Bioware faces fierce backlash after a developer (now fired) mocks TotalBiscuit's death

[GilmourD]

19 hours ago, asus killer said:

i'm sure these dude wasn't the first to celebrate a death, and not the only to celebrate this particular death being a critic and a celebrity. The bioware dev just has turrets i guess, most would keep it for themselves.

 

Human nature folks, nothing to see here.

I could see celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden or Hitler, but a YouTuber that didn't hurt anybody with anything but words? This guy had to have a black heart to think that way.

[JuNex03]

Wanna see more cringe from these types of people?

[Eaglerino]

Aha, always the nazis and #@!%ing white males

[D13H4RD]

3 hours ago, JuNex03 said:

Wanna see more cringe from these types of people?

Some people... 

 

I don't know why, but while you are well within your rights to have a different opinion, mocking his death just because of that and accusing others of whining when you did so yourself is just vile. 

[WereCat]

This doesn't deserve any attention. It's just sad...

[JuNex03]

2 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Some people... 

 

I don't know why, but while you are well within your rights to have a different opinion, mocking his death just because of that and accusing others of whining when you did so yourself is just vile. 

They just love kicking a man while he is literally down.

[Bcat00]

7 hours ago, alphaproject said:

 

Uuuh, ya he should be fired. He doesn't just represent himself in that comment, he also represented a company whether he liked it or not.

If i were running a business and one of my employee goes on a racist rant in front of my customers, would I fire him or give him a medal of applause?

 

Now you get it?

[alphaproject]

I get it, but I just don't agree. Life is the worst part of everything.... Death is the peaceful part.

 

TB is better off where he is now than suffering from Cancer trust me. MY mom died of it in Novemember and I could not wait till she just died. A person that is better off dead... clearly should not be mourned.  There is a big difference like an accidental, sudden death like car accident vs years of torturous cancer.

 

I mourned my mother the very last time I saw her and she lived a good month after. A lot of people have no freaking clue what it takes out of you to see someone die from cancer so trust me.... his loved ones were already probably mourning him for a long time.... There is a point of no return and he was long past it. The guy sounded miserable.

 

If someone didn't like him, he should have the right to say so without getting fired. It's words.... and they do not affect anyone in reality like the actual disease of cancer or anything else that actually affects your life. Words are a joke....

[Thaldor]

11 hours ago, alphaproject said:

-snip-

He didn't get fired because of his opinion, he got fired because he was publicly stating he works for BioWare/EA (in his description) and stating his opinion which ended up hurting the image of the company with his opinion.

 

This is same as why you don't go to a protest in your work uniform and around 90% of companies will fire you if you do so and get yourself to some headlines. It's not because of your opinion, it's because at the moment you are representing your employer who doesn't share your opinion or doesn't want to make their opinion public. And even if going to something like Pride would be seen as good PR for the company, it's not up to you as employee to make the decision what is the companys opinion, it's up to marketing and company leads.

 

David Crooks opinion on TBs death would probably have been a fart in a desert if he didn't have "Programmer at BioWare" in his description and straight up said that "TB pissed on few of my games and I'm going to piss on his grave" (and he probably means Watch_Dogs and ME: Andromeda which both got deserved critics). I can quarantee that any companys first step in PR damage control list is "Publicly fire the cause and make sure to say they were ramblings of an ex-employee and doesn't represent the company that the now fired earlier worked for" and probably as a side note "Underline words "fired", "ex-employee" and "earlier" so it's clear that guy doesn't work for us anymore and never will".

 

And probably Crooks backflash won't stop there. Comparing that BioWare needed to step up and make a public statement on the matter, Crooks opinion has gained quite a lot of publicity and not the good kind of. Which may also mean that he might have a lot of trouble to get a new job at least in game development if he isn't god-like coder whos skills can overcome the possibility and effects of a PR disaster. Poor guy, got fired because of his personal opinions and because of those personal opinions he might have hard time finding a new job now that those opinions are public.

[Sauron]

On 27/5/2018 at 1:12 AM, TheSLSAMG said:

What a disgrace. John certainly had his failings but to mock his death is a move that lacks any semblance of dignity.

Especially considering this came from a guy who was just salty because their games got criticised... "Crooks" is a really fitting name.

On 27/5/2018 at 1:50 AM, Cyanara said:

I know nothing about this TotalBiscuit guy, and I get that there's a lot of outrage here at a substantial social faux pas, but just to be clear, no one is disputing these allegations? He was genuinely horrible to people for not being of the same ethnicity or gender as himself?

I've seen the edit but I feel like chiming in myself - no, he was never racist or mysoginistic. He could be abrasive at times, but blind hate was never a part of his personality (at least as far as I could tell in the years I followed his content).

On 27/5/2018 at 3:38 AM, LtRavens said:

But now he doesn't have a job, so that's always fun lol.

What's more, he'll probably never work in the industry again.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Thaldor said:

if he isn't god-like coder whos skills can overcome the possibility and effects of a PR disaster. Poor guy, got fired because of his personal opinions and because of those personal opinions he might have hard time finding a new job now that those opinions are public.

Even if he were John Carmack there's a limit to what you can get away with because of your skill. In the modern games industry, nobody is irreplaceable. A studio like Bioware employs hundreds of people and dozens of programmers, one guy doesn't have enough of an impact to be considered crucial.

 

As for the "poor guy" bit, I think he got exactly what he deserved. PR disaster or not, only a sociopath writes a rant like his against a guy who just died. He didn't even have the balls to say this to his face when he was alive... truly disgusting.

[Trixanity]

Even if he was correct, he's still an asshole. That's the key element here. He could have voiced his opinion prior to his death or a few months after if he really needed to but he chose the day (or was it the day after?) of a person's death to dance on his grave. 

That's bad for business for Bioware. They had very little choice but fire him. It's not uncommon for companies to fire employees who publically act like assholes or publish polarizing opinions. For example a guy was fired for stating on TV that he didn't care about speed limits while wearing clothes with the company logo on it (should be noted he'd been on TV before where he was actually caught speeding in one of those police/crime shows so his words did carry weight). It's a fireable offense to cast a poor reflection on the company in many company policies and that's what this guy did.

 

Even if he never got fired, he'd still be an asshole. There's just some things you don't do and this is one of them. It goes beyond a simple faux pas. 

[Agonizel]

It would've been nice to have at least a new Dragon Age game before this obscene tweet ruined BioWare's reputation

[Mutoh]

Imagine holding a grudge for 6 years and saying nothing during that entire period and then once the guy is dead and can't defend himself, you literally post that you're happy he's dead and post pictures of axes because you're a psycho with a self-proclaimed "axe to grind" and then go on a literal tirade of butthurt because he didn't like the NFS: Rivals port on PC and because he though ME:3 was shit and you so happened to be a dev on those titles.

 

 

That's the guy that some people are defending right now. 

[ItsMitch]

 

The other developer who defended the shitty comments the ex developer has issued an apology. He probably got screamed at by HR and management thats for sure

[Thaldor]

40 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Even if he were John Carmack there's a limit to what you can get away with because of your skill. In the modern games industry, nobody is irreplaceable. A studio like Bioware employs hundreds of people and dozens of programmers, one guy doesn't have enough of an impact to be considered crucial.

 

As for the "poor guy" bit, I think he got exactly what he deserved. PR disaster or not, only a sociopath writes a rant like his against a guy who just died. He didn't even have the balls to say this to his face when he was alive... truly disgusting.

If it wasn't clear, that "poor guy" bit was 120% sarcasm He got exactly what he bargained for and probably will get some extra with it.

 

He probably had something like senior programmer title and bad luck at those levels employers start to make background checks and something like this pops up he is in very disadvantage. Companies rather hire someone with medicore skills and hope (s)he gets better than someone with good skills and has a background of PR disaster. And as there's a lot of triers to get into the gaming business even having a flopped game in your resume might cause that you don't get the chances your skills only might give you (as in I wouldn't put something like ME:A to my resume if I was an animator or put something like Digital Homicide at all), because no one can be 100% sure if you were the reason why that game was so bad and taking that risk is quite a big et least if there's other options.

[JuNex03]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

-snip-

probably... plus a threat to withhold all benefits until he publicly apologizes.

[Godlygamer23]

7 hours ago, alphaproject said:

If someone didn't like him, he should have the right to say so without getting fired. It's words.... and they do not affect anyone in reality like the actual disease of cancer or anything else that actually affects your life. Words are a joke....

You're denying reality if you think words have no power. 

I'm fairly certain that if someone significant in your life disowned you and said horrible things about you, you'd be hurt. Words may not have the same impact as cancer, but they are tied to emotions, and emotions are very powerful. Just look at the number of people that end their lives because they can't deal with their emotions.

 

Words absolutely can scar people for the rest of their lives. 

[Voids]

Well there's a guy who isn't humble. Someone tell him to act his age and be more professional. 

[Centurius]

16 hours ago, alphaproject said:

Fired for giving your opinion is not really a fair thing to do in my opinion. I'm not going to look into the specifics of it..... however the guy is dead.... he doesn't care what someone is going to say about him now. It's like if a tree falls in the forest, do you hear it.... no....

 

Way too PC now a days.  If someone wants to rag on me when I'm dead, go right ahead.

 

One guy's opinion should not get him fired. I'm sure he could have worded it a bit different but... good lord and man should not lose his job over a youtuber.... The guy sat in his home making videos. He didn't saved people from burning buildings.

Causing financial damage to your company is a valid reason to be fired. Even in personal interactions (and especially when you mention your employer in your bio) you represent that company. If your words end up damaging that company's PR they absolutely have the right to kick you onto the streets.

[dalekphalm]

Here's my take:

 

Bioware didn't make those comments. Bioware shouldn't be punished for a douche bag dev who wants to disrespected a person who died of cancer. Had they defended his actions, or had they kept him employed, then you can blame Bioware - but they didn't.

 

Some users here might not like the "left" leaning political and moral values of Bioware or most of it's employees, but that shouldn't give you an excuse to shit on them when they did nothing wrong.

[Zodiark1593]

17 hours ago, alphaproject said:

Fired for giving your opinion is not really a fair thing to do in my opinion. I'm not going to look into the specifics of it..... however the guy is dead.... he doesn't care what someone is going to say about him now. It's like if a tree falls in the forest, do you hear it.... no....

 

Way too PC now a days.  If someone wants to rag on me when I'm dead, go right ahead.

 

One guy's opinion should not get him fired. I'm sure he could have worded it a bit different but... good lord and man should not lose his job over a youtuber.... The guy sat in his home making videos. He didn't saved people from burning buildings.

According to law, he is only protected from government prosecution for his opinion. He isn't entirely protected from consequence however, which in this case, came from his employer.

[Andreas Lilja]

You usually sign a contract encouraging you not to be an assclown on the web.

[EPENEX]

Gaming companies can be brutal over what you say. I use to work for Activision, and someone once asked if I was pre-ordering Infinite Warfare, on a forum, and I replied no. When someone at Activision saw it they must have reported it because I got a stern talking to over putting the company in a "bad light" and those were the end of my days at Activision.

[D13H4RD]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Here's my take:

 

Bioware didn't make those comments. Bioware shouldn't be punished for a douche bag dev who wants to disrespected a person who died of cancer. Had they defended his actions, or had they kept him employed, then you can blame Bioware - but they didn't.

 

Some users here might not like the "left" leaning political and moral values of Bioware or most of it's employees, but that shouldn't give you an excuse to shit on them when they did nothing wrong.

Thing is that whenever an employee publicly states that they're working for a company, whatever that employee says may be reflected onto the company by some unless it is stated "Whatever I post is strictly my opinion and does not reflect the views of the company I work at".

 

Had it been mentioned, he probably would've kept his job. I'm all for free-speech, but there will always be a line drawn