't private unless you make your page private. You don't get to make statements that can show up in my google search then say "I didn't ask for your opinion". 

Why is this such a difficult concept? Has the world gone complete #Idiocracy while I was asleep in my cryo chamber?

Secondly, private page or not how about don't discuss work directly since most corporate gigs have you fill out 20+ public facing media code and ethics packets basically saying "We will f#$%ing fire you if you say some s#!% that forces the boss to get out of bed and do damage control"

You have a fucking cryo chamber?  Elon Musk has an Iron Man suit, you got a cryo chamber...  Shit guys, The Incident is coming.

Alright, it's actually seran wrap plus a rolled up comforter but still...

We'll call it a prototype, then.  Still, the alien invasion is bound to happen any day now...

Sephiroso

MadFrenchie said:

FlyByKnight said:

MadFrenchie said:

FlyByKnight said:

Twitter isn't private unless you make your page private. You don't get to make statements that can show up in my google search then say "I didn't ask for your opinion". 

Why is this such a difficult concept? Has the world gone complete #Idiocracy while I was asleep in my cryo chamber?

Secondly, private page or not how about don't discuss work directly since most corporate gigs have you fill out 20+ public facing media code and ethics packets basically saying "We will f#$%ing fire you if you say some s#!% that forces the boss to get out of bed and do damage control"

You have a fucking cryo chamber?  Elon Musk has an Iron Man suit, you got a cryo chamber...  Shit guys, The Incident is coming.

Alright, it's actually seran wrap plus a rolled up comforter but still...

We'll call it a prototype, then.  Still, the alien invasion is bound to happen any day now...

Oh man...do you guys not get Scifi channel over in France? Giorgio Tsoukalos(lol just google alien guy) has been warning us for years the alien invasion has already happened, we just don't know it yet.

13lake

Just wanna add support for story in mmorpgs. I've played and enjoyed all kinds of mmos that don't have a stellar one, but found myself only really liking, the ones, that do have a great story.

And considering that dude is writing an undegraduate paper on narrative in video games, he just might have found out the pitfals and usual problems, that aren't impossible to fix/avoid, ...

Sephiroso

Gorwe said:

Sephiroso said:

Gorwe said:

Big.Daddy.Samedi said:

Gorwe said:

barasawa said:

Gorwe said:

Again, they(actually she, but meh) deserved it. But there is something oddly eerie and disturbing about getting fired over the content of your own private accounts / every day life.

If your bathroom is on the local street corner and made of clear glass, would you call that private? 
The account she used was personal, but as it was viewable by anyone that felt like it, it was in no way private.

Semantics. If you tell a guy in a store that your employer is an asshat, should you be fired? Technically, yes. Because someone can trace you back to where you work and how you cause "net negative" for your firm. Perfectly sound, but what about FREEDOM? Too much "thinking" in today's world imo.

The problem is that she has her work in her profile therefor causing her to be a representative of the company even when she is not on the clock.

Similar to your analogy it would be like getting off shift and outside the store, while still wearing company oriented clothing, badmouthing the customer for no reason other than they looked at you funny. AND THEN trying to get everyone else to badmouth them as well.

Ok, but think real hard about the power ANet handed over to the mob right now. Mob + power. Has this resulted in anything good? Ever?

Bakgrind said:

People are never going to learn that Social Media is the bane of mankind and should be avoided at all cost.   

Definitely, fuck them. Evil, evil things.

Anet didn't hand anything over. You're being dense right now. What she did is akin to a Walmart associate going to work, openly talking about some ideas on safety measures, and then a customer coming and saying as politely as possible if she could consider this one other change or if she has, why she didn't feel it was worth doing and then she attempted to verbally crucify them.

Well after they already tried to remove themselves from the "conversation" after the initial insult. You're fucking insane if you think Walmart isn't gonna fire an employee that does that. You're even more insane if you think Walmart SHOULDN'T have fired said employee. You do not treat your customer base like shit right to their faces. You can think all you want and talk private about them all you want, but you do not let that show. That's a cardinal sin when it comes to having a job that deals with clients be it retail, sales, or anything really.

Just because this exchange happened over the internet changes NOTHING yet you seem to think it does and keep saying dumb shit like "Arenanet handed over their power to the mob" and also labeling people upset at Jessica Price as a "mob" in the first fucking place. Get real.

Did she know that entering employer in her bio changed the type of her Twitter account? See? Regardless, law should take a good look at Social Media and define what's what(they're too powerful to be immune to that). Trying to enter an employer in your bio should trigger a warning pop up window. Is it necessary? No. But so wasn't GDPR either and now we can say "fuck off" to 100s of ad companies trying to rummage through our browsing history. Just make it warn people, eh?

People like you are the reason we have "warning: coffee is hot" labels.

rertez

Wizardry said:

I am referring to the two stating the Delorier dude responded rather calm and respectful to which i fully disagree.He is implying nothing wrong with the genre ok maybe true maybe not,the gnere is obviously only as good as it's developers.However he quickly takes a turn to mention the problem is in the Living Story dialogue..ROFLMAO,since when is dialogue anything more to a game than boring reading?

Since games moved on from read-only dialogues to fully voice acted ones. They are part of the games and for a huge crowd they are more than "boring reading".

These dialogues are audible even during fights and transition events to make the game more immersive.

Also please note that Price was responsible for the story dialogues and that's why the content creator (who was admittedly a fan of Price's works) addressed his comment to her in a very respectful manner.

You clearly didn't bother to get yourself familiar with the details but you wrote your comments based on a bunch of assumptions.

Scot

Sephiroso said:

Gorwe said:

Sephiroso said:

Gorwe said:

Big.Daddy.Samedi said:

Gorwe said:

barasawa said:

Gorwe said:

Again, they(actually she, but meh) deserved it. But there is something oddly eerie and disturbing about getting fired over the content of your own private accounts / every day life.

If your bathroom is on the local street corner and made of clear glass, would you call that private? 
The account she used was personal, but as it was viewable by anyone that felt like it, it was in no way private.

Semantics. If you tell a guy in a store that your employer is an asshat, should you be fired? Technically, yes. Because someone can trace you back to where you work and how you cause "net negative" for your firm. Perfectly sound, but what about FREEDOM? Too much "thinking" in today's world imo.

The problem is that she has her work in her profile therefor causing her to be a representative of the company even when she is not on the clock.

Similar to your analogy it would be like getting off shift and outside the store, while still wearing company oriented clothing, badmouthing the customer for no reason other than they looked at you funny. AND THEN trying to get everyone else to badmouth them as well.

Ok, but think real hard about the power ANet handed over to the mob right now. Mob + power. Has this resulted in anything good? Ever?

Bakgrind said:

People are never going to learn that Social Media is the bane of mankind and should be avoided at all cost.   

Definitely, fuck them. Evil, evil things.

Anet didn't hand anything over. You're being dense right now. What she did is akin to a Walmart associate going to work, openly talking about some ideas on safety measures, and then a customer coming and saying as politely as possible if she could consider this one other change or if she has, why she didn't feel it was worth doing and then she attempted to verbally crucify them.

Well after they already tried to remove themselves from the "conversation" after the initial insult. You're fucking insane if you think Walmart isn't gonna fire an employee that does that. You're even more insane if you think Walmart SHOULDN'T have fired said employee. You do not treat your customer base like shit right to their faces. You can think all you want and talk private about them all you want, but you do not let that show. That's a cardinal sin when it comes to having a job that deals with clients be it retail, sales, or anything really.

Just because this exchange happened over the internet changes NOTHING yet you seem to think it does and keep saying dumb shit like "Arenanet handed over their power to the mob" and also labeling people upset at Jessica Price as a "mob" in the first fucking place. Get real.

Did she know that entering employer in her bio changed the type of her Twitter account? See? Regardless, law should take a good look at Social Media and define what's what(they're too powerful to be immune to that). Trying to enter an employer in your bio should trigger a warning pop up window. Is it necessary? No. But so wasn't GDPR either and now we can say "fuck off" to 100s of ad companies trying to rummage through our browsing history. Just make it warn people, eh?

People like you are the reason we have "warning: coffee is hot" labels.

I was visiting an estate agent the other day and they had a rear exit flanked by two windows. The ceiling over the windows came down to head height and had yellow stripped "Mind Your Head" signs. Presumably they thought someone would try to walk though one of the windows.