Or... ya know...
So that person doesn't get harassed form there fans?
Somewhere in New England, circa 1890: "While I feel we would benefit from less corruption and transparency in our press and governance, I cannot help but take to-heart the fact that it's a lose-lose for everybody. Last time we had such a campaign it only consolidated the power of the corrupt politicians who were left, and it only emboldens the dangerous anarchists and bombers, many of whom were prominent members of the last movement. I think it's no coincidence that there's a riot every time somebody talks about curbing government excess."
Or: "How To Miss The Point And Race For The Bottom."
Or...they can...ya know....
Not shittalk a beloved dead person on social media that is open to everyone.
I think someone who dragged total biscuit through the mud right after he died is toxic. I don't think her initial response to Derior was that rude but then she doubled down so I'm not really surprised she got fired. With all that said, I think she was totally within her rights to rebuff criticism and she had to right to treat her twitter like her private life. I also don't think the other dude should have been fired, especially after 12 years.
Why do you not think her initial response was rude? Twitter is a place meant for others to read what your post and have the potential to reply to you. It's a messaging forum, she posted her thoughts on a topic on a public communication method that allows people to reply to her, inviting potential comments in reply just by making those posts, and then gets all defensive when someone replies to her in a respectful, polite way.
If she was some random person in her own corner of twitter with literally no followers and was using it as something just for herself, so you'd have to try pretty hard to find the account in the first place, then that would be one thing...but she was a developer involved with a relatively high profile game, posting comments about said game, with a fair number of followers and the person that replied to her was someone substantially invested in the game who was involved with it to an extent as well.
Rebuffing criticism isn't an issue, but that isn't what she did. Rather than simply say she disagreed and explained why, or at the least acknowledging it and saying she wasn't up for a debate about it, she straight away goes for being rude and using a hostile tone. She gave her thoughts about a topic, someone replied to her giving his thoughts on what she said (because she was a developer, her thoughts on the topic have a bit more meaning overall than if she was some random person) in a constructive, perfectly ordinary way to try to create an honest discussion about it, and rather than give any reply to what he actually said, she jumps to berating him with what basically amounts to "this is my job so i'm better than you, How DARE you talk to me and how DARE you disagree with me". How is that not extremely rude and disrespectful?
It's kinda funny how some game-devs forget that they work in a mostly corporate environment until it's too late, and they face repercussions for their homunculoid behaviour. But that's artists for you, berating (reasonable) consumers will get you fired in any industry.
When you work in a environment with many stakeholders in play you better bet that what comes out of your mouth matters. And it's not hard to disagree with people and remain professional.
What she did wasn't "rebuffing criticism", she was "using someone's gender as a weapon as if being a specific gender is a bad thing".
You know, like a sexist.
This shit pisses me off to no end.
You see attitudes like this all the fucking time in video game modding communities- but I shouldn't expect to see it from genuine game devs.
"How dare you talk to me about games!! I design them! plebeian! " Maybe that's why they wanted to talk to you about it you arrogant prick? not because they claim to know better but because of your own expertise?
As someone who is passionate about feminism, The ~ omggg misogyny!!~ angle really fucking steams my beans too.
There are people out there who make a living out of attacking gender equality movements, and you want to give them a great big chunk of ammunition against such causes because you can't defend yourself without misrepresenting the people you want to shit on?
There are people who actually have to deal with genuine discrimination and harassment due to their gender, gender identity, sexuality, or race- and you want to equate your own situation tho their's because "one of the peasants spoke to me!".
Fuck off.
Some people will just use any excuse not to grow up and act like an adult.
Mandatory whenever someone doesn't understand how the First Amendment.
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png
I've seen this used against people fighting stupid ideas too, so I can't really in good faith support this image.
Like ISPs censoring content they particularly don't like. But hey, it's not government so who gives a shit.
Really stretching yourself with that one there aren't ya? Who says I'm trying to give her any forgiveness?
I'd argue it's impossible to guess anyone's inner workings based on what they post on social media. you will never get the full picture of a person online.
I don't know, being happy that someone died, that had done nothing wrong other than being perceived as disagreeing with you on video game journalism tells me enough about a person.
If you don't want to be judged by what you post on social media, you shouldn't be posting it in the first place.
Official statement from Arenanet Prez
Jessica had identified herself as an ArenaNet employee on Reddit and Twitter, had been discussing Episode 3 storytelling with fans on Reddit, then had written a 25-part tweet about how we tell stories in MMOs, relating it back to Episode 3. She was representing the company. The expectation was to behave professionally and respectfully, or at least walk away. Instead, she attacked.
Concerns have been publicly raised that she was responding to harassment. It’s not my place to tell employees when they should or shouldn’t feel harassed. In this case, however, our employees could have chosen not to engage, and they could have brought the issue to the company, whereby we would have done everything we could to protect them.
We won’t tolerate harassment. When an employee feels harassed, we want them to bring the issue to us, so that we can protect the employee, deal with the issue, and use it to speak to the larger issue of harassment.
Whatever Jessica and Peter felt internally about the situation, this was objectively a customer engaging us respectfully and professionally, presenting a suggestion for our game. Any response from our company needed to be respectful and professional. A perceived slight doesn’t give us license to attack.
We’ve all dedicated our careers to entertaining people, to making games for the purpose of delighting those who play them. We generally have a wonderful relationship with our community, and that’s a point of pride for us. We want to hear from our players. It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company — in this case a polite game suggestion — would be met with open hostility and derision from us. That sets a chilling precedent.
The tweets were made on July 4, when the studio was closed for the holiday. We were aware of them that day, and decided we’d need to take action in the morning. The fact that the community’s anger was escalating on July 5 could make it look like our action was a response to the community’s anger. But that wasn’t the case. We took action as soon as we practicably could.
I hate to let an employee go, and I wish the best for Jessica and Peter, as for any former employee, in whatever they choose to do next.
Whatever you thought of the tweets, Jessica and Peter were also part of the team that brought you the kidnapping scene in Episode 1, which was a wonderfully well-executed scene. That’s how I want to remember their time at ArenaNet.
Oh thats a bunch of fuckin bullshit.
Apparently she got zero warnings before this too
Price said she had no previous problem with her bosses about her social media activities.
“I was told during my interview and subsequent hiring communications that ArenaNet respected my willingness to speak up on issues in the industry and had no desire to muzzle me,” she said. “I had, in my time there, zero warnings about my social media use. Everything I said on Twitter was consistent with what I’ve been saying for years and how I’ve been saying it.”
She said she believed that ArenaNet was the sort of company that encouraged individualism and free expression.
Come on, when I was working at a help desk if I responded to an email or call by calling someone an asshat I would've been fired on the spot, I've even seen it happen. I've had people curse me out and yell at me for literally no reason, but if I were anything but respectful in return I would've been fired at any of my jobs. Why should a developer representing their company on a public platform be handled any different?
Even if Arenanet didn't explicitly say "Don't be rude to people" it should be common sense for any adult.
Agreed, but its important that this tidbit is what followed
The first mistake was thinking being a fucking dick is individualism or free expression.
The biggest takeaway from this is honestly just a big reminder of how garbage a lot of game journalism is. They purposely misrepresent situations for more click bait. It is shameful.
Developers aren't customer service reps, though. I can't speak for all customer service roles, but when I worked a help desk we trained specifically in how to interact with people, especially angry people, because that was our whole job. That's the kind of role that a dedicated PR staff is for, especially when making public posts on the Internet, and most studios have those people interact with the community rather than random devs.
I don't have any sympathy for Price, she's a complete asshole with a history of stunts like this, she deserved the boot. That said, I've read that Arenanet encourages/requires their developers to interact with the community, and as a general practice that doesn't seem fair. It's putting decidedly non-PR people in what is essentially a high-visibility PR role, with no training, and then holding them accountable when they screw up.
see those things have to work both ways, something Price has fuck all knowledge of, and has never in her entire career demonstrated.
I disagree with the person hating on TB, but lets not hide behind "respect for the dead". Dead people are simply people that have stopped being - nothing more, nothing less. People who die get super glorified, and it's important that we don't shield people from understanding their mistakes or bad choices simply because feelings might be hurt. It's important not to have mistakes be associated with the good image people make of others. That's why we criticize the confederates, after all - it's not that we're trying to diss their culture or the individual soldiers who fought, but because of the stand against slavery. You can respect and criticize at the same time, too.
Its not that he's dead and she's criticizing him, its that she was passive aggressively celebrating his death because he disagreed with her over video games.
it's insane how she still believes this is all because of sexism in the video game community, not her own attitude that got her fired and would have gotten her fired anywhere else.
The amount of unbridled, raw arrogance from people in and related to the video game industry the past few years has been god damn infuriating.
Not really, when lots of people are taking your side on this and acting like lashing out for no reason was a totally reasonable thing to do.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
