ArenaNet Fires Two Guild Wars 2 Writers over Twitter Exchange with YouTuber

Megalith

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Guild Wars developer ArenaNet has fired two employees, Jessica Price and Peter Fries, for responding rudely to a partnered content creator and YouTuber who was offering feedback on how characters could be better written/defined in MMOs. Evidently triggered by constructive criticism, Price attacked the streamer in a number of tweets, which were backed up by Fries. Thanks Spun Ducky.

She retweeted Deroir's remarks to her larger Twitter following, saying: "Today in being a female game dev: 'Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job.'" Minutes later, she added: "like, the next rando asshat who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me--as if, you know, having worked in game narrative for a fucking DECADE, I have never heard of it--is getting instablocked. PSA."
 
I just love how the Eurogamer site seems to not understand how utterly uncalled for her snarky comment was. However, the climate of the times is allowing certain people to get away with this behavior. I'm glad ArenaNet saw right through that BS.

I'm sure the comments from others after that main one were less than great and probably steered the course to that type of response. But, that initial one...yea, totally uncalled for. Also, the excuse from Fries about "not asking for your opinion" is fucking stupid on a fucking public platform. Seriously, I hear that horseshit all the time.
 
I just love how the Eurogamer site seems to not understand how utterly uncalled for her snarky comment was. However, the climate of the times is allowing certain people to get away with this behavior. I'm glad ArenaNet saw right through that BS.

I'm sure the comments from others after that main one were less than great and probably steered the course to that type of response. But, that initial one...yea, totally uncalled for. Also, the excuse from Fries about "not asking for your opinion" is fucking stupid on a fucking public platform. Seriously, I hear that horseshit all the time.

I saw this article the other day in my feed or should I say I saw this article from RPS. It almost immediately starts with, "in doing so, they’ve thrown their lot in with players and harassers who make unreasonable demands of game developers." I'll probably get flak for this but do people remember how Gamergate (pre-controversy) actually started? It was because journalists were found emailing each other to discuss how to handle reviews and sensitive topics (effectively collusion, bias, and perhaps even extortion - although I guess that's just another day after the election cycle we've had). Well not if you read Wikipedia apparently, but it's clear that gaming journalists are still "on the same page" if you get my drift.

In any case, I find it pretty insulting these gaming sites already paint certain people as irrevocable victims. For those that don't watch PewDiePie, check out his recent video entitled "Twitch Victims." You'll see what I mean. You put yourself out there you open yourself to criticism, that much is pretty obvious, but Twitter especially exists as a platform to connect with your audience. In what universe does that give you a right to lecture or strawman your personal issues? Social media has become yet another PR front and it should be treated as such. You represent not only yourself but your employer if your accounts are publicly known as such. I suppose the ideals of personal responsibility have gone out the window along with everything else.

Enter the meme: identity politics, identity politics everywhere! (for those curious: she brought up her gender first - I love how comments on the articles suggest that gender is hugely relevant, totally missing the point - and the other guy white-knighted; reminds me not a little of Page and Strzok)
 
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I saw this article the other day in my feed or should I say I saw this article from RPS. It almost immediately starts with, "in doing so, they’ve thrown their lot in with players and harassers who make unreasonable demands of game developers." I'll probably get flak for this but do people remember how Gamergate (pre-controversy) actually started? It was because journalists were found emailing each other to discuss how to handle reviews and sensitive topics (effectively collusion, bias, and perhaps even extortion - although I guess that's just another day after the election cycle we've had). Well not if you read Wikipedia apparently, but it's clear that gaming journalists are still "on the same page" if you get my drift.

In any case, I find it pretty insulting these gaming sites already paint certain people as irrevocable victims. For those that don't watch PewDiePie, check out his recent video entitled "Twitch Victims." You'll see what I mean. You put yourself out there you open yourself to criticism, that much is pretty obvious, but Twitter especially exists as a platform to connect with your audience. In what universe does that give you a right to lecture or strawman your personal issues? Social media has become yet another PR front and it should be treated as such. You represent not only yourself but your employer if your accounts are publicly known as such. I suppose the ideals of personal responsibility have gone out the window along with everything else.

Enter the meme: identity politics, identity politics everywhere! (for those curious: she brought up her gender first - I love how comments on the articles suggest that gender is hugely relevant, totally missing the point - and the other guy white-knighted; reminds me not a little of Page and Strzok)

I don't know anything about Gamergate or whatever that whole thing is about. My main issue is this demand for infantilizing people. I swear, I have no idea how this assumption of "being attacked" started. But, a lot of it has to do with people going back to written word and not having access to tone and body language. Then, thinking they own a space on the net while using public forums. So, we created this hostile assumption of people. When, if we stopped and took a short breath before we respond, you'll realize that perhaps you are reading too much into it.

I learned years ag, to attack the ideas, not the author and to do so with conviction. Own the words that are being said. No time for being timid. This was in College back in 2003 from my female teacher. I have no idea what it is like now...but I can imagine it's more "mind your audience's feelings." Which, is cowardly horseshit. And, my friends who were taught and practice that latter, don't get what they want out of people. I do. So...I think my perspective is right.
 
Programmers or other people in game development are not perfect :)
I would say that the easiest non volatile way to take criticism is: we will be taking that under advisement ;)

If you are gifted you can make it a macro ;)
 
I don't know anything about Gamergate or whatever that whole thing is about. My main issue is this demand for infantilizing people. I swear, I have no idea how this assumption of "being attacked" started. But, a lot of it has to do with people going back to written word and not having access to tone and body language. Then, thinking they own a space on the net while using public forums. So, we created this hostile assumption of people. When, if we stopped and took a short breath before we respond, you'll realize that perhaps you are reading too much into it.

I learned years ag, to attack the ideas, not the author and to do so with conviction. Own the words that are being said. No time for being timid. This was in College back in 2003 from my female teacher. I have no idea what it is like now...but I can imagine it's more "mind your audience's feelings." Which, is cowardly horseshit. And, my friends who were taught and practice that latter, don't get what they want out of people. I do. So...I think my perspective is right.

If you're saying people don't know how to communicate properly anymore, which is only compounded by the fact that people are raised in an environment where they are treated as special in a kid-glove manner, then yes.

As far as the hostile assumption goes - it's my belief that this stems from that. Specifically you have people raised on liberal ideas who end up doing whatever they want and mostly getting away with it, but then have trouble dealing with the very real consequences and end up unhappy. But they still think their way of looking things is correct and they try to assert this worldview on other people. From the perspective of who they're attacking it looks like outright madness at times because it's a "non-sequitur." I'm tired of people not only telling me what I'm thinking but that what I'm thinking is wrong. Why is it now okay that the "victims" are now the victimizers?
 
He should of known it's not okay to be white anymore.

The reason I mentioned that after the fact is because it's very similar to what we had after TotalBiscuit died. Remember that Twitter tirade? And how other people who worked with the guy came to his defense? Yeah, well this chick (from this article) also insinuated that TB's death was a good thing. These people are not the victims. They're not someone who has made one mistake. They are people who have very deep-seated issues. And having people actually defend that kind of behavior is indicative of, to paraphrase Dave Chappelle, an unhealthy environment.
 
Letting Price go seems obvious enough. By all accounts she's rude, abrasive, and extremely bigoted.

But the firing of Fries looks unjustified. Sure, I disagree with his defence of Price (and his defence of argument from authority fallacies in general), but looking at what he wrote he appears completely civil, unlike Price. Granted, there could be other factors at play behind the scenes. Maybe he's misbehaved at work. I'd guess that isn't the case just going on his public demeanour. But assuming I'm wrong on that part, even as a "last straw" his tweets don't make sense as a fire-able offence because there's simply nothing outside the pale about them.

All of this suggests that perhaps Price wasn't let go because she's a terrible person unwilling or unable to separate work from personal life -- after all, she survived dancing on TB's grave which should have led to an automatic firing in itself -- but rather that her firing was triggered by the person (a sponsored influencer) involved. Yeah, I can envision some far out scenarios where this isn't necessarily the case, but as it stands it's difficult to reconcile all the known facts in a different way.
 
The reason I mentioned that after the fact is because it's very similar to what we had after TotalBiscuit died. Remember that Twitter tirade? And how other people who worked with the guy came to his defense? Yeah, well this chick (from this article) also insinuated that TB's death was a good thing. These people are not the victims. They're not someone who has made one mistake. They are people who have very deep-seated issues. And having people actually defend that kind of behavior is indicative of, to paraphrase Dave Chappelle, an unhealthy environment.

Yea, I follow the stories too. I was being satirical ;)

The Disrespect shown to the recently departed is sad. These people have no empathy.
 
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I lack understanding why people are surprised either was fired, just going on what is available publicly (not to speak of what has transpired internally) seems to be a case of two individuals with previous strikes against them, not having the sense to "protect the plate" if you will. Seems to me they pushed the boundaries of their usefulness to the company, and thus were let go. I run into this weekly at several companies.
 
Yup. I see folks poppin' off on LinkedIn too.

Most seem to have the job "self-employed". LOL


Edit: The dude who defended her said:
"Today is a national holiday. It is our day off, after working hard for months on our most recent content release. If I'm being embarrassing and unprofessional, it's because I'm enjoying a beverage in the sun in my backyard and this nonsense is being directed at someone I respect. Jessica is great at her job and deserves to be treated with respect, was the gist of what I was reacting to."

... and she clearly has no respect for anyone or anything as espoused by the tone/content of her tweets.

TF is up with that kind of Stockholm Syndrome?
 
her firing was triggered by the person (a sponsored influencer) involved.

Clearly she was fired because she's a woman. It's hard trying to make it in a male-dominated industry. The guy just got fired to make it not look like sexism.

( /s )
 
She retweeted Deroir's remarks to her larger Twitter following, saying: "Today in being a female game dev: 'Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job.'" Minutes later, she added: "like, the next rando asshat who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me--as if, you know, having worked in game narrative for a fucking DECADE, I have never heard of it--is getting instablocked. PSA."

What I heard:
 
I am still grining ear to freaken ear. Justice has been served and all the hit pieces in world wont change shit.
 
On July 3rd, narrative designer Price tweeted a 29-tweet thread dissecting the challenges of writing player characters in an MMORPG.

Her fired coworked said “Here’s a bit of insight that I legitimately hope he reflects on: she never asked for his feedback
Why did this snowflake post a bigass tweet if she didn't want any feedback? I'll just post my thoughts on the internet, no one better reply or i'll get upset...
 
Why did this snowflake post a bigass tweet if she didn't want any feedback? I'll just post my thoughts on the internet, no one better reply or i'll get upset...

For some reason, people treat social media as if it is their own private space instead of something being projected to the public. She even called it her "private Twitter profile" or something along those lines. People need to lean that saying something on social media is no different from shouting it in the middle of a busy street. It's called a public profile for a reason.
 
Yup. I see folks poppin' off on LinkedIn too.

Most seem to have the job "self-employed". LOL


Edit: The dude who defended her said:
"Today is a national holiday. It is our day off, after working hard for months on our most recent content release. If I'm being embarrassing and unprofessional, it's because I'm enjoying a beverage in the sun in my backyard and this nonsense is being directed at someone I respect. Jessica is great at her job and deserves to be treated with respect, was the gist of what I was reacting to."

... and she clearly has no respect for anyone or anything as espoused by the tone/content of her tweets.

TF is up with that kind of Stockholm Syndrome?

did m'lady even reward him with a kiss?
 
For some reason, people treat social media as if it is their own private space instead of something being projected to the public. She even called it her "private Twitter profile" or something along those lines. People need to lean that saying something on social media is no different from shouting it in the middle of a busy street. It's called a public profile for a reason.
Pretty much. Some people have just gotten so used to broadcasting every stray thought, that they can no longer process the difference between a public post and a private conversation. Combine that with the mentality that some people have grown up with, that they're some special snowflake and no one else can ever say or do the slightest negative thing(including a polite on topic criticism in this instance), and that anything that doesn't hold 100% to their ideals... and you've got a formula for people engaging in public metldowns like this on social media.

Even her comments about being "off the clock" are amazing. Most large companies have some sort of employee handbook that contains policies regarding conduct... and most of those include portions on representing the company outside of the workplace... and when you yap about your employer constantly on your twitter profile that is effectively making you a representative of that employer.
 
Programmers or other people in game development are not perfect :)
I would say that the easiest non volatile way to take criticism is: we will be taking that under advisement ;)

If you are gifted you can make it a macro ;)

Hey!!! She wasn't a programmer, she was just a story writer. Programmers are always perfect and never write buggy code ;)
 
Best be careful, these people don't understand the meaning of sarcasm.

To be fair, given her history I can understand ArenaNet firing them in a pair this way (and her only after her SECOND infraction) in order to avoid discrimination claims. At the end of the day, though, she was fired for breaking the company's communication rules, specifically that she took an innocent tweet and publicly antagonized against it even when the original guy had apologized in that particular discussion. That is considered a breach of etiquette on Twitter but moreover is strictly a no-no if you are doing it to someone related to your job (he's a GW2 streamer). It's equivalent to a game developer going to an event, over-reacting to something a popular streamer of their game says, then going home and blowing it up in public and calling the guy a dumbass. In the immortal words of Trump: you're fired.
 
What's awful is the typical jump to the rescure sites like The Verge and Kotaku trying to spin the story in her favor. Blatantly leaving certain things out as they please.

A good person would've realized after the guy apologized that it didn't have anything to do with gender and say something like "Sorry, I didn't mean to get so upset, i'm so used to insert here and misinterpreted what you meant. I understand your position as a player but we have iterated these things behind closed doors and don't think it's a good idea"

Instead she doubled down on her toxic behavior of perceiving everything to be sexist because (gender) and took it to 11.
Sorry, Twitter is not your personal space. It's a public forum where anyone who follows you can see. What did you want? Just people replying and just regurgitating (echo chamber) your own words back at you "Good job, you are so right, there's no possible perspective than your own!". There are private channels for stuff like that.
A player's perspective is different than a developer, no matter how many times you try to put yourself in the players' shoes.


The dude was fired for clearly enabling her behavior. While I think they should've been punished, firing seems a bit much. But no doubt not surprising considering.


Man, these days unless I know them very well. I wouldn't dare try to say anything involving criticism or constructive criticism to women (and certain POC) just out of fear that no matter what you do or say, it's going to get interpreted as mansplaining or racism or someshit.

Just because you have done a job for x amount of years, does not make you immune to criticism or differing points of view from someone on the opposite end of the spectrum.
 
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What's awful is the typical jump to the rescure sites like The Verge and Kotaku trying to spin the story in her favor. Blatantly leaving certain things out as they please.

A good person would've realized after the guy apologized that it didn't have anything to do with gender and say something like "Sorry, I didn't mean to get so upset, i'm so used to insert here and misinterpreted what you meant. I understand your position as a player but we have iterated these things behind closed doors and don't think it's a good idea"

Instead she doubled down on her toxic behavior of perceiving everything to be sexist because (gender) and took it to 11.
Sorry, Twitter is not your personal space. It's a public forum where anyone who follows you can see. What did you want? Just people replying and just regurgitating (echo chamber) your own words back at you "Good job, you are so right, there's no possible perspective than your own!". There are private channels for stuff like that.
A player's perspective is different than a developer, no matter how many times you try to put yourself in the players' shoes.


The dude was fired for clearly enabling her behavior. While I think they should've been punished, firing seems a bit much. But no doubt not surprising considering.


Man, these days unless I know them very well. I wouldn't dare try to say anything involving criticism or constructive criticism to women (and certain POC) just out of fear that no matter what you do or say, it's going to get interpreted as mansplaining or racism or someshit.

Just because you have done a job for x amount of years, does not make you immune to criticism or differing points of view from someone on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Not sure about Fries, but it sounds like this may not have been the first offense for Price. If she'd been reprimanded before for breaking company policy then firing her was the right choice. If not, then it still might have been depending on how much Arenanet felt the backlash would effect their company.
 
She really needs to check her white privilege. Seeing how she's a cis-gendered woman, from an oppressive middle class majority that promotes, sexism, transphobia, and racism, this hurts all non-binary people. My pronouns are zis/zez, and you can say this is sarcasm.
 
[QUOTE="MrBonk, post: 1043717387, member: 295758"

The dude was fired for clearly enabling her behavior. While I think they should've been punished, firing seems a bit much. But no doubt not surprising considering.
[/quote]
She was previously known for using her twitter to post how happy she was that TotalBiscuit died. That alone was likely a hell of a warning. As for the whiteknight, it's entirely possible he had also done something in the past.
Just because you have done a job for x amount of years, does not make you immune to criticism or differing points of view from someone on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Funnily enough, she got the job at Arenanet and hadn't been working there for that long after being fired from Paizo for... just take a guess... not listening to management with regard to keeping her mouth shut about ongoing HR related matters before they were resolved and it's not as if her employer at the time was ignoring the possible issues. You don't publicly start broadcasting a harassment issue when the company is in the middle of actively looking into it, and it's not as if Paizo is some ultra conservative company... they're the ones that made a hugely popular D&D clone based off the OGL back in 2008 and went out of their way to make roughly half of the pronouns used in their books be feminine, include LGBTQ etc. NPC iconic characters, and so on. In addition to that, she had a history while advertising that she worked for Paizo, of attacking other companies involved in the RPG industry for all sorts of crap usually undeserved(like the drivethrurpg incident, when they weren't the ones who even made the book in question).

This woman has a history, cannot keep her mouth shut, and is quickly moving down a path of making it so no one will be willing to risk hiring her because she keeps broadcasting everything about her employers.
 
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... and she clearly has no respect for anyone or anything as espoused by the tone/content of her tweets.

TF is up with that kind of Stockholm Syndrome?

It's called orbiting beta male syndrome.
edit: Sorry for double post, net is crap.
 
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If you're saying people don't know how to communicate properly anymore, which is only compounded by the fact that people are raised in an environment where they are treated as special in a kid-glove manner, then yes.

As far as the hostile assumption goes - it's my belief that this stems from that. Specifically you have people raised on liberal ideas who end up doing whatever they want and mostly getting away with it, but then have trouble dealing with the very real consequences and end up unhappy. But they still think their way of looking things is correct and they try to assert this worldview on other people. From the perspective of who they're attacking it looks like outright madness at times because it's a "non-sequitur." I'm tired of people not only telling me what I'm thinking but that what I'm thinking is wrong. Why is it now okay that the "victims" are now the victimizers?

It's some of that, while also rewarding anti-social behavior as a societal problem and not an individual. The thing is, you can still be an asshole with whatever issue you have.
 
Can you imagine the SOE developers having to respond to comments after Luclan came out in EQ. They would all of gotten fired.
 
It's some of that, while also rewarding anti-social behavior as a societal problem and not an individual.

After seeing the Logan Paul and Tanacon crap going on at YouTube (both were YouTube Red stars effectively) I can't help but agree.
 
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