Fired Guild Wars dev rails against the community (shades of GamerGate)

[Ryujin2003]

54 minutes ago, fpo said:

Not to tell you how to think, but in my eyes, anyone that gets mad or has aggression on the internet is always wrong.

You’re 1: mean and a crude person

2: feeding the trolls

3: a combination of the 2. 

 

Yeah i get people that troll themselves but the best ones hardly do anything & get the person to feed you through the smallest remarks. 

I understand the troll thing, and I generally go by the person who immediately escalates a situation online is generally the guilty party because they either baited someone else or are just using the internet to beat down on others to justify their own existence.

 

I wanted to read the initial conversation so I could see how it came to be, and I have to be honest... I'm left torn. I can see where it ended up, and I agree with the decision. If I owned a company, I wouldn't want to continue to employ someone that has the potential to cause a rift in the player community. However, Price had the ability to not respond. She had the ability to control her own actions. And with that said...

 

I don't know how I feel with the initial interaction... Price's response could have just been an attempt to be funny and playful, and then everything got took out of context on both sides, or Price was immediately insulted. Which I wouldn't understand. As a person who sort of plays RPGs, I can definitely state that I really hate linear RPG. Ok, so I have different conversation choices, but in the end, everything is the same. So it doesn't matter, so I don't pay attention.

 

Give me KOTOR, where the conversation leads to growth and divergence in the story, the branching he was talking about, and yes, that is a much better written narrative.

 

So on the narrative part, I can say I agree with both sides; however, my personal opinion is in the branching storyline that can change the ending.

 

I really believe all of this could have been mitigated if more clarity in the responses was present. This isn't the first time that meaning may have been lost in translation depending on how it was interpreted. If you were in a grumpy mood, you may read Price's response as being bitchy. However, if you were in a happy mood, you might just see it as light humor. Who knows.

 

TLDR: Price had the ability to not respond any longer and to be the grown up. She missed that boat. Her being an employee of a company doesn't mean her off-clock actions have to impact or recourse with them. I am not getting paid now, but I can assure that if I did something that my company didn't agree with, it could be grounds for disciplinary action, to include being fired. And I accept that. And it is because of this that I don't use the internet as a medium to do whatever I want without fear of repercussions in my actual life.

 

If everyone lived by the gospel of Wil Wheaton, we would all live better lives.

[MageTank]

30 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

Sure, Twitter is a public platform. So is going to a coffee shop or a restaurant. Do you think it's perfectly acceptable to bud into someones life with a "well actually" if you happen to overhear them say something about a topic that you have no real experience in without being asked?

In society, that's generally considered a rude thing to do... Though that sense of rudeness seems to go out the window when that person whose conversation that you're budding into happens to be a Woman. And yes, of course it happens to Men, too. But do they get all offended when us Men defend our boundaries on how we engage others who have no business being in the conversation?

While I understand the point you are trying to make, it's not a valid one given the context of this story. Had her tweet been addressed to a specific entity, then you'd be on to something, but it was just a general statement on a public forum. It would be more akin to me saying "Man, the weather is terrible today" to myself in public, and someone else chiming in with their opinion on the weather. When words are directed to nobody specific, then anybody can chime in at any time. 

 

You can also read the entire context on her twitter: 

As you can see, it was addressed to anyone that was reading her twitter, and therefore it's open for anyone to respond.

 

She stated her opinion on player character design in MMO's, and even discussed with others that found her posts interesting. One mentioned studying drama and theology, to which she replied "That's so cool!". She had no issues with people agreeing with her statements, it was not until there was a differing opinion that she became frustrated. I don't have a problem with her being frustrated, nor do I disagree with her points on character design, because having played GW2 since it's launch, she describes it almost exactly how it feels. I don't even have a problem with the way she responded, because she is entitled to respond in any way she deems fit, just like I don't blame ArenaNet's reaction of terminating an employee that demeans a customer while publicly identifying themselves as an employee.

 

This entire situation has nothing to do with the employee being female, and everything to do with them choosing to represent the company on social media, and then act shocked when they are fired for having an aggressive back and forth with the customers of their employer. The only thing that struck me as odd, was that it appears ArenaNet did not give her the option of apologizing for her lapse in judgement, and instead chose an instant termination. 

[Arika]

44 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

Sure, Twitter is a public platform. So is going to a coffee shop or a restaurant. Do you think it's perfectly acceptable to bud into someones life with a "well actually" if you happen to overhear them say something about a topic that you have no real experience in without being asked?

That's still not a related situation. it would be more like she was standing up and talking in general to everyone in the coffee shop and then people responded to her with their own ideas..

 

You use twitter so that people that follow you will respond to you and see what you're writing about, that's the whole point.

 

This is not a gender issue.

[Thaldor]

16 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

Sure, Twitter is a public platform. So is going to a coffee shop or a restaurant. Do you think it's perfectly acceptable to bud into someones life with a "well actually" if you happen to overhear them say something about a topic that you have no real experience in without being asked?

In society, that's generally considered a rude thing to do... Though that sense of rudeness seems to go out the window when that person whose conversation that you're budding into happens to be a Woman. And yes, of course it happens to Men, too. But do they get all offended when us Men defend our boundaries on how we engage others who have no business being in the conversation?

But there are times when it's a grey zone. Example you are giving a lecture about game development and after the lecture you go to the nearby pub to have few beers, in the pub is also bunch of those who were following the lecture and you start to discuss about game development with your friend, of course those who were in the lecture will try to put their heads in or even start a conversation with you about game development. Reading through Prices tweets it's not that clear wheter she is just rambling on by herself for her friends or is she writing more like a company blog on how GW2 characters are written and right after Reddit AMA that inspired her to write those tweets.

 

It's not that hard to make your personal social media account private and if you want to talk about your work maybe make another account for that to make it clear for 90% of population that the first account is your personal account ment for personal things and the second one is more public. If you can't handle that people will comment and criticise what you tell them about your work on your social media, maybe it's better to start some kind of company blog where staff can write about their work and comments are handled by the staff that want to do it, can do it and especially are good with customer service. I know it's a lot of work and makes things harder, but at least you are not on the verge of creating PR nighmare by writing something public when you have a bad day and someones comment brushes you the wrong way.

 

So, please game devs, write about your game and how it's coming up and what's happening in your company. But keep it separated from your personal accounts that are more ment for your friends and family. Social media is very powerful tool to market and create community, but it is also very good at creating PR disasters when not used correctly.

[Derangel]

56 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

Sure, Twitter is a public platform. So is going to a coffee shop or a restaurant. Do you think it's perfectly acceptable to bud into someones life with a "well actually" if you happen to overhear them say something about a topic that you have no real experience in without being asked?

In society, that's generally considered a rude thing to do... Though that sense of rudeness seems to go out the window when that person whose conversation that you're budding into happens to be a Woman. And yes, of course it happens to Men, too. But do they get all offended when us Men defend our boundaries on how we engage others who have no business being in the conversation?

Except that isn't what happened. Did you even read the entire thing or are you just assuming you know what happened? There was no "well actually". She addressed, to all over her followers, her opinion on a topic related to her job. One of her followers (following a public Reddit AMA she had just done) gave his take on the subject. He was clearly trying to open a dialog with her, based on what she had said. When you make a general public address to anyone reading, there is no "butting in" taking place when someone replies. There was nothing rude about him respectfully giving his thoughts. Gender is 100% irrelevant in this situation.

 

She didn't "defend her boundaries" she attacked a customer. If she had politely replied that she didn't want to discuss it or that Twitter was the wrong place for that conversation nothing would have happened. Instead she went off on him and tried to publicly shame him, for being polite, to her 11+ thousand followers. There is absolutely nothing defensible about her reaction. Stop trying to turn this into a gender issue. It's not and never will be. Calling a polite customer an asshat is NEVER appropriate. If you think that is an appropriate reaction its probably a good thing you don't like engaging with customers.

[PocketNerd]

3 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Except that isn't what happened. Did you even read the entire thing or are you just assuming you know what happened? There was no "well actually". She addressed, to all over her followers, her opinion on a topic related to her job. One of her followers (following a public Reddit AMA she had just done) gave his take on the subject. He was clearly trying to open a dialog with her, based on what she had said. When you make a general public address to anyone reading, there is no "butting in" taking place when someone replies. There was nothing rude about him respectfully giving his thoughts. Gender is 100% irrelevant in this situation.

 

She didn't "defend her boundaries" she attacked a customer. If she had politely replied that she didn't want to discuss it or that Twitter was the wrong place for that conversation nothing would have happened. Instead she went off on him and tried to publicly shame him, for being polite, to her 11+ thousand followers. There is absolutely nothing defensible about her reaction. Stop trying to turn this into a gender issue. It's not and never will be. Calling a polite customer an asshat is NEVER appropriate. If you think that is an appropriate reaction its probably a good thing you don't like engaging with customers.

To be clear, her language could have easily been better. I have no intention of defending that. What I'm attempting to communicate is the notion of how society seems to have a double-standard when professionals express boundaries based on the gender of the individual.

I've read the tweet, and my gut reaction was very much like yours and others on this thread. But after speaking with other Women and getting their perspectives on it, I understand the nuances of what's really going on.

[PocketNerd]

6 minutes ago, Fooshi said:

Jennifer is just as bad as Jessica Price.

 

People are tired of self-victimisation and inserting sexism/racism/homophobia/etc where there clearly is none, and backlash is extremely overdue. 

The irony is that backlash turns them into the very victim they suggest is "fake"

[Arika]

14 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

society seems to have a double-standard when professionals express boundaries based on the gender of the individual.

That's the problem though...this is not a gender issue, it's a weak excuse in an attempt to shut anyone down that doesn't agree with her.

[Derangel]

4 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

To be clear, her language could have easily been better. I have no intention of defending that. What I'm attempting to communicate is the notion of how society seems to have a double-standard when professionals express boundaries based on the gender of the individual.

I've read the tweet, and my gut reaction was very much like yours and others on this thread. But after speaking with other Women and getting their perspectives on it, I understand the nuances of what's really going on.

I can sympathize with what developers (male or female) have to deal with, but absolutely nothing in the Tweet comes off as deeming or disrespectful. Text being text makes tone nearly impossible to tell sometimes, but from his replies after Price got worked up it seems like he was genuine and just wanted to have a discussion.

 

If people want those boundaries they need to make sure to stick to them as well. Acting as an employee by discussing your work at a company and your approach to that work means you are blurring the line between professional account and personal account. When you broadcast your work to the public, people are going to respond to it with their own thoughts.

 

I can understand that sometimes it is harder for women in the industry, they do face some unique challenges and there are a lot of assholes out there. I think that makes it all the more important for people to try and remain professional, to not lash out. Price lashing out so harshly at an innocent Tweet not only makes her look bad, but does paint a target on anyone talking about women, or minority, issues in the game industry.

[PocketNerd]

11 minutes ago, Arika S said:

That's the problem though...this is not a gender issue, it's a weak excuse in an attempt to shut anyone down that doesn't agree with her.

 

9 minutes ago, Derangel said:

I can sympathize with what developers (male or female) have to deal with, but absolutely nothing in the Tweet comes off as deeming or disrespectful. Text being text makes tone nearly impossible to tell sometimes, but from his replies after Price got worked up it seems like he was genuine and just wanted to have a discussion.

 

If people want those boundaries they need to make sure to stick to them as well. Acting as an employee by discussing your work at a company and your approach to that work means you are blurring the line between professional account and personal account. When you broadcast your work to the public, people are going to respond to it with their own thoughts.

 

I can understand that sometimes it is harder for women in the industry, they do face some unique challenges and there are a lot of assholes out there. I think that makes it all the more important for people to try and remain professional, to not lash out. Price lashing out so harshly at an innocent Tweet not only makes her look bad, but does paint a target on anyone talking about women, or minority, issues in the game industry.

It's subtle, but there's two distinct points about Deroir's tweets that show the subtlety of the situation.

1) "However, allow me to disagree *slightly*." - Is another way of saying "Well, actually"

2) "You getting mad at my obvious attempt at creating dialogue and discussion with you, instead of just replying that I am wrong or otherwise correct me in my false assumptions, is really just disheartening for me. You do you though. I'm sorry if it offended. I'll leave you to it." - This one is a little more overt than it is subtle. There's a weirdly large attempt to try and paint his original statement for something other than what it actually is, on top of that you have the fake "Sorry If I actually did X" #sorrynotsorry type of apology.

The person may have had some legitimate ideas, ideas that are clearly obvious to someone in a professional writing space and aren't arm-chair devs. But the tone showed that there was a level of mutual respect missing from the beginning.

[Arika]

8 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

-snip-

and what does that have anything to do with her gender?

 

Spoiler:

Spoiler

It doesn't

 

[Derangel]

15 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

 

It's subtle, but there's two distinct points about Deroir's tweets that show the subtlety of the situation.

1) "However, allow me to disagree *slightly*." - Is another way of saying "Well, actually"

2) "You getting mad at my obvious attempt at creating dialogue and discussion with you, instead of just replying that I am wrong or otherwise correct me in my false assumptions, is really just disheartening for me. You do you though. I'm sorry if it offended. I'll leave you to it." - This one is a little more overt than it is subtle. There's a weirdly large attempt to try and paint his original statement for something other than what it actually is, on top of that you have the fake "Sorry If I actually did X" #sorrynotsorry type of apology.

The person may have had some legitimate ideas, ideas that are clearly obvious to someone in a professional writing space and aren't arm-chair devs. But the tone showed that there was a level of mutual respect missing from the beginning.

1. He also complimented Price before saying that. Saying "allow me to disagree slightly" is a polite way to follow up after giving a compliment. If he said "great post" and then jumped right into what he disagreed with it would make the compliment mocking. There needs to be some kind of transition between compliment and differing opinion in order to make the compliment look genuine. This is due to text being toneless by nature. There is probably a better way of doing that transition, but that doesn't automatically make it a "well actually".

 

2. I won't defend the tone of his apology, but I can understand why he'd go with that tone, especially if he had intended the initial posts to be a dialog. As I recall, his other apology was a bit less snide.

 

I tend to be a fairly blunt and direct person myself. I like to say what I'm thinking with as little bush beating as possible, so that's probably why I can look at his initial post and see it as more of a direct statement than something that is intentionally malicious. Of course, it does help that I'm not a public figure and I don't have to deal with people constantly offering their opinion on my work, likely offering the same advice ad nauseam. 

[ravenshrike]

5 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

*Women Developer attempts to produce boundaries between her and fans when she's on a personal account*

*Gets called out for being toxic*

Yeah... and we wonder why us Devs don't like to talk about our games...

Let's see, completely public facing twitter account explicitly describing herself as a dev for Arenanet. Yep, that's a personal account all right. I know I stand on street corners with a sign saying reply to me while advertising my place of work and don't expect anyone to talk to me.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

The person may have had some legitimate ideas, ideas that are clearly obvious to someone in a professional writing space and aren't arm-chair devs. But the tone showed that there was a level of mutual respect missing from the beginning.

The responding tone after the initial contact was influenced by the reply received, so basically all you are pointing out is that there was reciprocation in kind. If the later replies seemed like there was sub-context to them that would have been largely or solely due to the reply received, Jessica Price was the causation of that.

 

It may have gone differently and the undertone point may have been legitimate but we would only be able to tell if Jessica Price had not responded in the way she did, we can only judge based on what actually happened and she was the instigator of the issue not Deroir. Deroir's comments may have been unwanted, maybe even unwarranted but I disagree based on the full context of the story of events, but it is not justification of the response he got.

 

6 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

1) "However, allow me to disagree *slightly*." - Is another way of saying "Well, actually"

If you want to see it as a "Well, actually" then that is what you will see it as. Text is an imperfect means of communication when you want, need or try to perceive things like motives, feelings and intents. You have none of the extra inputs that you get from either in person or voice communication so attempts to try and perceive these things from text is fraught with difficulty and danger, don't do it unless you have to.

 

You can portray such things in text but you generally have to be rather direct about it.

[xAcid9]

5 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

Sure, Twitter is a public platform. So is going to a coffee shop or a restaurant. Do you think it's perfectly acceptable to bud into someones life with a "well actually" if you happen to overhear them say something about a topic that you have no real experience in without being asked?

This is more like going to a coffee shop or a restaurant and shout your public opinion to the public tbh. If you think everyone will ignore that then you're wrong. 

[PocketNerd]

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

and what does that have anything to do with her gender?

 

Spoiler:

  Reveal hidden contents

It doesn't

 

It does because it's a classic response when trying to shut down the opinions or facts produced by Women.

[Quadriplegic]

7 hours ago, CoolMarquis97 said:

Guess, I truly am in the minority here. Yeah, she was rude to the guy, but I don't think she said anything that wild that demanded her to be fired. Gamers all the time pretend to know more than the actual developer, and she checked the dude about it and that should've been that. 

Because it is posssible that gamers know about the game more than a random developer. Huge game like Guild Wars is developed by a big team of devs, not a single person.

[Arika]

4 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

It does because it's a classic response when trying to shut down the opinions or facts produced by Women.

this is going to be my last response in this thread because it goes off the rails even harder.

 

Do you believe that her being a woman means that no one can criticize her? because that's what's happening, she posted her opinion, someone disagreed with it and IMMEDIATELY played the gender card.

[Paranoid Kami]

A male and female dev get fired and all the attention is on the female despite the male not even really doing anything that bad while the female was publicly super toxic. There are lots of females who work at Anet and even trnasgenders. Price being fired had nothing to do with her gender.

[D13H4RD]

You know, I wonder if a decade from now, she'll look back at this and think "Holy damn, I was an asshat, huh?" 

 

You know Price, there's something called "self-restraint". Maybe you lot ought to practice that before lashing out and playing the silly cards on unrelated topics. 

[Peskanova]

Its easy if arena net doesnt agree with his behaviour it's common to fire her, Deroir was polite and there is no excuse to treat a customer (deroir was a community active customer) that way, take this example if we go to an IT store and the salesman is wrong about some product/tech and we politely tell him that he's wrong, and they do the same as that girl on twitter if boss were lying around she would be insta-fired, but because its a woman and play the genre card she gets suport by trash media, well if walks,talks and behaves like a retarded , male or female a retarded keeps being retarded, and if you get angry because I insulted that girl, keep in mind she twitted that she was glad about the death of a normal person(youtuber or not).
She does nothing more than poison everything that she touches.... like cancer

[D13H4RD]

3 minutes ago, Peskanova said:

she gets suport by trash media

When I heard Kotaku and Polygon were making pieces about this, I wasn't in the slightest bit surprised. 

 

There's a reason why I stopped reading them long ago. 

[Peskanova]

 

1 minute ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

When I heard Kotaku and Polygon were making pieces about this, I wasn't in the slightest bit surprised. 

 

There's a reason why I stopped reading them long ago. 

People who dont understand that this is injuring more than aiding genre equity or women in gaming industry, gaming is one of the industries that I think it has high standards in genre equity but when there is news of this kind I love how people fail and despite read full article (sourcing ...) they clame that she's harrased by a man XD, no fucker! you are harrasing her! you are not listening the full story because she's a woman! you are  manspleaning! you are the intolerant!

[AlwaysFSX]

1 hour ago, PocketNerd said:

It does because it's a classic response when trying to shut down the opinions or facts produced by Women.

Or, bare with me here, it's a more polite way to say you disagree with just a portion of someone's idea, rather than the whole. Or their being.

 

You're wanting this to be about gender, just like she is, when it's simply not the case.

[Peskanova]