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Game Company Fires Two Employees Who Complained About 'Mansplaining' on Twitter (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Verge:
On July 3rd, narrative designer Jessica Price tweeted a 29-tweet thread dissecting the challenges of writing player characters in an MMORPG. A streamer who goes by Deroir responded, "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly," and shared a three-tweet explanation of how narrative design influences player expression in the sort of games that Price narratively designs. Price both replied directly to Deroir, tweeting "thanks for trying to tell me what we do internally, my dude," and retweeted his response with the caption "today in being a female game dev: 'Allow me -- a person who does not work with you -- to explain to you how you do your job....'"
Price's suggestion that Deroir was mansplaining game development -- an area where he does not have the same knowledge or experience -- sparked anger among the ArenaNet community. She subsequently responded to those criticizing her on Twitter. [Here's the first lines of that tweet. "Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: this is my feed. I'm not on the clock here. I'm not your emotional courtesan just because I'm a dev. Don't expect me to pretend to like you here. The attempts of fans to exert ownership over our personal lives and times are something I am hardcore about stopping."] Price was fired shortly after. Although many fans are comparing this to something like working in a restaurant -- be polite to the customer, or get fired -- Price says it's impossible to talk about this incident without larger context about systematic online harassment, particularly the sometimes abusive relationship between fans and game developers and the failure of game companies to address it. "Game companies are generally unwilling to be honest with themselves about how they're complicit in creating and sustaining that environment," she tells The Verge...
Price adds that she believes her firing was an emotional reaction on the part of ArenaNet co-founder Mike O'Brien. "He fired me personally, and the meeting was mostly him venting his feelings at me," she says. "I understand being afraid when you see the Reddit mob coming for you, but if people with less power can weather it -- and we do, regularly -- so can he...."
"We can probably fire anyone on the GW2 dev team as long we make a big enough stink," wrote one user on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit. "Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We're literally running the company now..." UPDATE (7/12/18): That user eventually clarified that their remark was satirical, identifying themself as an angry Reddit user who felt powerless and "surrounded by individuals who are so thoughtless and shitty I was hoping I'd appeal to some sort of sense of decency by writing the most vile shit I could think of... I took it down because I realized that nobody was going to disagree with me."
ArenaNet also fired Peter Fries, a writer who'd worked for them for 12 years, apparently for defending Price in a series of now-deleted tweets. (For example, "Here's a bit of insight that I legitimately hope [Deroir] reflects on: she never asked for his feedback.")
"The message is very clear, especially to women at the company," Jessica Price tells the Verge. "If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you. The quality of your work doesn't matter."
Price's suggestion that Deroir was mansplaining game development -- an area where he does not have the same knowledge or experience -- sparked anger among the ArenaNet community. She subsequently responded to those criticizing her on Twitter. [Here's the first lines of that tweet. "Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: this is my feed. I'm not on the clock here. I'm not your emotional courtesan just because I'm a dev. Don't expect me to pretend to like you here. The attempts of fans to exert ownership over our personal lives and times are something I am hardcore about stopping."] Price was fired shortly after. Although many fans are comparing this to something like working in a restaurant -- be polite to the customer, or get fired -- Price says it's impossible to talk about this incident without larger context about systematic online harassment, particularly the sometimes abusive relationship between fans and game developers and the failure of game companies to address it. "Game companies are generally unwilling to be honest with themselves about how they're complicit in creating and sustaining that environment," she tells The Verge...
Price adds that she believes her firing was an emotional reaction on the part of ArenaNet co-founder Mike O'Brien. "He fired me personally, and the meeting was mostly him venting his feelings at me," she says. "I understand being afraid when you see the Reddit mob coming for you, but if people with less power can weather it -- and we do, regularly -- so can he...."
"We can probably fire anyone on the GW2 dev team as long we make a big enough stink," wrote one user on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit. "Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We're literally running the company now..." UPDATE (7/12/18): That user eventually clarified that their remark was satirical, identifying themself as an angry Reddit user who felt powerless and "surrounded by individuals who are so thoughtless and shitty I was hoping I'd appeal to some sort of sense of decency by writing the most vile shit I could think of... I took it down because I realized that nobody was going to disagree with me."
ArenaNet also fired Peter Fries, a writer who'd worked for them for 12 years, apparently for defending Price in a series of now-deleted tweets. (For example, "Here's a bit of insight that I legitimately hope [Deroir] reflects on: she never asked for his feedback.")
"The message is very clear, especially to women at the company," Jessica Price tells the Verge. "If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you. The quality of your work doesn't matter."
Quoth Jessica on the death of John "TotalBiscuit" Bain (dead at age 33 by cancer): "The kindest thing I can say is "I'm glad he's no longer around to keep doing harm.""
Deroir is not just some streamer. He has an NPC in the game named after him i.e. he has a special relationship with the company. There were other pillars of the fan community also taking part in the twitter discussion and Price insulted them as well. She called Deroir "rando asshat." Price has been with the company less than a year, so she probably didn't even realize that she was taking a dump on the company's biggest, most high profile fans.
The reddit quote about the "hand of reddit" was almost immediately downvoted to oblivion i.e. the community at large didn't agree with it at all. It was probably posted with the express purpose of including it in the news stories about the incident.
That being said, this isn't really about politics at all. Jessica Price clearly has issues. Even before the incident her twitter was so full of negativity and toxicity that she can't possibly lead a happy life. You don't fly off the handle like that when your things are in order. I hope she eventually gets the help that she so obviously needs.
Honestly, she's a real walking vicim looking to express victimhood at the slightest comment. But I doubt this comment alone got her fired. People like that are toxic to work with, if she does that at work, everyone would be frightened to point out the tiniest of problems to her for fear she's explodes.
Deroir's comment is valid, mostly agreeing while making a subtle point. She didn't address his (her?) subtle point, or even take the time to be civil.
She could simply have said, "we do address that, for example [character name] in [game] changes personality based on your choices through the game in ways [example1] [example2]... I understand that problem fully and we do address it"
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Deroir:
Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design;
When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC.
But, if instead players were given the option to meaningfully express *their* character through branching dialogue options (which also aren't just on the checklist for an achievement that forces you through all dialogue options),
then perhaps players would be more invested in the roleplaying aspect of that particular MMORPG. Nonetheless, I appreciate the insightful thread!
I was pretty pissed that the Verge left out the Tweets from Deroir in the actual article. It really paints a one-sided picture and sets him up to be the bad guy.
Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design; (1 of 3)
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When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC. (2 of 3)
Source
But, if instead players were given the option to meaningfully express *their* character through branching dialogue options (which also aren't just on the checklist for an achievement that forces you through all dialogue options), (3 of 4 cause I count seemingly...)
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then perhaps players would be more invested in the roleplaying aspect of that particular MMORPG.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the insightful thread! (End)
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Personally, nothing about this came off as sexist or trying to "set a woman straight;" its simple, civil criticism to something someone plastered onto the web publicly. Maybe this was the straw that broke the camel's back and set her off. Verge stated that her posts were motivated by the whole "Dev & Community interaction" that is expected, but if that's the case, then I think the better option would have been to post her 27 tweets into the ArenaNet forum or on a company developer blog where Community Managers could moderate the discourse. Either way, Deroir's not at fault here any more than anyone replying to posts here on Slashdot are.
In this case he was very polite and was disagreeing on her statement that you can't make compelling characters for MMOs, and he was obviously trying to open a dialog, but she replied by a verbal attack, which included an emoticon the above blurb didn't include. He then simply stated that he was trying to open a dialog, apologized, and politely bowed out. Of course, that wasn't good enough for her, so she put him on blast and escalated even more and making sexist attacks accusing him of "mansplaining".
That wasn't even her last post attacking him. Mind you, this is the same dev that said something pretty unconscionable about the death of Total Biscuit.
It's odd how she also implies that Deroir is a "rando asshat". The truth is that Deroir is a well known youtuber in the GW2 community, works with the company a lot, and even has an NPC in GW2 named after him!
Deroir was nothing but professional and polite in his limited part of the entire exchange.
Jessica was vitriolic and toxic in the extreme.
Then Peter jumped in both feet right into Jessicas pile of shit to defend her extremely inappropriate actions.
Mind you that many other posters were seriously pissed off at both of them, but I in no way think Reddit is why she got fired, rather I suspect that may be why her bosses got wind of this brewing shitstorm. Her actions are totally in line with policy violations that result in firings. Peter trying to defend this garbage is most likely why he got swept away as well. It's very possible that after the ruckus about her celebrating the death the Total Biscuit, she was already on a watch list for F-ups.
As to the extremely weak excuse that this was a "private" account, Peter obviously doesn't understand the difference between private and personal. Jessica tweeted this whole mess on the same account that allows everyone to see it. She started this by talking about being a developer on GW2 and her viewpoints on it. Whether she'll admit it or not, she was acting as a company representative to the public when she went ballistic in full view of everyone, which is something you NEVER do if you want to keep your job.
I find it rather strange how some of those reporting this kerfuffle seem to be leaving out many of her negative actions, and even leave out important parts of the few posts by Deroir. It seems as if they are either not very good at editing, or are trying to make him seem like the bad guy by having a polite and respectful opinion as well as refusing to get involved in an online spat in public. It makes me wonder if somebody has a deceitful agenda of some kind.
Of course, you don't have to believe me, or those writers, just look up the relevant records, but you'll need to check some archives because some of the ex-employees of Areanet later deleted some of their relevant posts.