That is exactly how confidentiality agreements work with civil cases, it is meant to end a matter unequivocally. There is no legal requirement to tell the truth or not lie. During a settlement, which is agreed upon by both parties, they decide what the “truth” is. If there are no criminal actions being lied about, there is no legal requirement to be truthful. This is very common in civil disputes that end via settlement, where both sides can say they did nothing wrong.
This isn’t really germane. What people are disputing (in a very roundabout way) is that Avellone’s portrayal of the settlement is incorrect, not that the settlement itself is untruthful.
Multiple sources would simply be much more credible than hearing only from one source, even if that one source were not incredibly, inherently biased. And it isn’t being presented as if that were the sole source.
I can believe there could be 100’s of credible sources and for some people in this thread it would make no difference.
Everything on the Internet is fake unless there are two sources. Everyone knows this!
No, it wasn’t at the time that I wrote what you are replying to, as that had been long confirmed (that he is the one receiving the payment, as his lawyers have confirmed to media).
They certainly objectively lied, because they said completely contradictory statements, Which statements were the truth, if any, or is everything they’ve said dishonest in every context, is the only uncertain aspect.
Yep, definitely true.
Wouldn’t say nobody cared about it, but you’re right that it mainly would affect a formal employee relationship or co-founder type opportunity, not the freelance work that he seemed to prefer anyway. I definitely hope we now get more of his contributions – the dude is a great writer, it’d be great to see his stuff in more RPGs.
Yes of course they lied somewhere, the question is really whether they lied before the statement. If not, that would make the statement itself a lie, forced by legal action.
I meant they had contradictory statements, some of which had to be lies, before the settlement. That is why they were so compromised in the lawsuit and presumably were legally advised to settle
Having been General Counsel for tons of software and tech companies, incidents like that are sadly more common than you’d think – it’s definitely something that results in termination of employment in a work context, but it’s not a career ending crime. People make terrible mistakes, and being drunk is no excuse so there have to be consequences, but it shouldn’t be a death sentence.
Except, it’s now public knowledge he is someone who might torpedo your company if he drinks too much, so, it doesn’t matter all that much if it’s fair or not.
Maybe if Chris Avellone on the credits of the game was an insurance of financial success, or it was hard to find someone to be a games writer / designer. And I kinda doubt either is true, so, why risk it?
In the old days he could’ve moved regions, but nowadays, it is what it is.
Oh did they? I missed that-- I obviously put less effort into following the sordid tale.
The drunk sext is a non-issue. The sex abuse is a non-issue, he won his case. What remains is burning his old coworkers, and that would be a huge issue for me.
I’m sure it is more common than I think. However, IMHO it should be a career-ending move. (To be clear, I don’t think it should be crime, but I think it should be socially unacceptable enough that you won’t get hired.) It’s super-duper not ok. If you want your career back, make a sincere apology and do the work to make your workplace welcoming for everyone. (Maybe he has, I don’t know, I only know what’s in this thread.)
Hard disagree, it should be. I’m willing to take the “woke crybaby liberal” label over this.
YMMV of course on this as in all things. My view is his immediate apology compensates and makes it an embarrassing episode of stupidity rather than harassment.
It’s true that I don’t any more context here–there certainly could be circumstances that would sway it one way or the other. But that’s how it reads to me. Agreed, YMMV, etc.
edit: As far as embarrassment goes, if I did that, I don’t know how I could get out of bed each morning knowing that something like that is out on the internet. Maybe I just have a heightened sense of shame?
It would certainly be a bummer, but what’re ya gonna do? It isn’t like he’s a big celebrity or anything, most people don’t know or care who he is.
If you do, so do I.
Wait hold up, so all the twitter lawyers that were posted earlier in this thread saying that this would be “laughed out of court, explode in Avellone’s face, Avellone was about to learn an expensive lesson about slapp something something in California etc” were all wrong?? sheesh
They don’t seem to think so. I don’t know enough to comment.