Games Journalism 2018: We're taking it back!

Games
1617

Which one, the blogger or the writer?

I’m always a bit distrustful of these sorts of hyperventillating reporting style which blows up each discrete point of information into a 12 paragraph reaction (there were if i was counting only four “points” of data the article was based on). OTOH, i can’t trust myself to know all the “coded” forms of communication used by sub-communities now, and aren’t sure if people reading subtle signals aren’t tuned in to frequencies of which i’m unaware.

So i though, yea, it’s kind of crazy that that the narrative blurb referenced an alt-right basement dwelling nazi but otoh, it’s not clear if they’re not showing that “archetype” to be a loser or not.

1618

the writer, Zak Smith (I refuse to call anyone Zak Sabbath). White Wolf eventually had to release a statement that was basically “HE SAID HE WONT DO IT NO MORE”

What a shit show.

1619

On the other hand… by one of the Dungeonworld authors…

Summary

https://twitter.com/olde_fortran/status/1016443968286961664

1620

That is… I feel like that is a stretch. How many other examples of dice rolls are there?

1621

No idea, probably hundreds. As Sage says, probably an accident (I certainly wouldn’t have known the meaning behind that number). Still…

1622

I can’t follow this so I’m just going to ignore it.

1623

IGDA commentary on the Arena Net issue: https://www.igda.org/blogpost/1016423/305221/Game-Devs-on-Social-Media-Questions-You-Should-Ask-For-Your-Protection

1624

More extensive statement of Mike O’Brien, wrapped in the hitpiece on polygon

Jessica had identified herself as an ArenaNet employee on Reddit and Twitter, had been discussing Episode 3 storytelling with fans on Reddit, then had written a 25-part tweet about how we tell stories in MMOs, relating it back to Episode 3. She was representing the company. The expectation was to behave professionally and respectfully, or at least walk away. Instead, she attacked.

Concerns have been publicly raised that she was responding to harassment. It’s not my place to tell employees when they should or shouldn’t feel harassed. In this case, however, our employees could have chosen not to engage, and they could have brought the issue to the company, whereby we would have done everything we could to protect them.

We won’t tolerate harassment. When an employee feels harassed, we want them to bring the issue to us, so that we can protect the employee, deal with the issue, and use it to speak to the larger issue of harassment.

Whatever Jessica and Peter felt internally about the situation, this was objectively a customer engaging us respectfully and professionally, presenting a suggestion for our game. Any response from our company needed to be respectful and professional. A perceived slight doesn’t give us license to attack.

We’ve all dedicated our careers to entertaining people, to making games for the purpose of delighting those who play them. We generally have a wonderful relationship with our community, and that’s a point of pride for us. We want to hear from our players. It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company — in this case a polite game suggestion — would be met with open hostility and derision from us. That sets a chilling precedent.

The tweets were made on July 4, when the studio was closed for the holiday. We were aware of them that day, and decided we’d need to take action in the morning. The fact that the community’s anger was escalating on July 5 could make it look like our action was a response to the community’s anger. But that wasn’t the case. We took action as soon as we practicably could.

I hate to let an employee go, and I wish the best for Jessica and Peter, as for any former employee, in whatever they choose to do next.

Whatever you thought of the tweets, Jessica and Peter were also part of the team that brought you the kidnapping scene in Episode 1, which was a wonderfully well-executed scene. That’s how I want to remember their time at ArenaNet.

Kudos for standing up for decency and common sense in face of media attacks and smears.

1625

Nah, that statement is bad and makes things worse. The “hit-piece” in question.

Concerns have been publicly raised that she was responding to harassment. It’s not my place to tell employees when they should or shouldn’t feel harassed. In this case, however

It is not my place… but let me butt in on this one.

We won’t tolerate harassment. When an employee feels harassed, we want them to bring the issue to us,

We won’t tolerate harassment, our employees shouldn’t defend themselves in public.

Look, again, I think she really did something stupid by calling out that streamer rather than engaging him in a dialogue about his constructive criticism. Especially because it feels like her aim was to publicly shame him by quote-tweeting, and calling out one of the community streamer superfans a “rando asshat” for the crime of politely disagreeing with her. I mean, you can’t expect to post a thread on social media about your theories and not expect people to respond to it. It is social media after all, and not every will agree with you. Maybe this should have been a blog?

But Arena-net really fucked up this by firing her and the guy who defended her. It only served to embolden the trolls and misogynists who wanted her gone (for the apparent crime of being a woman games writer and unapologetic feminist)

Look, both Price and Arenanet can be in the wrong here. This isn’t a “who’s side are you on” I can’t believe this didn’t end in a joint apology where Arenanet re-iterates their values of diversity and stopping online harassment, where she could apologize for over-reacting to a piece of criticism, and that her feelings and opinions were erroneously directed at him, and not at the scores of people who have harassed her previously.

The thing I really have disliked about the coverage so far is the lack of communication with the streamer deroir, to get his opinion on the whole thing. All we have is his twitter:

image

I mean, looking over this guy’s feed and reddit, he just seems like a genuine super fan who wanted to engage a dev in a discussion of the creative process, and she admittedly blew up at him. It really seems like he didn’t want this to happen at all, yet Arenanet made it happen anyway.

1626

I agree that the best solution for everyone involved would have been asking her to apologize and moving on from the whole thing without any firings. I somewhat doubt she would be willing to do even that however.

1627

Well sure, but the problem is, Arenanet never gave her the chance. It sounds like it was basically, come in, get fired. Which just seems very hasty.

Like, basically if they hadn’t fired her, nobody would be talking about this right now. But since they did, it is a shitstorm.

1628

As I said before, I think she was 100% in the wrong here, but I don’t think the situation should have been “apologize or you’re fired”. I just don’t think Arena should have been involved at all. The reason she should apologize is because she was acing like a jerk.

I don’t believe this situation would seriously impact Arena’s business, and so I don’t think it’s their concern. The “fans” whinging about something this petty and this small are not fans at all, but the same alt right gamergate brigade that has been fucking about for a couple years now. They can sit and spin.

1629

I mean, he (deroirgaming) apologized to her twice for commenting on her tweet in the very same twitter convo. I am sure she would apologize for incorrectly venting her very real frustrations at him.

1630

The key part is

As I said upthread, at least in my company if you identify yourself as an employee, you are considered to be a representative of the company as far as behaviour on social media. Act like a jerk to an important customer and you’re going to get fired. Gender and politics have nothing to do with it.

1631

I think that’s very naive. Literally any public response by Arenanet causes the same shitstorm. Because of the context of being part of a community interaction event and the person being a favored streamer, letting it stand without a clear apology from her also causes a similar shitstorm. If she’s not willing to be an adult, there is simply no solution for them that doesn’t result in bad PR.

1632

You’re sure, but apparently ArenaNet was not sure. They know more about her immediate reaction than anyone else.

1633

Well it’s the “everything is everything is everything” world view on social media.

She sees this from a certain point of view, and ArenaNet from another. They see this guy acting in good faith, she doesn’t. It’s like a short-form version of why we can’t have nice things in the world of social media today, because people can’t even agree on what a statement means or the context in which it should be looked at.

But i do agree with the IGDA outline that what needs to be set out and made clear as policy within in a company are the expectations and requirements that both employers and employees should follow. OTOH, gaming in general is less mature by everyone involved from top to bottom, so this will probably only be relevant for the largest publicly traded companies.

1634

If I have a company and one of my employees treats a customer of mine like dirt publicly without provocation, particularly customer who is polite and an official partner of my company, who brought me a lot of business, and the employee refuses to apologise for the uncalled for behavior, what else is there to do than to show the employee the door? There is no alternative.

Not getting involved at all is not acceptable - the moment my customers notice this behavior and the fact that I let it go without any action on my part, I take a huge hit to my reputation. Why would I want to do that?

(If O’Brien never gave her a possibility to apologise and move on, that would be a mistake on his part)

1635

I can’t believe this is as close as Price gets to even considering she misread the situation and reacted poorly:

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 ‘asshat’ 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.

She’s absolutely convinced she was fired for “speaking up about sexism”, she seems blinded by that perspective. I hate that her experience has brought her to that point, but it doesn’t make her reaction okay.

1636

Ah, well. To be honest, I have no desire to hit the barricades for such a person.