GW 2 Devs/Playerbase Twitter Discussion

[Jukhy.2431]

> @"Israel.7056" said:

> The moral of the story: think before you tweet.

 

Also, don't drink (alcohol) before tweeting.

[Cryoguard.7942]

> @"Felipe.1807" said:

> > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > @"Ambush.9420" said:

> > >

> > > Except it really hasn't. Look around, the discussion for this is pretty much dead. Almost everyone accepts what happened, and is completely fine with it. Look on Reddit, even look on these forums.. the discussion is mostly over.

> > >

> > > Only thing keeping it going is a handful (at best) leftist trolls.

> > >

> > > Give it 1 or 2 more days, and even most of them will stop.

> > >

> > > It's over.

> > >

> >

> > This particular event perhaps. But the ongoing discussion of how devs should approach toxic players isn't ending anytime soon. It's not a new discussion in gaming, nor is it a unique discussion to ArenaNet. The issue that needs to be considered going forward is balancing dev-player interactions fairly. Players shouldn't walk all over devs, nor should devs abuse their customers. Regardless, topics like this are worth keeping an eye on and learning from to move forward.

>

> Deroir, INKS and Jebro were not toxic, they were polite as possible, no matter how much people try to twist the story...come on, she turned Jebro talking about Marvel Infinity wars into a political thing(claiming sexism and racism lol).

 

Oh I saw the tweets and she handled that beyond poorly. However there was also very bad responses within the community as well. I think she should have taken a very different approach, as her actions also had the effect of weakening the stance she took. I'm more concerned about the wave of gamers (while certainly a minority compared to the whole population) who seem to be a bit more... emboldened(?) in their unhealthy opinions.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"morrolan.9608" said:

> So its not OK for Price to do that but its OK to celebrate 2 devs being fired?

 

This is what Bioware did when one of their employees did what JP did regarding TB:

https://segmentnext.com/2018/05/26/david-cooks-celebrate-totalbiscuit-death/

Of course this guy posted a vast number of twits instead of a single one. What did Bioware do? Fire the guy. Or was he even not with Bioware when he posted this, it's a bit vague from Bioware's response, but even if he wasn't with the company when he said that, they DID publicly apologized for what their former/current employee said. This speaks volumes of Bioware.

There was even a petition to fire him: https://www.change.org/p/electronic-arts-fire-david-crooks-from-bioware-for-his-blatant-unprofessionalism

And a reddit thread:

 

Meanwhile Arenanet did nothing about it, probably because nobody cared. Her twit only came to light on the internet -after- the incident with Deroir.

 

I wonder where was Polygon and Kotaku when that guy got fired? I think they didn't care because he is a man, who cares about a man getting fired because of something he posted on social media, right? But JP is a woman, so obviously it's a huge story that a woman got fired for something she wrote on social media. It's a huge deal because they can play the sexist card. Let's cry for JP getting fired because she is a woman, while a man getting fired for the same reason (posting on social media) has the complete opposite treatment by the game media.

 

It's clear that gaming media outlets, and apparently some posters in this thread, are trying to push their agenda here, with things that do not even apply to the firing.

[Harper.4173]

> @"ponytheguardian.7439" said:

> > @"Harper.4173" said:

> > ...show us how much you play/have played the game.

> Hi it me, your friendly ~~neighbour~~ new guy! /wave

>

> [Pony The Guardian / GW2 EU](https://i.imgur.com/fpTLUiR.jpg)

> [Tjanz Firenze / GW2 NA](https://i.imgur.com/epbnQNt.jpg)

> [Aikiko Kuwahari / GW1 acc1](https://i.imgur.com/zYoHvyc.jpg)

> [beautyful Bloodvein / GW1 acc2](https://i.imgur.com/7qwqo0E.jpg)

>

> Am sorry, I just had to...

That's cool - it's exactly what I wanted - except none of the screens show your account name. I find it highly improbable that someone would give the game this much time and then never post on the forums. I mean - that type of player exists - but they don't just start posting out of the blue. I know players who play a lot and don't post - they really never post.

 

Would you mind showing a link between this form account and your GW2 accounts?

 

[Otberest.1204]

Bravo! Now hire Chris Avallon :) joking but that was good move for community.

[Cryoguard.7942]

> @"Digit.1823" said:

> > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > @"Digit.1823" said:

> > > > @"Tris Apollumenon.6435" said:

> > > > It's extremely upsetting to see how willing Anet was to throw employees to the mob -- not only was there absolutely no move to speak out against the detailed, sexually explicit abuse that the employees received, but the employees in question were _fired_?

> > > >

> > > > The massive response to this by Gamergaters already underscored the hostility of this environment. The **official statement** from Mike himself, stating that a single unprofessionally snarky Twitter thread expressing frustration at being habitually belittled = "attacking the community", only makes it clear that in Anet's eyes, whatever "the community" means, I don't count. Playtime, enthusiasm, time spent helping new players, money spent on gems and DLCs -- arguments could be made for any of those as factors toward being in a given community, but in this case it seems like the overriding definition is "Community == I want devs to be INSTANTLY FIRED the first time they make a frustrated comment in public or back up their colleagues".

> > > >

> > > > I was willing to Block And Move On for ages and ages, even as a WvW player having to deal with tons of teamchat trolls and having to do another blockathon every time a new world alliance rolls around. MMO online communities are hard to moderate, and I recognize that. But having this edict come from above, as an official ArenaNet statement from the top guy himself, that's damning. That hurts.

> > > >

> > > > I know the kitten troll types are all too happy for people like me to get out of their games, but like... games are supposed to be fun. This was my _hobby_, not some kind of activist crusade. I'm too old and tired to stick it out to Make A Statement or Fight The Good Fight when even the top authority is saying "You are not welcome here. Harassers and misogynists, _you_ are welcome." More power to those who are determined or thick-skinned enough to persevere. I don't think I can.

> > >

> > > You stop right there you unfair, disingenuous hack that you are. You unbelievable charlatan.

> > >

> > > There was NEVER any sort of "detailed, sexually explicit abuse" anywhere in the ENTIRE exchange from Deroir's side which sparked this fiasco. You have CLEARLY not read a single word of the twitter conversation that instigated this. He was AT ALL TIMES friendly, polite and merely looking for discussion with someone whom he GREATLY respected and admired, and even apologized profusely when Jessica Price blew off her handle against him which was totally uncalled for. There have literally been twitch clips posted of him in this thread where he expresses his immense admiration for Jessica Price, her work and her contribution to AMA's.

> > >

> > > You are the lowest of the low, spouting the utter bs that you just did. Get out of this thread and do some actual research before you even dare to think twice about coming back here you disingenuous liar. Get out!

> >

> > I think you missed the part where they didn't say the sexually explicit abuse came from the streamer. While I personally don't agree with how the situation was handled by Price, the disgusting amount of abuse female developers face was already bad before now, but it's easy to tell from a quick glance at Twitter it has escalated dramatically. Deroir was likely commenting in the wrong place at the wrong time as it were, and the mob of toxic trolls who crawled to the surface to take advantage of that are the real villains here. And the messages being sent to Fries and Price only cements this as the key issue.

> >

> > Granted I don't think your anger-fueled response to someone who was trying to put this into the bigger-picture perspective is... ahem... healthy. In fact, somewhat similar to Price's response to Deroir, though I think there's much more context behind her's than your's.

>

> Except if you took any time to actually read his comment you would instantly notice he is talking about the situation where JP got fired, it is literally the end of his first sentence. Which given the situation can be clearly understood that he's mentioning the **recent** events that caused JP to be removed from the company (rightly so) because of the twitter exchange. And i thought you were so hot for context?

>

> To call that exchange "detailed, sexually explicit abuse" is the greatest lie i have yet to see in this thread.

>

> But i will humor you, show me where the supposed "detailed, sexually explicit abuse" came from BEFORE Deroir's twitter exchange with JP. I am very curious because, in fact, so far JP herself is the only one who has shown a severe amount of sexism in the form of misandry. Her mistrust in and disdain for the male gender is rampant if you took the time to actually look through her post history. There have been excellent summaries of her exchanges with other Guild Wars partners that come to mind, Jebro's exchange with her over the Infinity War movie is a prime example of her warped way of thinking. It's literally cringe worthy, Infinity War might not be the best movie in existence but to call Thanos a "pseudo-kitten" (edit: don't know if it shows or not, but apperantly we cannot mention a certain german gentlemen who had a big hand in WW2) and the movie itself having "cheap holocaust metaphors" can only come from the mental workings of a lunatic:

>

>

>

> Let's continue on, also take a look at the following what Tris says shall we?

>

> "The **official statement** from Mike himself, stating that a single unprofessionally snarky Twitter thread expressing frustration at being habitually belittled = "attacking the community"

>

> So let's start getting this straight here, her _single_ twitter thread (which is another great lie, since there were obviously multiple threads, against more then 1 person where she was unprofessionally rude against pretty much everyone) where she expressed frustration at Deroir's polite attempt at conversation with someone who we have learned he greatly admired. You can literally read that she is not mentioning anything about any sort of previous "habitual belittlement" but she is expressing clear disdain over this single situation. And then yes, sure, other people come in and she also starts being incredibly rude to them.

>

> Granted I don't think your extreme lack of reading comprehension and failure to actually read into the context of someone who was trying to put this into the "bigger-picture perspective" (basically lie) is... ahem... healthy. In fact, somewhat similar to Price's response to Deroir, though i think you also missed a lot of context in that situation too given that you still somewhat blame Deroir for this. Like really? Being in the wrong place and wrong time has got nothing to do with the instant amount of flak he got from JP, who immediately pulled the gender card, from simply trying to have a meaningful conversation with someone who he thought the world of.

>

> P.s. i will leave Deroir's post-situation thoughts here for you to ponder over. Look at this clip, skip to around 4:40 and listen....listen very carefully, lest you miss any of that juicy context: https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/8wnkw8/deroirs_response_to_the_incident/

>

> P.p.s. Just to give you more of that juicy context you're so hot for, here is what he thought of Jessica before the twitter fiasco: https://clips.twitch.tv/CrypticMistyStingrayDxCat

 

Just going to point out that I did agree her response was wrong, so the unnecessary attacks on my intelligence are highly unwarranted. And I never blamed Deroir. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time isn't justification for instantly getting blown into tiny pieces on Twitter.

 

Now maybe I did misunderstand the original commentor's intent, but I was under the impression they were referring to certain tiny parts of this community who were responding after she exploded.

 

Now, as for other forms of harassment prior to this, I can't speak for her specifically as I haven't seen everything in her personal life, but it isn't much of a secret how much hate is directed at women in the gaming industry.

 

As a result, and after having seen several of her tweets, I am not surprised she was fired as a rather hostile individual. If I was an employer, I likely would have fired her over other tweets before now. But the overall statement from ArenaNet hasn't acknowledged the other bits of fallout that have resulted from her behavior in this instance. And, in an effort to try and learn from this, that is my current concern.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> So I went over the polygon article, and the amount of irony and hypocrisy is staggering. I don't have much else to do, so I'm going to sit down with a figurative fine-toothed comb and pick at it for a bit. To quote Orbital Butt: "It's me, the toxic gamer. I'm here to mansplain my manfeels and eat candy with my manmouth. And I'm all out of candy."

>

> >Until last week, Price worked as a narrative designer on Guild Wars 2. Earlier this month, she wrote a lengthy Twitter thread about the differences between writing characters for linear, narrative-driven games and player characters in MMOs. A prominent Guild Wars 2 streamer and YouTube known as Deroir chimed in to disagree. Price later called Deroir out, tweeting: “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.’”

>

> And we already have two lies. Deroir didn't chime in to disagree. He chimed in to say that he mostly agreed, but wanted to open up the discussion of branching dialogue. Jessica didn't "Call Deroir Out," she insulted him and broadcast him as a sexist villain to her entire twitter feed, wholly unprovoked. That wasn't an act of justice, it was an act of malice.

>

> >The tweet — and a follow-up in which she said, “the next rando kitten who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me ... is getting instablocked” — triggered a fierce thread on the Guild Wars subreddit. Fans mostly ignored Price’s point about women professionals constantly being questioned by men. They wanted to express their anger about a member of the community being rebuked.

>

> Reddit didn't ignore her point about women professionals constantly being questioned by men. They discussed and argued against it vehemently. Largely because _there was no point._ This wasn't an argument or a statistic, JP did this solely to put Deroir on blast and feel self-righteous to her own fans about how the most innocuous comment is evil somehow. Yay Price. Of course, I call the claim about manquestioning into question, since all I've ever seen is women get special treatment and twist regular slights we all face into a patriarchal conspiracy. That and all of the sources polygon cites are polygon but in a different header.

>

> >I was given no opportunity to argue my case,” she said. “My manager was on vacation. [O’Brien] spent some time insisting that developers must be friends with the company’s customers, and that it was unacceptable to say that we aren’t, even when we’re not on the clock. He told me I’d look back and regret this, because we were doing great work and I’d ruined it.

>

> So much for speaking truth to power. Did she actually try to speak up? Usually when I want to say something I just interject or raise my hand, or something like that. Then again, I've never been chewed out by my boss for making a colossal mistake. Maybe the situation is different if you set the boss's car on fire. I mean, I'm not going to lie: the evidence was pretty damning. If polygon bothered to do more research then "ugh, reddit is whining again", they'd see the collection of nasty behavior and history of burned bridges. There's only so far you can go before "arguing the case" gets defenestrated. Besides, what was her case going to be? "It wasn't me"? "They all deserve it for being alt-directional icist isms of every degree"? "People don't see me as a representative for Anet when I respond to feedback about my job"? She already said that she's not sorry for any of this, but if you can't at least be sorry for Deroir then it is clear that an apology is off the table.

>

> >“The whole thing was highly unprofessional,” she continued.

>

> YOU'RE HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL!

>

> >“There was zero reason for him to be there. He wanted to vent his anger, and he had the power to command a woman to stand there while he took his feelings out on her, so he did. Then he walked out, [the manager] got my stuff from my desk and the HR person asked for my key card.”'

>

> YOU'RE THE REASON HE HAD TO BE THERE! O.K. enough exaggerated caps for now. There's another deliberate manipulation here: **He** had the power to command **a woman.** Yeah, no, this isn't a sexism thing. Back when I worked at the community college, the three heads of the department were all women of different nationalities, and if you messed up royally then you'd expect at least one of them get on your case. There were entire meetings held about bureaucracy and conduct that would last several hours. By meeting, I really mean that we'd sit there for two hours while an eastern-European woman would lecture us on how to fill out convoluted time cards.

>

> The point of all that is this: Michel O'Brien can crack the whip just as hard as Mike O'Brien. Price is just playing the sexism card because its the card she always plays. Aside form all that, nobody enjoys a lecture. Not the person giving, or the person receiving. After learning how badly Price has messed up in the past, a venting lecture is for her benefit more than anyone elses. But of course, she is the type of person who doesn't learn.

>

> >Price said she had no previous problem with her bosses about her social media activities.

>

> That is meaningless. She didn't bring a problem onto Anets doorstep via social media until now, so obviously they didn't have a problem with it.

>

> >“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.”

>

> I'm assuming the vetting process for hiring a developer doesn't involve crawling up their e-butt with a microscope. Otherwise they would've seen what happened with her last job. But here's the thing: If you say that you're a feminist or a strong women, people give the benefit of the doubt and assume the best of those titles. The average person assumes that claims to virtues are virtuous, and not malice in disguise. But once she started biting customers, Anet learned that her feisty behavior is really wanton animosity wearing a mask.

>

> >She said she believed that ArenaNet was the sort of company that encouraged individualism and free expression. “It felt like it was too good to be true when they offered me a job,” she said. “They promised me that I wouldn’t have to check my identity at the door. They said that they admired my willingness to speak up about issues in the industry.

>

> >“There was so much that we were doing internally that encouraged me to hope, to trust them. There were executives talking about diversity, and building a nontoxic work environment, and acknowledging that talk wasn’t enough — that they had to put money and effort and leadership behind it.”

>

> This is one of the things she is half-right about. As a pretty solid-right traditional U.S. conservative, I learned a long time ago that the notion of tolerance and open-mindedness were really [empty platitudes](

"https://youtube.com/watch?v=35AxkSgQUTI") arbitrarily attributed to the stances they've taken. It is one of the paradoxical outcomes of multiculturalism, where you really become a moral dictator that judges other perspectives based solely on how multicultural they are (as defined by you yourself). Everything is relative, except for relativity which is not relative. Nothing is better than anything else except for saying that nothing is better than anything else, which is clearly better than everything else.

>

> However, allow me to disagree by equal measure. JP has clearly missed what it means to be nontoxic. The whole point is to not breed hostility. But, she has misinterpreted this to mean "Because there is no hostility, I can be as hostile as I want!" Whether she can see the contradiction in this thinking and doesn't care, or she cannot see it is up for debate.

>

> >There were meetings in which executives promised us that they wanted us to speak up about the ugly things, the harmful things, and that we wouldn’t be punished for doing so,” she said. “There was constant talk about how to make it the sort of place that you’d dream of working at, not just because of the cool games we were making, not just because of the benefits and perks, but because it was going to be a corrective to the exploitation and toxicity of so much of the industry.

>

> YOU ARE THE UGLY, HARMFUL THING!

>

> >And so it’s devastating that a company talking all that talk folded like a cheap card table the first time their values were actually tested. Doing the right thing is hard, sure, but doing it regularly makes it easier to keep doing it. And the corollary to that is that capitulating makes it harder to stop capitulating.

>

> The self-righteousness is so thick in this statement that you can cut it with a butter knife. Yet, so sour that it has turned to cheese. I briefly mentioned Deroir before, but lets talk a bit more. For all intents and purposes, Deroir is collateral damage. A harmless youtuber caught in a conflict he didn't want, in spite of his best efforts to avoid any sort of contention. Spurred by the developer he admired, and brought under the assault of JP's ragtag taggers on the rag. (It's a joke, don't take it too seriously). For all of the supposed wrongdoings of reddit, Arenanet, twitter followers, Mike, or whatever, the one person who deserves and apology is Deroir. The dude's world caught fire last Fourth of July, and it wasn't fireworks that set it ablaze.

>

> But righteous indignation knows no bounds. Apparently, all of this ire is not only deserved, but it is "the right thing". So right, that it required some moral obligation in spite of all the adversity she'd face in doing so. Give thanks to Jessica Price, the martyr for the cause of developers receiving feedback on their twitter feed when talking about the game.

>

> >“Let’s be clear: In 2018, it’s absurd to pretend ignorance of what would happen to a woman fired for speaking about sexism, because he feels she got too uppity,” Price said. “He painted a target on everyone’s back. He didn’t just fail Peter and me, or even the employees for which he was responsible. He failed the entire industry.”

>

> If you're playing kitten bingo, you can mark the current year square. Otherwise, I already wrote about the self-righteous martyrdom of JP in the paragraph previous to this one. Quite frankly, I think that Mike did the right thing. Personally, I'm so tired of seeing all of my hobbies waylaid by the extreme Left and start floundering because Get Woke, Go Broke. An industry is ultimately a business, and if you can't conduct business then there is no more industry. For the 80-90% of the population that isn't the extreme left, this is an excellent sign.

>

> >He caved to a handful of people and an army of bots and sock puppets,” she added. “Now he’s got almost every female developer I know — as well as some men — furious with him. I’ve got recruiters pinging me promising they’ll steer candidates away from ArenaNet, and game design professors saying they’re going to warn their students away. I’ve also had a lot of ArenaNet co-workers and other industry colleagues contacting me to express how afraid this has made them.”

>

> The term I used before is myopic. A great deal of time was spent speculating on why Chris Ryall of IDW comics would throw away millions of dollars on an open socialist that insulted the entire nation over 9/11. The conclusion that was drawn was that IDW was such an ideological echo chamber that Ryall had no scope of how bad the outrage over Aubrey Sitterson's comics and comments were. So, when Ryall doubled down and said "come at me, bro," Hasbro trounced him into the ground.

>

> The moral of the story is this: never believe the speculations on scope from somebody who uses block bots and lives in an ideological echo-chamber. Clearly, "every female developer I know" really means "all the ones who I didn't block because I didn't like". The only recruiter agencies that are going to ping JP about their policies are the ones that share her radical feminist positions. All of the normal recruiters are steering clear of JP precisely because she throws ideological crises tantrums like this. She can't even understand that this outrage isn't coming from bots and sock puppets, it is coming from the hordes of normal people that outnumber her 10:1.

>

> If this has made Anet workers afraid, then _good._ Being afraid of messing up at your job is the number one way to avoid messing up at your job. A lack of concern breeds carelessness. Whether you're holding a welding torch or dealing with customer service, there should always be a voice in the back of your mind that says "there will be repercussions for screwing up, so don't."

>

> >Price is an experienced writer in gaming and has also worked on comics, animated series and novels. Her resume includes companies such as Microsoft and Harebrained Schemes. She said she was previously fired from a role-playing game company for complaining about its lack of response to a male business associate who sexually harassed women at the company.

>

> You know, I just can't find that post that went over her history at the tabletop company, but unless my memory is fooling me, _that ain't how it happened._

>

> >Price said she now regrets boosting ArenaNet as a good place to work. “I looked every female narrative designer on the team in the eye and told her, ‘This place will value you, and will let you be who you are.’ They trusted me, and I led them wrong.

>

> >“The wounds from kitten had just started to heal in terms of women in the industry starting to relax and trust their employers,” Price added. “The fact that it was a company that touts itself as welcoming to marginalized talent that may have reignited a hate campaign designed to drive marginalized talent out of games is a very painful irony.”

>

> A good way to test if sexism is present is to take the events that occurred, and switch the genders around. As it happens, we have just that: both a man and a woman were fired for these events. The claim of sexism and the kitten are nebulous at best and outright lies at worse, due to this contrary evidence. She myopically believes that all women not only hold her views, but are valued because of those views. Then again, it could be possible on the local level: As mah boi Zack AKA Richard C. Meyers says: "A+ people are looking to hire other A+ people. B people are looking to hire _B and lower._" So, it could be that all of the women she tried to bring into Anet are just like her.

>

> The problem with seeking out marginalized talent is the same problem that Marvel comics faced. It isn't that there's any feature inherent to race or sex that makes somebody less capable of making a game. The problem is that the people who scream their marginalized status the strongest are professional victims. When Heather Antos was brought on to Marvel as work girlfriend and to diversify the place, she went for every YA author that made a name for themselves by complaining about the evil white he-devil capitalists. This stocked the roster of writers full with people who had no real talent, which then proceeded to write terrible comics. Except for Saladim Ahmed. That guy is a poet. Anyway, when people complained "Hey, you replaced all the famous characters everybody loved in the movies with blandly capable Mary Sues that have no personality and terrible writing/dialogue/plot", the response from writers was "you're all racist/sexist/whatever."

>

> To the uninformed observer, this can make things seem that all of the whatevergates are about targeting women and minorities for criticism. But in reality, that isn't what is happening. The targets are the toxic elements with toxic ideologies. It just so happens that these toxic people with toxic ideologies failed upward to their current position precisely because they have some kind of minority status. The moral of this story is that correlation doesn't equal causation.

>

> >Price said she has no regrets about her response to Deroir, although she said she might have moderated her language a little. “Given that the term ‘kittenhat’ was apparently a sticking point for ArenaNet, I’d maybe use ‘condescending jerk’ instead,” she said. “Men pop up in my mentions to tell me how to do my job all the time. They pop up to explain my female colleagues’ own jokes to them.

>

> Yeah, no. Condescending jerk would've gotten Price fired equally as fast. Hell, it's meaner than "kittenhat" because "kittenhat" is at least funny sounding. The sad part is the lack of shame here. I already talked about how Deroir deserves and apology above. Price has clearly learned nothing, not in professionalism or introspection.

>

> What makes this sadder is that I shouldn't be the smarter person, here. I have aspergers, so I sort of just kitten the kitten over people and hope they have the emotional fortitude to handle my weirdness. Learning expectations for me is really slow, because everyone is mannequin faced. Even then, it still feels terrible whenever social interaction goes bad, even if it isn't my fault. When it comes to social graces and good business practices, I'm a paraplegic who has to tell the able-bodied how to walk properly.

>

> >“Male game devs deal with it too. Gamers don’t seem to believe expertise exists. But it’s not the constant deluge it is for women. Which was the point of the tweets that Peter made that got him fired: He was saying, ‘Hey, this is about gender, because I’m out here talking about the same stuff she’s talking about, and this doesn’t happen to me.’”

>

> I'm going to call shenanigans on this. The issue of trust in expertise is predicated on previous performance. GW2 has a rocky start, both in narrative and mechanically. It stems to reason that feedback is what brought these issues to light, let alone resolved them. Likewise, the simple fact is that diffused knowledge is superior to centralized knowledge. To completely dismiss customer feedback is to assert that you're smarter than not just one customer, but every single customer. Listening to and understanding feedback is important for any industry, let alone one based on subjective praise.

>

> To end, I'm going to repeat the amended rules for kitten, as you have all born witness to above:

>

> "They always lie"

> "They always project"

> "They always double down"

> "They always turn on you"

>

> Of which we have seen all 4. Mike's decision to fire JP was the right one, because I doubt she would've left the company on good terms. With such a hostile and indignant mind, it as only a matter of time before she caterwauled oppression in Arenanets direction over some other perceived slight.

>

> And that is why nobody respects Kotaku... err... Polygon.

 

Holy mother and father of everything Holy.. this is by far the best written, best thought out response to anything on these forums I have read.

Your skill and expertise knows no bounds.. it was poignant, insightful, factual and pretty well nailed down as far as I am concerned.

 

This person gets it, this person not only understands that all this could of been so easily avoided had that one person just decided to induce just a modicum of professionalism and a whole lotta restraint... but for someone like JP, those two things leave a bad taste.. toxic tastes better and easier on the stomach.

To me JP only hurt, what is a very real issue in the world, by saying, doing and acting like she did and continues to do.

[Dengar.1785]

> @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > @"Felipe.1807" said:

> > > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > > @"Ambush.9420" said:

> > > >

> > > > Except it really hasn't. Look around, the discussion for this is pretty much dead. Almost everyone accepts what happened, and is completely fine with it. Look on Reddit, even look on these forums.. the discussion is mostly over.

> > > >

> > > > Only thing keeping it going is a handful (at best) leftist trolls.

> > > >

> > > > Give it 1 or 2 more days, and even most of them will stop.

> > > >

> > > > It's over.

> > > >

> > >

> > > This particular event perhaps. But the ongoing discussion of how devs should approach toxic players isn't ending anytime soon. It's not a new discussion in gaming, nor is it a unique discussion to ArenaNet. The issue that needs to be considered going forward is balancing dev-player interactions fairly. Players shouldn't walk all over devs, nor should devs abuse their customers. Regardless, topics like this are worth keeping an eye on and learning from to move forward.

> >

> > Deroir, INKS and Jebro were not toxic, they were polite as possible, no matter how much people try to twist the story...come on, she turned Jebro talking about Marvel Infinity wars into a political thing(claiming sexism and racism lol).

>

> Oh I saw the tweets and she handled that beyond poorly. However there was also very bad responses within the community as well. I think she should have taken a very different approach, as her actions also had the effect of weakening the stance she took. I'm more concerned about the wave of gamers (while certainly a minority compared to the whole population) who seem to be a bit more... emboldened(?) in their unhealthy opinions.

 

I say let them be emboldened. If there are people who truly think people can be fired merely at their whims they’re in for a very slow lesson on how reality works.

[Harper.4173]

> @"thruine.8510" said:

> > @"Harper.4173" said:

> >

> > If I was wrong prove me wrong - show us how much you play/have played the game. Show us you're part of the community. You can't do that can you? That's why you won't reply to me nor will you address this if you will.

>

> I started GW2 the beginning of the year. I purchased HoT little later. I believe I made a post asking a question. I quit for a time purchasing the deluxe version of the core game after returning and had just purchased PoF just a few weeks ago. I started a warrior in the beginning which was the reason for leaving as I didn't find the game anything but frustrating. He was level 80 by the time I had quit having completed his personal story. Once returning I used the daily rewards to get a thief to level 80 but actually started focusing on a level 80 mesmer which I had completed the personal story with about a month before this. I've extra character slots purchased with all the classes represented and all the races at various levels. I've purchased some extra bag space and bank tabs.

>

> But you are right. I am not part of this community. I do not believe two developers deserve the same punishment for separate crimes. I don't believe a company that throws away a twelve year veteran who was probably a big reason for you being able to even have a second game based on your first has any interest in its player base. That is the person I see wronged in this. I see him wronged by Jessica Price in allowing him to think she was receiving some kind of an attack when she wasn't. And wronged again by his employer who knows him personally, probably someone he thought a friend, would think he would act just like her. And should know him well enough to know that's not really him. But no, Reddit wants your head so my dear friend your head they shall have.

>

> I was wrong about this community when I told a poster it wasn't toxic a few weeks ago. It may be attracting unwanted toxicity from the outside now but it was always rotten to the core. It just needed a little push to show it. That its just as vindictive and destructive. Just as willing to pile on to someone because he tried to be supportive to someone that might never should have been hired in the first place. Like others have said, its suspect JP was fired at this time for the same behavior displayed previously as well as a long term member of the company because Reddit was involved. He should be brought back and new internet policy developed as well as providing the funds to pay for all employees internet services. And MO should hope when Reddit targets him that he actually does have friends.

 

Honestly it's called show and tell not only tell for a reason. But let's say you're right - if that's the case then yes - you are part of the community.

Your gripe should not be with Anet - but with companies in general. What happens here is commonplace - companies want to protect themselves and have no issue sacrificing anyone. I'm not even criticizing Anet - it's just the way it is now.

Perhaps society as a whole has taken a wrong turn somewhere. But this is the playing field now and going against the general "rules" is not going to help. That should have been obvious. And I think you're stretching it when you say "we might not have had Gw2 were it not for this man" - that's honestly something you can easily dismiss as false.

You'd have had GW2 regardless of who came and went from the company on an individual level provided you retained a good number of the devs. Sure - if the entire team quit you might not have the GW2 we have today - but more like you'd still have a game called GW2.

And as a fan of the first game I might say that GW2 is not really a successor to GW1. It share some places, some names, some lore, and that's pretty much it. The game is entirely different from almost every other point of view.

 

"I see him wronged by Jessica Price in allowing him to think she was receiving some kind of an attack when she wasn't. " - As much as I hate "defending" JP I have to ask - can he not think for himself? I mean - he must have seen everything unfold - why would he "think she was attacked" when it was clearly not the case unless he himself was blinded by his ideology.

Also - even if she was attacked why did he defend her? Anyone with a sliver of self-preservation instinct would have stepped aside.

 

"And wronged again by his employer who knows him personally, probably someone he thought a friend, would think he would act just like her. And should know him well enough to know that's not really him. But no, Reddit wants your head so my dear friend your head they shall have." - I think you're romanticizing things too much. As far as you know they weren't friends but enemies who could just barely stand each other in order to keep going.

Again - it's **obvious to anyone** - if the customers are unhappy they might stop paying - and if you wronged them then you'll get the boot. Same for a person who'd defend the person who wronged the customers.

 

Do you know the saying "The customer is always right?" - it's true - you know why? **because the customer pays money for your product/service**. This has nothing to do with ideology, friendship, livelihood of the developers, justice, fairness, or any of those other things. It has to do with public image and more specifically the way that public image creates a perception that can either LOSE you money, GAIN you money or at the very least keep things the way they were.

 

" It may be attracting unwanted toxicity from the outside now but it was always rotten to the core. " - all online communities are more or less like this. Do you know why? Because online interaction is a very artificial and "inhuman" way of interacting. When you don't communicate in a human way (eg. face to face, using verbal, non-verbal and para-verbal signals) you stop getting those very human inputs that make you behave humanely towards others.

What I'm telling you in short is - humans don't act like humans unless they're in a "natural" environment. In an artificial environment people behave wildly different because the inputs they get are no longer balanced against the way the rest of the human works from a psychological standpoint.

Think about JP - I doubt she'd have the guts to say even half the things she spewed on twitter to a group of players' faces. But online her ego can run rampant - the only issue is so can the egos of others.

Conflict between humans is something that nature has always regulated very finely - but those elements that drive and regulate it are not present in today's "new age" interaction methods. When you say something hurtful to someone on twitter you can't see their reaction. You don't get to see the subtle changes in their posture or facial expression - changes that convey a message and would in turn cause a reaction in yourself.

The internet disconnects you from all that. Here you can throw all your rage, all your anger, spew all your insults because you can't see the person that you're targeting .

JP did this - and to some extent the community fired back at her. Another basic common sense rule applies here - **the few should fear the many**.

[Scud.5067]

> @"Bloodstealer.5978" said:

> > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > So I went over the polygon article, and the amount of irony and hypocrisy is staggering. I don't have much else to do, so I'm going to sit down with a figurative fine-toothed comb and pick at it for a bit. To quote Orbital Butt: "It's me, the toxic gamer. I'm here to mansplain my manfeels and eat candy with my manmouth. And I'm all out of candy."

> >

> > >Until last week, Price worked as a narrative designer on Guild Wars 2. Earlier this month, she wrote a lengthy Twitter thread about the differences between writing characters for linear, narrative-driven games and player characters in MMOs. A prominent Guild Wars 2 streamer and YouTube known as Deroir chimed in to disagree. Price later called Deroir out, tweeting: “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.’”

> >

> > And we already have two lies. Deroir didn't chime in to disagree. He chimed in to say that he mostly agreed, but wanted to open up the discussion of branching dialogue. Jessica didn't "Call Deroir Out," she insulted him and broadcast him as a sexist villain to her entire twitter feed, wholly unprovoked. That wasn't an act of justice, it was an act of malice.

> >

> > >The tweet — and a follow-up in which she said, “the next rando kitten who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me ... is getting instablocked” — triggered a fierce thread on the Guild Wars subreddit. Fans mostly ignored Price’s point about women professionals constantly being questioned by men. They wanted to express their anger about a member of the community being rebuked.

> >

> > Reddit didn't ignore her point about women professionals constantly being questioned by men. They discussed and argued against it vehemently. Largely because _there was no point._ This wasn't an argument or a statistic, JP did this solely to put Deroir on blast and feel self-righteous to her own fans about how the most innocuous comment is evil somehow. Yay Price. Of course, I call the claim about manquestioning into question, since all I've ever seen is women get special treatment and twist regular slights we all face into a patriarchal conspiracy. That and all of the sources polygon cites are polygon but in a different header.

> >

> > >I was given no opportunity to argue my case,” she said. “My manager was on vacation. [O’Brien] spent some time insisting that developers must be friends with the company’s customers, and that it was unacceptable to say that we aren’t, even when we’re not on the clock. He told me I’d look back and regret this, because we were doing great work and I’d ruined it.

> >

> > So much for speaking truth to power. Did she actually try to speak up? Usually when I want to say something I just interject or raise my hand, or something like that. Then again, I've never been chewed out by my boss for making a colossal mistake. Maybe the situation is different if you set the boss's car on fire. I mean, I'm not going to lie: the evidence was pretty damning. If polygon bothered to do more research then "ugh, reddit is whining again", they'd see the collection of nasty behavior and history of burned bridges. There's only so far you can go before "arguing the case" gets defenestrated. Besides, what was her case going to be? "It wasn't me"? "They all deserve it for being alt-directional icist isms of every degree"? "People don't see me as a representative for Anet when I respond to feedback about my job"? She already said that she's not sorry for any of this, but if you can't at least be sorry for Deroir then it is clear that an apology is off the table.

> >

> > >“The whole thing was highly unprofessional,” she continued.

> >

> > YOU'RE HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL!

> >

> > >“There was zero reason for him to be there. He wanted to vent his anger, and he had the power to command a woman to stand there while he took his feelings out on her, so he did. Then he walked out, [the manager] got my stuff from my desk and the HR person asked for my key card.”'

> >

> > YOU'RE THE REASON HE HAD TO BE THERE! O.K. enough exaggerated caps for now. There's another deliberate manipulation here: **He** had the power to command **a woman.** Yeah, no, this isn't a sexism thing. Back when I worked at the community college, the three heads of the department were all women of different nationalities, and if you messed up royally then you'd expect at least one of them get on your case. There were entire meetings held about bureaucracy and conduct that would last several hours. By meeting, I really mean that we'd sit there for two hours while an eastern-European woman would lecture us on how to fill out convoluted time cards.

> >

> > The point of all that is this: Michel O'Brien can crack the whip just as hard as Mike O'Brien. Price is just playing the sexism card because its the card she always plays. Aside form all that, nobody enjoys a lecture. Not the person giving, or the person receiving. After learning how badly Price has messed up in the past, a venting lecture is for her benefit more than anyone elses. But of course, she is the type of person who doesn't learn.

> >

> > >Price said she had no previous problem with her bosses about her social media activities.

> >

> > That is meaningless. She didn't bring a problem onto Anets doorstep via social media until now, so obviously they didn't have a problem with it.

> >

> > >“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.”

> >

> > I'm assuming the vetting process for hiring a developer doesn't involve crawling up their e-butt with a microscope. Otherwise they would've seen what happened with her last job. But here's the thing: If you say that you're a feminist or a strong women, people give the benefit of the doubt and assume the best of those titles. The average person assumes that claims to virtues are virtuous, and not malice in disguise. But once she started biting customers, Anet learned that her feisty behavior is really wanton animosity wearing a mask.

> >

> > >She said she believed that ArenaNet was the sort of company that encouraged individualism and free expression. “It felt like it was too good to be true when they offered me a job,” she said. “They promised me that I wouldn’t have to check my identity at the door. They said that they admired my willingness to speak up about issues in the industry.

> >

> > >“There was so much that we were doing internally that encouraged me to hope, to trust them. There were executives talking about diversity, and building a nontoxic work environment, and acknowledging that talk wasn’t enough — that they had to put money and effort and leadership behind it.”

> >

> > This is one of the things she is half-right about. As a pretty solid-right traditional U.S. conservative, I learned a long time ago that the notion of tolerance and open-mindedness were really [empty platitudes](

"https://youtube.com/watch?v=35AxkSgQUTI") arbitrarily attributed to the stances they've taken. It is one of the paradoxical outcomes of multiculturalism, where you really become a moral dictator that judges other perspectives based solely on how multicultural they are (as defined by you yourself). Everything is relative, except for relativity which is not relative. Nothing is better than anything else except for saying that nothing is better than anything else, which is clearly better than everything else.

> >

> > However, allow me to disagree by equal measure. JP has clearly missed what it means to be nontoxic. The whole point is to not breed hostility. But, she has misinterpreted this to mean "Because there is no hostility, I can be as hostile as I want!" Whether she can see the contradiction in this thinking and doesn't care, or she cannot see it is up for debate.

> >

> > >There were meetings in which executives promised us that they wanted us to speak up about the ugly things, the harmful things, and that we wouldn’t be punished for doing so,” she said. “There was constant talk about how to make it the sort of place that you’d dream of working at, not just because of the cool games we were making, not just because of the benefits and perks, but because it was going to be a corrective to the exploitation and toxicity of so much of the industry.

> >

> > YOU ARE THE UGLY, HARMFUL THING!

> >

> > >And so it’s devastating that a company talking all that talk folded like a cheap card table the first time their values were actually tested. Doing the right thing is hard, sure, but doing it regularly makes it easier to keep doing it. And the corollary to that is that capitulating makes it harder to stop capitulating.

> >

> > The self-righteousness is so thick in this statement that you can cut it with a butter knife. Yet, so sour that it has turned to cheese. I briefly mentioned Deroir before, but lets talk a bit more. For all intents and purposes, Deroir is collateral damage. A harmless youtuber caught in a conflict he didn't want, in spite of his best efforts to avoid any sort of contention. Spurred by the developer he admired, and brought under the assault of JP's ragtag taggers on the rag. (It's a joke, don't take it too seriously). For all of the supposed wrongdoings of reddit, Arenanet, twitter followers, Mike, or whatever, the one person who deserves and apology is Deroir. The dude's world caught fire last Fourth of July, and it wasn't fireworks that set it ablaze.

> >

> > But righteous indignation knows no bounds. Apparently, all of this ire is not only deserved, but it is "the right thing". So right, that it required some moral obligation in spite of all the adversity she'd face in doing so. Give thanks to Jessica Price, the martyr for the cause of developers receiving feedback on their twitter feed when talking about the game.

> >

> > >“Let’s be clear: In 2018, it’s absurd to pretend ignorance of what would happen to a woman fired for speaking about sexism, because he feels she got too uppity,” Price said. “He painted a target on everyone’s back. He didn’t just fail Peter and me, or even the employees for which he was responsible. He failed the entire industry.”

> >

> > If you're playing kitten bingo, you can mark the current year square. Otherwise, I already wrote about the self-righteous martyrdom of JP in the paragraph previous to this one. Quite frankly, I think that Mike did the right thing. Personally, I'm so tired of seeing all of my hobbies waylaid by the extreme Left and start floundering because Get Woke, Go Broke. An industry is ultimately a business, and if you can't conduct business then there is no more industry. For the 80-90% of the population that isn't the extreme left, this is an excellent sign.

> >

> > >He caved to a handful of people and an army of bots and sock puppets,” she added. “Now he’s got almost every female developer I know — as well as some men — furious with him. I’ve got recruiters pinging me promising they’ll steer candidates away from ArenaNet, and game design professors saying they’re going to warn their students away. I’ve also had a lot of ArenaNet co-workers and other industry colleagues contacting me to express how afraid this has made them.”

> >

> > The term I used before is myopic. A great deal of time was spent speculating on why Chris Ryall of IDW comics would throw away millions of dollars on an open socialist that insulted the entire nation over 9/11. The conclusion that was drawn was that IDW was such an ideological echo chamber that Ryall had no scope of how bad the outrage over Aubrey Sitterson's comics and comments were. So, when Ryall doubled down and said "come at me, bro," Hasbro trounced him into the ground.

> >

> > The moral of the story is this: never believe the speculations on scope from somebody who uses block bots and lives in an ideological echo-chamber. Clearly, "every female developer I know" really means "all the ones who I didn't block because I didn't like". The only recruiter agencies that are going to ping JP about their policies are the ones that share her radical feminist positions. All of the normal recruiters are steering clear of JP precisely because she throws ideological crises tantrums like this. She can't even understand that this outrage isn't coming from bots and sock puppets, it is coming from the hordes of normal people that outnumber her 10:1.

> >

> > If this has made Anet workers afraid, then _good._ Being afraid of messing up at your job is the number one way to avoid messing up at your job. A lack of concern breeds carelessness. Whether you're holding a welding torch or dealing with customer service, there should always be a voice in the back of your mind that says "there will be repercussions for screwing up, so don't."

> >

> > >Price is an experienced writer in gaming and has also worked on comics, animated series and novels. Her resume includes companies such as Microsoft and Harebrained Schemes. She said she was previously fired from a role-playing game company for complaining about its lack of response to a male business associate who sexually harassed women at the company.

> >

> > You know, I just can't find that post that went over her history at the tabletop company, but unless my memory is fooling me, _that ain't how it happened._

> >

> > >Price said she now regrets boosting ArenaNet as a good place to work. “I looked every female narrative designer on the team in the eye and told her, ‘This place will value you, and will let you be who you are.’ They trusted me, and I led them wrong.

> >

> > >“The wounds from kitten had just started to heal in terms of women in the industry starting to relax and trust their employers,” Price added. “The fact that it was a company that touts itself as welcoming to marginalized talent that may have reignited a hate campaign designed to drive marginalized talent out of games is a very painful irony.”

> >

> > A good way to test if sexism is present is to take the events that occurred, and switch the genders around. As it happens, we have just that: both a man and a woman were fired for these events. The claim of sexism and the kitten are nebulous at best and outright lies at worse, due to this contrary evidence. She myopically believes that all women not only hold her views, but are valued because of those views. Then again, it could be possible on the local level: As mah boi Zack AKA Richard C. Meyers says: "A+ people are looking to hire other A+ people. B people are looking to hire _B and lower._" So, it could be that all of the women she tried to bring into Anet are just like her.

> >

> > The problem with seeking out marginalized talent is the same problem that Marvel comics faced. It isn't that there's any feature inherent to race or sex that makes somebody less capable of making a game. The problem is that the people who scream their marginalized status the strongest are professional victims. When Heather Antos was brought on to Marvel as work girlfriend and to diversify the place, she went for every YA author that made a name for themselves by complaining about the evil white he-devil capitalists. This stocked the roster of writers full with people who had no real talent, which then proceeded to write terrible comics. Except for Saladim Ahmed. That guy is a poet. Anyway, when people complained "Hey, you replaced all the famous characters everybody loved in the movies with blandly capable Mary Sues that have no personality and terrible writing/dialogue/plot", the response from writers was "you're all racist/sexist/whatever."

> >

> > To the uninformed observer, this can make things seem that all of the whatevergates are about targeting women and minorities for criticism. But in reality, that isn't what is happening. The targets are the toxic elements with toxic ideologies. It just so happens that these toxic people with toxic ideologies failed upward to their current position precisely because they have some kind of minority status. The moral of this story is that correlation doesn't equal causation.

> >

> > >Price said she has no regrets about her response to Deroir, although she said she might have moderated her language a little. “Given that the term ‘kittenhat’ was apparently a sticking point for ArenaNet, I’d maybe use ‘condescending jerk’ instead,” she said. “Men pop up in my mentions to tell me how to do my job all the time. They pop up to explain my female colleagues’ own jokes to them.

> >

> > Yeah, no. Condescending jerk would've gotten Price fired equally as fast. Hell, it's meaner than "kittenhat" because "kittenhat" is at least funny sounding. The sad part is the lack of shame here. I already talked about how Deroir deserves and apology above. Price has clearly learned nothing, not in professionalism or introspection.

> >

> > What makes this sadder is that I shouldn't be the smarter person, here. I have aspergers, so I sort of just kitten the kitten over people and hope they have the emotional fortitude to handle my weirdness. Learning expectations for me is really slow, because everyone is mannequin faced. Even then, it still feels terrible whenever social interaction goes bad, even if it isn't my fault. When it comes to social graces and good business practices, I'm a paraplegic who has to tell the able-bodied how to walk properly.

> >

> > >“Male game devs deal with it too. Gamers don’t seem to believe expertise exists. But it’s not the constant deluge it is for women. Which was the point of the tweets that Peter made that got him fired: He was saying, ‘Hey, this is about gender, because I’m out here talking about the same stuff she’s talking about, and this doesn’t happen to me.’”

> >

> > I'm going to call shenanigans on this. The issue of trust in expertise is predicated on previous performance. GW2 has a rocky start, both in narrative and mechanically. It stems to reason that feedback is what brought these issues to light, let alone resolved them. Likewise, the simple fact is that diffused knowledge is superior to centralized knowledge. To completely dismiss customer feedback is to assert that you're smarter than not just one customer, but every single customer. Listening to and understanding feedback is important for any industry, let alone one based on subjective praise.

> >

> > To end, I'm going to repeat the amended rules for kitten, as you have all born witness to above:

> >

> > "They always lie"

> > "They always project"

> > "They always double down"

> > "They always turn on you"

> >

> > Of which we have seen all 4. Mike's decision to fire JP was the right one, because I doubt she would've left the company on good terms. With such a hostile and indignant mind, it as only a matter of time before she caterwauled oppression in Arenanets direction over some other perceived slight.

> >

> > And that is why nobody respects Kotaku... err... Polygon.

>

> Holy mother and father of everything Holy.. this is by far the best written, best thought out response to anything on these forums I have read.

> Your skill and expertise knows no bounds.. it was poignant, insightful, factual and pretty well nailed down as far as I am concerned.

>

> This person gets it, this person not only understands that all this could of been so easily avoided had that one person just decided to induce just a modicum of professionalism and a whole lotta restraint... but for someone like JP, those two things leave a bad taste.. toxic tastes better and easier on the stomach.

> To me JP only hurt, what is a very real issue in the world, by saying, doing and acting like she did and continues to do.

 

Agreed. Rather awesome to read over a morning coffee!

[Tolmos.8395]

> @"morrolan.9608" said:

> > @"Loli Ruri.8307" said:

> > > @"Maxajax.6350" said:

> > > > @"Briolase.7306" said:

> > > > I've uninstalled. I know none of you care and will probably attack me for my disagreement. This entire thread and its contents are the reason I've left the game. I no longer feel welcome, as a woman, and as a person who disagrees with the ravening horde. I don't agree with Mike O'Brien's hasty actions in firing JP and PF, but I understand that he's human, that he might have panicked in the face of internet outrage. His statement here was a non-statement, and his statement to polygon wasn't much better. Whether or not his actions were a direct reaction to the outrage or not, he should have known that his actions would embolden the worst of the internet. It has divided the community, it has turned this community into a place where I no longer feel comfortable. The values portrayed in game - the inclusion of women, people of color, the lgbt community, and the disabled - seems to not be reflected behind the scenes. It is disheartening and depressing.

> > > >

> > > > This thread is full of people crowing with glee over two people whose careers have been derailed, their lives upended. Anyone who disagrees with the mob is shouted down, accused of "siding with bullies" or of having political motives, or even of not being a part of the community. I've been playing since beta. I love this game. GW2 is my therapy for a stressful life and an anxiety disorder. But I don't feel welcome anymore.

> > > >

> > > > I suppose I should not be surprised by the attitudes expressed by so many players, but I always held GW2's community to higher standards. I should have known all this ugliness was lurking beneath the surface just waiting to be unleashed by an event such as this.

> > > >

> > > > Yes yes, I know, I'm the toxic one for daring to disagree with this morbid celebration. Yes yes, I know, you're glad I'm leaving. And no, you can't have my stuff.

> > >

> > > I don't think the mob had anything to do with it. JP and PF said things on Twitter that made it morally and practically wrong to retain them as employees. That does not mean that people ought to be celebrating the loss of two devs. Especially PF who has been working on GW1 and 2 for a long time. It is still a loss for the game. Doubly so when the media puts a fictional spin on it to make Mike and Anet look bad for doing the right thing, causing players to leave the game. Regardless of your views, I hope that you find a place where you are happy.

> >

> > And yet Jessica Price celebrated the death of TotalBiscuit to cancer.

>

> So its not OK for Price to do that but its OK to celebrate 2 devs being fired?

 

Honestly, I find it repulsive how many folks are celebrating them being fired.

 

I think what she did and how she acted was deplorable, and it honestly saddens me that she has only redoubled her efforts to tank her own career since getting let go, by doing multiple interviews all trash talking her former employer, essentially calling her former CEO a mysoginist pig who liked to control women, and talking about how she is managing to convince the industry to try to bring down Anet. These are all terrible things for a new employer to see; not many people are willing to take a chance to hire someone who reacts that way to being fired, since you never know if you might have to fire her as well.

 

I wish they could have kept her around; she needed training, and mentoring, far more than she needed what amounted to a professional slap in the face. It would have been an honest feel good story if Anet themselves just apologized, she and Peter apologized, and they focused on helping her become a better person. Maybe hooked up Deroir with some apology goodies. But that didn’t happen, and I’m sure they have their reasons.

 

So no, not all of us who believe she did wrong are celebrating their loss.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

> @"Cryoguard.7942" said:> As a result, and after having seen several of her tweets, I am not surprised she was fired as a rather hostile individual. If I was an employer, I likely would have fired her over other tweets before now. But the overall statement from ArenaNet hasn't acknowledged the other bits of fallout that have resulted from her behavior in this instance. And, in an effort to try and learn from this, that is my current concern.

ArenaNet can't win here. If they're keeping most of the dirty laundry in-house, which is pretty much the professional norm in situations like this, they lose control of the narrative. If they air out _everything_, they'll be crucified as bullies.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Tolmos.8395" said:

> I wish they could have kept her around; she needed training, and mentoring, far more than she needed what amounted to a professional slap in the face.

 

Don't go and tell her that, she'll accuse you of sexism.

[Cryoguard.7942]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Rococo.8347" said:

> > > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > > > @"ponytheguardian.7439" said:

> > > > > > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > > >

> > > > > > So are the 43 pages of people mostly defending Anet all "mobs" and not the players?

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Also, you do realize that each account profile shows the date of creation in their profile right? Isn't it a bit strange for someone who just joined to know better who are the players?

> > > > >

> > > > > I do know that. With thousands of hours in GW1 and hours in GW2 climbing, I could say I've been around here even before I created this forum account.

> > > > >

> > > > > And yes. Angry mobs of players who don't like some certain people or how they talk to their "gods", might go out there and escalate the drama even further to get what they want. Kitten as in GG hasn't gone anywhere. It's only evolved in a way that now it's targeting not only journalistic professionals, but also professionals anywhere.

> > > > >

> > > > > And all the members are not even Poorchan-crew.

> > > >

> > > > The only people I see escalating the drama are those who refuse to see how one employee's behavior was unnacceptable and try to twist that into somewhat a wrong-doing from an evil community.

> > > > All these journalistic professionals are failing to represent situation from both angles and instead choose to be one sided. So yeah. Sorry but its a bit easy to blame a community over this. The "wips" like WP are the only one so far actually presenting the problem as it happened.

> > >

> > > I would suggest looking into more of the Twitter feeds regarding people outside the initial interaction, and it will give you a brief glimpse into the life of female game developers. The amount of blatantly sexist remarks being made by individuals reveals what these devs deal with constantly and often don't tell us. You don't need access to archives of psychological research to tell that it takes an impact, and this was apparently the breaking point.

> > >

> > > Sure she could have handled it better. And sure devs get toxic remarks in general. But female game devs definitely get their unfair share of toxic backlash, and oftentimes the criticism is purely based on sex and not even the work they do. As a result, this has really opened up a can of worms that ANet can't close now. All we can hope for is a more established response in the coming days better detailing their thoughts and plans moving forward.

> >

> > This is what's bothering me immensely, I may not agree with how she conveyed herself and would have been shocked if I had been on the receiving end myself, but the one blind spot even people like WP seem to have in all of this is that there is some aspects of sexism in this, many many comments on reddit ( and here) over that 24 hours were casually or blatantly sexist, some dodgy subs that dont give a fig about GW2 took interest and joined in, and frankly the reddit community appeared to accept them in. And now they are all crying that games journo's are claiming there was a hunt when there wasn't.

> >

> > There was a witch hunt and the reddit community fanned the flames - no matter how biased their reporting, there is no way this should have got the amount of heat that it did, the biggest outrage in the community for 7 years is some dev having a pop at a content maker - really??

> >

> > And if we are going to talk about a blatant disregard for the fact that sexism does exist in gaming ( and everywhere else) even WP makes a breast joke about clearly being a woman because he has to take heat from commentators sometimes, as if the occasional grief he gets is the same as the death threats and kitten threats, to say nothing of the second guessing etc they have to put up with, as if GG was a completely baseless.

> >

> > Just because the original comment from Deroir was likely not based in sexism doesn't mean that this whole clusterkitten is squeaky clean.

>

> All of this is after the initial exchange though. Please also realize that this is one of the first stories about GW2 which has gone mainstream in years. There is a ton of youtubers which are way bigger than WP who have covered this story. The heavily biased Kotaku and Polygon articles (interesting how the mainstream media diverges so much from a majority of the youtube content creators) will not have helped either. That is not so say that the first hour trolls did not have their feast.

>

> Please also do not lump together honest fans with trolls. The responses from JP were always addressed towards actual fans. She was the one who brought in the entire sexism issue (needlessly if one might add) and she was the one to use terminology as "mansplaining and rando kittten".

>

> > @"Rococo.8347" said:

> > There was a witch hunt and the reddit community fanned the flames - no matter how biased their reporting, there is no way this should have got the amount of heat that it did, the biggest outrage in the community for 7 years is some dev having a pop at a content maker - really??

>

> If it makes the mainstream, having a developer mistreat a client is big news. There is no sugar coating this no matter how much you point at the big bad work environment which is so unfair to women. That's like all those excuses made when once again an innocent black man gets shot in the US by police. "Oh but we had to go by previous experiences and he was acting suspicious ." Treat every encounter as it's own and stop making excuses. Everything else is unprofessional.

>

> Just like JPs tweet about TB was of not that big an issue. Once pushed into the spotlight it became an issue.

 

I think that is something a lot of people forget in the heat of the moment. Most of the fans are better than this. As people call it in politics, "the silent majority." It's a shame to see a tiny group of vocal players with nasty opinions try and take advantage of this. I am currently not a fan of her Twitter feed after having seen some of her tweets, and I find it quite disappointing she was extremely hostile in this scenario. But the result of this fiasco has had a ripple effect in the industry that has to be addressed, ironically worsening the problem she was so opposed to.

[Cryoguard.7942]

> @"Digit.1823" said:

> > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > @"Digit.1823" said:

> > > > @"Tris Apollumenon.6435" said:

> > > > It's extremely upsetting to see how willing Anet was to throw employees to the mob -- not only was there absolutely no move to speak out against the detailed, sexually explicit abuse that the employees received, but the employees in question were _fired_?

> > > >

> > > > The massive response to this by Gamergaters already underscored the hostility of this environment. The **official statement** from Mike himself, stating that a single unprofessionally snarky Twitter thread expressing frustration at being habitually belittled = "attacking the community", only makes it clear that in Anet's eyes, whatever "the community" means, I don't count. Playtime, enthusiasm, time spent helping new players, money spent on gems and DLCs -- arguments could be made for any of those as factors toward being in a given community, but in this case it seems like the overriding definition is "Community == I want devs to be INSTANTLY FIRED the first time they make a frustrated comment in public or back up their colleagues".

> > > >

> > > > I was willing to Block And Move On for ages and ages, even as a WvW player having to deal with tons of teamchat trolls and having to do another blockathon every time a new world alliance rolls around. MMO online communities are hard to moderate, and I recognize that. But having this edict come from above, as an official ArenaNet statement from the top guy himself, that's damning. That hurts.

> > > >

> > > > I know the kitten troll types are all too happy for people like me to get out of their games, but like... games are supposed to be fun. This was my _hobby_, not some kind of activist crusade. I'm too old and tired to stick it out to Make A Statement or Fight The Good Fight when even the top authority is saying "You are not welcome here. Harassers and misogynists, _you_ are welcome." More power to those who are determined or thick-skinned enough to persevere. I don't think I can.

> > >

> > > You stop right there you unfair, disingenuous hack that you are. You unbelievable charlatan.

> > >

> > > There was NEVER any sort of "detailed, sexually explicit abuse" anywhere in the ENTIRE exchange from Deroir's side which sparked this fiasco. You have CLEARLY not read a single word of the twitter conversation that instigated this. He was AT ALL TIMES friendly, polite and merely looking for discussion with someone whom he GREATLY respected and admired, and even apologized profusely when Jessica Price blew off her handle against him which was totally uncalled for. There have literally been twitch clips posted of him in this thread where he expresses his immense admiration for Jessica Price, her work and her contribution to AMA's.

> > >

> > > You are the lowest of the low, spouting the utter bs that you just did. Get out of this thread and do some actual research before you even dare to think twice about coming back here you disingenuous liar. Get out!

> >

> > I think you missed the part where they didn't say the sexually explicit abuse came from the streamer. While I personally don't agree with how the situation was handled by Price, the disgusting amount of abuse female developers face was already bad before now, but it's easy to tell from a quick glance at Twitter it has escalated dramatically. Deroir was likely commenting in the wrong place at the wrong time as it were, and the mob of toxic trolls who crawled to the surface to take advantage of that are the real villains here. And the messages being sent to Fries and Price only cements this as the key issue.

> >

> > Granted I don't think your anger-fueled response to someone who was trying to put this into the bigger-picture perspective is... ahem... healthy. In fact, somewhat similar to Price's response to Deroir, though I think there's much more context behind her's than your's.

>

> Except if you took any time to actually read his comment you would instantly notice he is talking about the situation where JP got fired, it is literally the end of his first sentence. Which given the situation can be clearly understood that he's mentioning the **recent** events that caused JP to be removed from the company (rightly so) because of the twitter exchange. And i thought you were so hot for context?

>

> To call that exchange "detailed, sexually explicit abuse" is the greatest lie i have yet to see in this thread.

>

> But i will humor you, show me where the supposed "detailed, sexually explicit abuse" came from BEFORE Deroir's twitter exchange with JP. I am very curious because, in fact, so far JP herself is the only one who has shown a severe amount of sexism in the form of misandry. Her mistrust in and disdain for the male gender is rampant if you took the time to actually look through her post history. There have been excellent summaries of her exchanges with other Guild Wars partners that come to mind, Jebro's exchange with her over the Infinity War movie is a prime example of her warped way of thinking. It's literally cringe worthy, Infinity War might not be the best movie in existence but to call Thanos a "pseudo-kitten" (edit: don't know if it shows or not, but apperantly we cannot mention a certain german gentlemen who had a big hand in WW2) and the movie itself having "cheap holocaust metaphors" can only come from the mental workings of a lunatic:

>

>

>

> Let's continue on, also take a look at the following what Tris says shall we?

>

> "The **official statement** from Mike himself, stating that a single unprofessionally snarky Twitter thread expressing frustration at being habitually belittled = "attacking the community"

>

> So let's start getting this straight here, her _single_ twitter thread (which is another great lie, since there were obviously multiple threads, against more then 1 person where she was unprofessionally rude against pretty much everyone) where she expressed frustration at Deroir's polite attempt at conversation with someone who we have learned he greatly admired. You can literally read that she is not mentioning anything about any sort of previous "habitual belittlement" but she is expressing clear disdain over this single situation. And then yes, sure, other people come in and she also starts being incredibly rude to them.

>

> Granted I don't think your extreme lack of reading comprehension and failure to actually read into the context of someone who was trying to put this into the "bigger-picture perspective" (basically lie) is... ahem... healthy. In fact, somewhat similar to Price's response to Deroir, though i think you also missed a lot of context in that situation too given that you still somewhat blame Deroir for this. Like really? Being in the wrong place and wrong time has got nothing to do with the instant amount of flak he got from JP, who immediately pulled the gender card, from simply trying to have a meaningful conversation with someone who he thought the world of.

>

> P.s. i will leave Deroir's post-situation thoughts here for you to ponder over. Look at this clip, skip to around 4:40 and listen....listen very carefully, lest you miss any of that juicy context: https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/8wnkw8/deroirs_response_to_the_incident/

>

> P.p.s. Just to give you more of that juicy context you're so hot for, here is what he thought of Jessica before the twitter fiasco: https://clips.twitch.tv/CrypticMistyStingrayDxCat

 

Sorry for @-ing you twice as you seem to certainly not like me (ah well can't all be keepers) but in my case at least, this incident put Deroir on my radar as someone who does content creation for Guild Wars 2, and he certainly seems like someone I don't mind watching content for. And I sincerely hope that he is able to move forward from this and isn't the target of further attacks.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

> @"Manasa Devi.7958" said:

> > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:> As a result, and after having seen several of her tweets, I am not surprised she was fired as a rather hostile individual. If I was an employer, I likely would have fired her over other tweets before now. But the overall statement from ArenaNet hasn't acknowledged the other bits of fallout that have resulted from her behavior in this instance. And, in an effort to try and learn from this, that is my current concern.

> ArenaNet can't win here. If they're keeping most of the dirty laundry in-house, which is pretty much the professional norm in situations like this, they lose control of the narrative. If they air out _everything_, they'll be crucified as bullies.

 

Yes that is a sad fact and lest we forget, while all is this is going on the rest of ANET are left to pick up the pieces and carry on doing their utmost to produce content, support the game, and its community whilst likely still trying to figure out why JP acted liked she did, said what she said and what has it really achieved except to create a toxic cesspool filled with anger, mistrust and belligerence.

Which is why I absolutely respect that ANET dev that posted out a simple .. Cant Stop, Wont Stop!

[Dengar.1785]

> @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Rococo.8347" said:

> > > > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > > > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > > > > @"ponytheguardian.7439" said:

> > > > > > > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > > So are the 43 pages of people mostly defending Anet all "mobs" and not the players?

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Also, you do realize that each account profile shows the date of creation in their profile right? Isn't it a bit strange for someone who just joined to know better who are the players?

> > > > > >

> > > > > > I do know that. With thousands of hours in GW1 and hours in GW2 climbing, I could say I've been around here even before I created this forum account.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > And yes. Angry mobs of players who don't like some certain people or how they talk to their "gods", might go out there and escalate the drama even further to get what they want. Kitten as in GG hasn't gone anywhere. It's only evolved in a way that now it's targeting not only journalistic professionals, but also professionals anywhere.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > And all the members are not even Poorchan-crew.

> > > > >

> > > > > The only people I see escalating the drama are those who refuse to see how one employee's behavior was unnacceptable and try to twist that into somewhat a wrong-doing from an evil community.

> > > > > All these journalistic professionals are failing to represent situation from both angles and instead choose to be one sided. So yeah. Sorry but its a bit easy to blame a community over this. The "wips" like WP are the only one so far actually presenting the problem as it happened.

> > > >

> > > > I would suggest looking into more of the Twitter feeds regarding people outside the initial interaction, and it will give you a brief glimpse into the life of female game developers. The amount of blatantly sexist remarks being made by individuals reveals what these devs deal with constantly and often don't tell us. You don't need access to archives of psychological research to tell that it takes an impact, and this was apparently the breaking point.

> > > >

> > > > Sure she could have handled it better. And sure devs get toxic remarks in general. But female game devs definitely get their unfair share of toxic backlash, and oftentimes the criticism is purely based on sex and not even the work they do. As a result, this has really opened up a can of worms that ANet can't close now. All we can hope for is a more established response in the coming days better detailing their thoughts and plans moving forward.

> > >

> > > This is what's bothering me immensely, I may not agree with how she conveyed herself and would have been shocked if I had been on the receiving end myself, but the one blind spot even people like WP seem to have in all of this is that there is some aspects of sexism in this, many many comments on reddit ( and here) over that 24 hours were casually or blatantly sexist, some dodgy subs that dont give a fig about GW2 took interest and joined in, and frankly the reddit community appeared to accept them in. And now they are all crying that games journo's are claiming there was a hunt when there wasn't.

> > >

> > > There was a witch hunt and the reddit community fanned the flames - no matter how biased their reporting, there is no way this should have got the amount of heat that it did, the biggest outrage in the community for 7 years is some dev having a pop at a content maker - really??

> > >

> > > And if we are going to talk about a blatant disregard for the fact that sexism does exist in gaming ( and everywhere else) even WP makes a breast joke about clearly being a woman because he has to take heat from commentators sometimes, as if the occasional grief he gets is the same as the death threats and kitten threats, to say nothing of the second guessing etc they have to put up with, as if GG was a completely baseless.

> > >

> > > Just because the original comment from Deroir was likely not based in sexism doesn't mean that this whole clusterkitten is squeaky clean.

> >

> > All of this is after the initial exchange though. Please also realize that this is one of the first stories about GW2 which has gone mainstream in years. There is a ton of youtubers which are way bigger than WP who have covered this story. The heavily biased Kotaku and Polygon articles (interesting how the mainstream media diverges so much from a majority of the youtube content creators) will not have helped either. That is not so say that the first hour trolls did not have their feast.

> >

> > Please also do not lump together honest fans with trolls. The responses from JP were always addressed towards actual fans. She was the one who brought in the entire sexism issue (needlessly if one might add) and she was the one to use terminology as "mansplaining and rando kittten".

> >

> > > @"Rococo.8347" said:

> > > There was a witch hunt and the reddit community fanned the flames - no matter how biased their reporting, there is no way this should have got the amount of heat that it did, the biggest outrage in the community for 7 years is some dev having a pop at a content maker - really??

> >

> > If it makes the mainstream, having a developer mistreat a client is big news. There is no sugar coating this no matter how much you point at the big bad work environment which is so unfair to women. That's like all those excuses made when once again an innocent black man gets shot in the US by police. "Oh but we had to go by previous experiences and he was acting suspicious ." Treat every encounter as it's own and stop making excuses. Everything else is unprofessional.

> >

> > Just like JPs tweet about TB was of not that big an issue. Once pushed into the spotlight it became an issue.

>

> I think that is something a lot of people forget in the heat of the moment. Most of the fans are better than this. As people call it in politics, "the silent majority." It's a shame to see a tiny group of vocal players with nasty opinions try and take advantage of this. I am currently not a fan of her Twitter feed after having seen some of her tweets, and I find it quite disappointing she was extremely hostile in this scenario. But the result of this fiasco has had a ripple effect in the industry that has to be addressed, ironically worsening the problem she was so opposed to.

 

I really fail to see which problem is ‘getting worse’ though. There have always been kittens on the internet... And now there are still kittens on the internet... So... Nothing has changed?

 

And if we’re talking about a ‘precedent’ of people getting fired for bad PR, that was set many years ago. Again, no change.

[Cryoguard.7942]

> @"Manasa Devi.7958" said:

> > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:> As a result, and after having seen several of her tweets, I am not surprised she was fired as a rather hostile individual. If I was an employer, I likely would have fired her over other tweets before now. But the overall statement from ArenaNet hasn't acknowledged the other bits of fallout that have resulted from her behavior in this instance. And, in an effort to try and learn from this, that is my current concern.

> ArenaNet can't win here. If they're keeping most of the dirty laundry in-house, which is pretty much the professional norm in situations like this, they lose control of the narrative. If they air out _everything_, they'll be crucified as bullies.

 

Unfortunately you're probably right. But then again, most of these situations are never free from some sort of mess or have an easy decision to make moving forward.

[Cryoguard.7942]

> @"Dengar.1785" said:

> > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > @"Rococo.8347" said:

> > > > > @"Cryoguard.7942" said:

> > > > > > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > > > > > @"ponytheguardian.7439" said:

> > > > > > > > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > So are the 43 pages of people mostly defending Anet all "mobs" and not the players?

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > Also, you do realize that each account profile shows the date of creation in their profile right? Isn't it a bit strange for someone who just joined to know better who are the players?

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > I do know that. With thousands of hours in GW1 and hours in GW2 climbing, I could say I've been around here even before I created this forum account.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > And yes. Angry mobs of players who don't like some certain people or how they talk to their "gods", might go out there and escalate the drama even further to get what they want. Kitten as in GG hasn't gone anywhere. It's only evolved in a way that now it's targeting not only journalistic professionals, but also professionals anywhere.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > And all the members are not even Poorchan-crew.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > The only people I see escalating the drama are those who refuse to see how one employee's behavior was unnacceptable and try to twist that into somewhat a wrong-doing from an evil community.

> > > > > > All these journalistic professionals are failing to represent situation from both angles and instead choose to be one sided. So yeah. Sorry but its a bit easy to blame a community over this. The "wips" like WP are the only one so far actually presenting the problem as it happened.

> > > > >

> > > > > I would suggest looking into more of the Twitter feeds regarding people outside the initial interaction, and it will give you a brief glimpse into the life of female game developers. The amount of blatantly sexist remarks being made by individuals reveals what these devs deal with constantly and often don't tell us. You don't need access to archives of psychological research to tell that it takes an impact, and this was apparently the breaking point.

> > > > >

> > > > > Sure she could have handled it better. And sure devs get toxic remarks in general. But female game devs definitely get their unfair share of toxic backlash, and oftentimes the criticism is purely based on sex and not even the work they do. As a result, this has really opened up a can of worms that ANet can't close now. All we can hope for is a more established response in the coming days better detailing their thoughts and plans moving forward.

> > > >

> > > > This is what's bothering me immensely, I may not agree with how she conveyed herself and would have been shocked if I had been on the receiving end myself, but the one blind spot even people like WP seem to have in all of this is that there is some aspects of sexism in this, many many comments on reddit ( and here) over that 24 hours were casually or blatantly sexist, some dodgy subs that dont give a fig about GW2 took interest and joined in, and frankly the reddit community appeared to accept them in. And now they are all crying that games journo's are claiming there was a hunt when there wasn't.

> > > >

> > > > There was a witch hunt and the reddit community fanned the flames - no matter how biased their reporting, there is no way this should have got the amount of heat that it did, the biggest outrage in the community for 7 years is some dev having a pop at a content maker - really??

> > > >

> > > > And if we are going to talk about a blatant disregard for the fact that sexism does exist in gaming ( and everywhere else) even WP makes a breast joke about clearly being a woman because he has to take heat from commentators sometimes, as if the occasional grief he gets is the same as the death threats and kitten threats, to say nothing of the second guessing etc they have to put up with, as if GG was a completely baseless.

> > > >

> > > > Just because the original comment from Deroir was likely not based in sexism doesn't mean that this whole clusterkitten is squeaky clean.

> > >

> > > All of this is after the initial exchange though. Please also realize that this is one of the first stories about GW2 which has gone mainstream in years. There is a ton of youtubers which are way bigger than WP who have covered this story. The heavily biased Kotaku and Polygon articles (interesting how the mainstream media diverges so much from a majority of the youtube content creators) will not have helped either. That is not so say that the first hour trolls did not have their feast.

> > >

> > > Please also do not lump together honest fans with trolls. The responses from JP were always addressed towards actual fans. She was the one who brought in the entire sexism issue (needlessly if one might add) and she was the one to use terminology as "mansplaining and rando kittten".

> > >

> > > > @"Rococo.8347" said:

> > > > There was a witch hunt and the reddit community fanned the flames - no matter how biased their reporting, there is no way this should have got the amount of heat that it did, the biggest outrage in the community for 7 years is some dev having a pop at a content maker - really??

> > >

> > > If it makes the mainstream, having a developer mistreat a client is big news. There is no sugar coating this no matter how much you point at the big bad work environment which is so unfair to women. That's like all those excuses made when once again an innocent black man gets shot in the US by police. "Oh but we had to go by previous experiences and he was acting suspicious ." Treat every encounter as it's own and stop making excuses. Everything else is unprofessional.

> > >

> > > Just like JPs tweet about TB was of not that big an issue. Once pushed into the spotlight it became an issue.

> >

> > I think that is something a lot of people forget in the heat of the moment. Most of the fans are better than this. As people call it in politics, "the silent majority." It's a shame to see a tiny group of vocal players with nasty opinions try and take advantage of this. I am currently not a fan of her Twitter feed after having seen some of her tweets, and I find it quite disappointing she was extremely hostile in this scenario. But the result of this fiasco has had a ripple effect in the industry that has to be addressed, ironically worsening the problem she was so opposed to.

>

> I really fail to see which problem is ‘getting worse’ though. There have always been kittens on the internet... And now there are still kittens on the internet... So... Nothing has changed?

>

> And if we’re talking about a ‘precedent’ of people getting fired for bad PR, that was set many years ago. Again, no change.

 

Mostly just those people harassing female developers with a renewed vigor. It's less "more people" and just "same people harassing more." Which no one wants to hear them any more than we have to I think.

[Julischka Bean.7491]

> @"Briolase.7306" said:

> I've uninstalled. I know none of you care and will probably attack me for my disagreement. This entire thread and its contents are the reason I've left the game. I no longer feel welcome, as a woman, and as a person who disagrees with the ravening horde. I don't agree with Mike O'Brien's hasty actions in firing JP and PF, but I understand that he's human, that he might have panicked in the face of internet outrage. His statement here was a non-statement, and his statement to polygon wasn't much better. Whether or not his actions were a direct reaction to the outrage or not, he should have known that his actions would embolden the worst of the internet. It has divided the community, it has turned this community into a place where I no longer feel comfortable. The values portrayed in game - the inclusion of women, people of color, the lgbt community, and the disabled - seems to not be reflected behind the scenes. It is disheartening and depressing.

>

> This thread is full of people crowing with glee over two people whose careers have been derailed, their lives upended. Anyone who disagrees with the mob is shouted down, accused of "siding with bullies" or of having political motives, or even of not being a part of the community. I've been playing since beta. I love this game. GW2 is my therapy for a stressful life and an anxiety disorder. But I don't feel welcome anymore.

>

> I suppose I should not be surprised by the attitudes expressed by so many players, but I always held GW2's community to higher standards. I should have known all this ugliness was lurking beneath the surface just waiting to be unleashed by an event such as this.

>

> Yes yes, I know, I'm the toxic one for daring to disagree with this morbid celebration. Yes yes, I know, you're glad I'm leaving. And no, you can't have my stuff.

 

I care. This will pass when the next big problem occurs. As a customer, why don't you feel welcome as a woman???? I am a woman and I feel comfortable.

 

If it makes you feel better, while I feel Jessica went over the line and deserved firing, I do not feel that way about Peter. He defended a coworker..probably had one too many Fourth of july beers in him to recognize exactly what it was his coworker was actually saying..he just defended a coworker who he perceived as being picked on. I would not be outraged if they brought back Peter. He did not say anything bad to the streamer in question, just defended Jessica in a show of maybe drunken misplaced loyalty.

 

That's my story and I am sticking to it :)

 

Lisa.

 

[Jukhy.2431]

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> So I went over the polygon article, and the amount of irony and hypocrisy is staggering.

 

Did the same and have to agree, it is very depressing to read.

I feel sorry for all the Anet employees and O'Brien for having to deal with this kittenstorm.

 

And your post was such a great read - much kudos for writing it!

[Lanhelin.3480]

> @"lilypop.7819" said:

> > @"Lanhelin.3480" said:

> > There are lots of native speakers here, so I have a question. In a face-to-face communication if one wants to say "one", one would say "one" and not "you", right? Because Deroir wrote in his Twitter conversation with JP:

> >

> > "When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC. (2 of 3)" - could it be possible that JP took all the yous in this sentence personal and not understood them as "one" like Deroir most likely meant?

> >

> > "When you want ... then yes, by design you are extremely limited ..." - What would my design be? To be a woman, ofc. And JP as a story writer most likely is much more sensitive with words and wording than people who do not work with language that way.

> >

> > Couldn't this just have been a big misunderstanding?

>

> Assuming you are not a native speaker :)

>

> 'one' is generally considered rather a pompous way of speaking and is rarely used - you would get some very odd looks from native speakers if used a lot! Where it is used in often a preluded to a joke, for example, ('One does not simply walk into the gates of ..) meme.

>

> This does present 'you' with a problem - seldom present in other languages - when it comes to the internet, but native speakers tend to handle it very well, naturally, both peeps here are native. Sometimes taken 'you' the wrong way is just a poly to personalise and/or redirect/dodge an argument you don't have a response for, it's lazy thinking. It would be quite rare for a native speaker to make this sort of mistake giving the length of the correspondences - it's only really tricky with very sort messages with low contextual clues.

>

> In Old English 'youse' and 'yous' were used for the plural and this is true today in many spoken UK dialects, but the educationalists stamped this out in the writing form.

 

Well, I guess it's time to talk to my english teacher who told us never to use "you" instead of "one". Though this was 25 years ago, so I probably will just write "you" instead of "one" in future and remember just the good things about the teacher :-)

[Julischka Bean.7491]

One last post from me on this thread...maybe :)

 

Earlier, I proposed that Peter had one too many beers in him, and in a happily fuzzy state of mind, just saw that Jessica appeared to be attacked by a streamer and defended her. Hey, it was the Fourth of July...kitten happens when you have beer coursing through your veins.

 

Well, I had shut down the computer, and was getting my mom's morning meds ready, when a thought struck me. What if Jessica had been chugging down beers as well, and her thought processes were muddled???

 

Her happily muddled brain interpreted the streamer as attacking her, and when you are muddled with drink, your inhibitions are gone, and you say what you think..whether or not those thoughts are correct is another story.

 

If that was the case, I think a stern lecture on why you do not post tipsy/or drunk on twitter, a write up and making a public apology explaining what had happened was all that was needed as a first offense. Second offense feel free to fire, as they have been warned.

 

But who wants to admit they posted drunk/tipsy on twitter...

 

Lisa.

 

[JoEWas.1409]

Polygon article really slammed the company, but bias media outlets only look for the blood. Clearly the blood was in her words and now this publicly shames ANet and no questions to her character at all to consider the story. Another woman got fired from a job, must be sexist pig men opposing womens rights. :trollface: Way to go media :+1:

 

Maybe she should have been part for WvW team, not even ANet really cares what happens in that part of their game, lol.. :trollface:

[Julischka Bean.7491]

> @"JoEWas.1409" said:

> Polygon article really slammed the company, but bias media outlets only look for the blood. Clearly the blood was in her words and now this publicly shames ANet and no questions to her character at all to consider the story. Another woman got fired from a job, must be sexist pig men opposing womens rights. :trollface: Way to go media :+1:

>

> Maybe she should have been part for WvW team, not even ANet really cares what happens in that part of their game, lol.. :trollface:

 

Some of those "mee too" accusers have admitted they lied to get attention. Bah.

 

She is blaming everybody, and everything, to desperately avoid taking personal responsibility for her own actions. Bah.

 

Lisa.