It’s not “what I think happened” that’s up for debate, it’s whether or not there’s a possibility that ArenaNet was justified with the information we know. My position has been that we don’t know everything that happened, and from what we do know, such possibility exists.
So here’s what we know, or at least what I know. If there’s been more information from Price or ArenaNet than what was shared via Polygon, I haven’t seen it.
This is the second, longer statement that I’m aware of from ArenaNet, given to Polygon when they contacted them after their interview with Jessica:
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.
There’s a lot there that’s adding context, some important, some not. I think the part about the July 4 holiday is important—it’s a plausible explanation for firing her the next day instead of immediately. I think some of the other stuff could be read as empty corporate platitudes or legitimate concerns, depending on your suspicions, but doesn’t meaningfully affect the cause given for termination either way.
So to boil that down to “Why was she fired?”:
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.
Any response from our company needed to be respectful and professional. A perceived slight doesn’t give us license to attack.
It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company would be met with open hostility and derision from us.
If you really want to cut it down:
Jessica had identified herself as an ArenaNet employee on Reddit and Twitter. She was representing the company. It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company would be met with open hostility and derision from us.
At its harshest reading, that’s all the justification they need to fire her, or anyone else (unless someone wants to wake legowarrior up to talk about how unions are the answer 🙂).
So ArenaNet’s claim is not that she was fired for being “less than perfect”. She wasn’t fired for “losing her temper”. She wasn’t fired for “misreading someone’s intent”. She was fired for representing ArenaNet with open hostility and derision.
So what does Jessica say?
She says ArenaNet “folded like a cheap card table”* when confronted by toxic fandom. I dispute that that’s been proven, ArenaNet offered a specific and plausible response to why she was fired the next day instead of immediately after becoming aware of the tweets.
Further quoting Polygon quoting her:
“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.
“The whole thing was highly unprofessional,” she continued. “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.”
“I was given no opportunity to argue my case” may literally just mean “I was not given the chance to argue that attacking the fan was the right thing to do”. That does not seem like evidence of an injustice, the exchange was public and available for management to review for themselves, and the explanation given for termination did not depend on whether she had the moral high ground or could convince them she did.
As leveled, the explanation would’ve been accurate even if Deroir was objectively, unabashedly attacking her.
“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 have no reason to believe she’s lying, at no point does ArenaNet indicate she was warned. Their justification for termination did not involve failure to heed earlier warnings. They stated plainly what she did this time, the implication is that was enough, a fireable offense on its own.
To ultimately answer your question @Dave_Weinstein, I think what happened is that Jessica Price was fired for representing ArenaNet with open hostility and derision toward Deroir. I think that’s harsh, but so is what she did. At face value from both sides, I can live with their decision and simultaneously wish it hadn’t come to that. If there were ulterior motives and agendas that colored the decision to fire her (sexism, caving to toxic fandom, etc.), I haven’t seen sufficient evidence to convince me. I’m not ruling out the possibility, but I’m not assuming that’s what happened.
*you’d be forgiven for thinking she was accusing ArenaNet of “not cooperating and pinching her fingers because of toxic fandom.”
