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Insomniac donates $50k & sent 60-page doc to Sony urging Ryan to do better. Sony will not approve any statements from studios on reproductive rights.

Liam Allen-Miller

Liam Allen-Miller

Member
Nov 2, 2017
6,804
Shibuya
Extremely frustrating to hear that Ted Price feels there would be material pushback directed at Insomniac if they spoke out further. It speaks volumes about Jim. I've always been kind of ehhh on him because I have more important things to worry about than his banal disinterest in retro games, but this is really, really gross on his part.
 
Roytheone

Roytheone

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,140
IDontBeatGames said:
Already requested it



Already requested a change for the title before the merge happen, it's a matter of the mods changing it to reflect the situation better. That's on me, my bad.
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Thanks for the change! But it is partly also on the people that just read a thread title and rush in to comment without reading the broader content of the OP. Especially with subjects like this that is important.
 
seroun

seroun

Member
Oct 25, 2018
4,464
fuck sony's management deciding this

what we need now is you publicly shouting how abortion is a right, not a sneaky little adoption and helping workers sneak to get them in other places because it's gonna become illegal. you can't support human rights sneakily, sorry. you either do it publicly, or you are not doing it.
 
AndrewDean84

AndrewDean84

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,595
Fontana, California
LegEmJohn said:
fetchimage
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Truly fucking disgusting on Sony's part. Jim Ryan is Sony.
 
Tygre

Tygre

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,100
Chesire, UK
Neither company plans to tweet about their donations, and Insomniac employees have been forbidden from explicitly mentioning Insomniac or Sony should they decide to retweet any announcements the WRRAP might make, according to the email.
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Corporate cowardice at it's very finest.

Props to Insomiac and Price for pushing them on this, they 100% knew this would leak and make the pressure both internal and external, but can plausibly deny they broke any guidelines.
 

UtterlyPerplexed

Member
Oct 25, 2017
828
I wonder how deep the rot goes. I can't imagine it starts and ends with Jim Ryan. I have a feeling the whole chain of leadership going up needs excising.
 

Raigor

Member
May 14, 2020
15,134
Imagine what Bungie CEO is thinking right now. Holy fucking shit at silencing your own studios from speaking.
 
Pai Pai Master

Pai Pai Master

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,286
Atlanta GA
Some pretty good things and some very bad things going on here. Sony as a company needs to stand up for reproductive rights and allow their studios to do the same. and get rid of Jim Ryan.
 
RedHeat

RedHeat

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,685
Seems they're pretty hardstuck on remaining neutral, as with most companies so far. Might eventually develop into a inter-civil war if more branches within Sony keep trying to push the issue further.
 
Griffy

Griffy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,010
It's weird, they are matching donations and creating some kind of company initiative for financial assistance, but are still trying to maintain complete neutrality publically. Intellectually, I understand the desire for the overall company to want to appear neutral, but they would have been better off by just not commenting on it rather than letting Jim Ryan send that dumb email. And they shouldn't be scared if one of their studios wants to publically say/do things.
 
Kensuke

Kensuke

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,397
Netherlands
Sony actively blocking their studios from making statements. Clearly the hope is that this all goes away and people forget about it in a week. They're being naive though. Until Ryan publicly apologizes (even if he doesn't even mean it), this is going to hang over them. Any time Ryan speaks to the press they should take him to task on this.

And yes, it does matter even in relation to games. We can't have Ryan promoting PlayStation games that have inclusive themes or characters and then not question why Sony is being incredibly backwards when it comes to basic women's rights. The public and the press shouldn't let this bullshit go.
 
PeakPointMatrix

PeakPointMatrix

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Oct 25, 2017
19,047
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Don't want to upset the anime avatars of Twitter by taking a stance do we??
 
demosthenes

demosthenes

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,595
Good on Insomniac. I assume Jim thinks this will just be swept under the rug but he may be not seeing how this will be anything but in America for a long time. Quick google says that England has had legal abortions through 24 weeks since 1967.
 
hmp

hmp

Member
Mar 29, 2022
515
Fuck Jim Ryan, but not let's pretend that it's just him. This is clearly an issue at most of Sony's leadership
 
Bear

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,864
Kensuke said:
Sony actively blocking their studios from making statements. Clearly the hope is that this all goes away and people forget about it in a week. They're being naive though. Until Ryan publicly apologizes (even if doesn't even mean it), this is going to hang over them. Any time Ryan speaks to the press they should take him to task on this.

And yes, it does matter even in relation to games. We can't have Ryan promoting PlayStation games that have inclusive themes or characters and then not question why Sony is being incredibly backwards when it comes to basic women's rights. The public and the press shouldn't let this bullshit go.
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The way these things go, I'm hoping pressure will continue to mount from press, social media and internally from women employees. Hope it's enough to push him out and to have Sony retract those statements.
 
Helix

Helix

Mayor of Clown Town
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Jun 8, 2019
23,754
gotta give props to Insom tho. they did the right thing here, hope more Sony studios do the same.
 
digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
Great move by Insomniac.

Fuck Sony and Jim Ryan into the sun.

This shit is FUCKED:

"There would be material repercussions for us as a wholly owned subsidiary," Price wrote in response to a question about what would happen if Insomniac tweeted about the donation. "Among other things, any progress that we might make in helping change [Sony Interactive Entertainment's] approach would be stopped dead in its tracks. We'd also probably be severely restricted from doing important public-facing work in the future."
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gothmog

gothmog

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Oct 28, 2017
2,434
NY
The more I read about this the more I feel certain that some of this is the chilling effect of the whole Disney/Florida bullshit. Sony is doing a terrible job trying to stay out of it, and it looks like Jim made things even worse. The subsidiaries and more importantly the employees are not having it. While the short term drama around this sucks I think it will be an overall net positive as more of these internal tug of wars come out in the media.
 
TooBusyLookinGud

TooBusyLookinGud

Graphics Engineer
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Oct 27, 2017
7,939
California
Well, they ruined a good news day with more of this stupid shit. I understand that companies have to be diplomatic, but women's rights is not a diplomatic situation. This really sours me towards them big time.
 
Pai Pai Master

Pai Pai Master

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Oct 25, 2017
32,286
Atlanta GA
Insomniac still has to prove they've improved on their own issues but really good on them for essentially forcing this into the conversation, and not letting the PS+ lineup preview overshadow what happened last week.
 
Triggerhappytel

Triggerhappytel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,024
Futabaisthebest<3 said:
I hope they rehire Jack Tretton or Shawn again. We miss those guys
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Would be happy with either of those (I preferred Jack although I think he's gone down the NFT hole?) or Hermen Hulst or Asad Qizilbash to be promoted. Or maybe even a woman - Siobhan Reddy or Yumi Yang would be really awesome, although to go from studio head to head of PlayStation might be an unreasonable jump.

But Jim is awful at PR and I don't think PS's current path is so unique or difficult that another competent exec couldn't steer the ship. Just get his fucking goofball arse out of there.
 
Rogote

Rogote

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Oct 25, 2017
2,606
This obviously comes from the very top from Sony itself, not playstation aka Jim Ryan.

So why do all these corps go hardline on not putting official statement for or against? They're willing to sabotage parts of their public facing image and cause varying degree of turmoil and clashing internally to keep holding to this neutral stance all the while sneakily helping staff to get abortions done and donating money.

What is so damnning to these corps about an official statement. What's the worst case scenario they all fear here with the USA?
 
Azerth

Azerth

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Oct 27, 2017
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I wonder if bungie will take down all there stuff once the deal goes through.

Fuck sony on there cowardly stance
 

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demosthenes said:
Good on Insomniac. I assume Jim thinks this will just be swept under the rug but he may be not seeing how this will be anything but in America for a long time. Quick google says that England has had legal abortions through 24 weeks since 1967.
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It is not fully legal. You need to have a "good" reason for it, and it has to be approved by two different doctors.
 
Griffy

Griffy

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Oct 25, 2017
1,010
I just don't understand how this story isn't something like "While Sony Corporation refrains from commenting on political issues, we support our subsidiaries in making their voices heard if they choose to," or something similar.
 
KaCo

KaCo

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May 22, 2018
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Hope more studios push harder on these issues now, what a pathetic stance Sony decided to take on this.
 
Mifec

Mifec

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Oct 25, 2017
17,733
Hopefully this marks a change from the horror stories we heard coming out of Insomniac and all their workers are treated right from now on. Good on them for the donation too.

Some next level trash from Sony won't just attribute it to Ryan but the whole upper management.
 
aerie

aerie

wonky
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Oct 25, 2017
8,033
Good on Insomniac.

My opinion of Sony continues to plummet.
 
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killerrin

killerrin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,237
Toronto
Fuck off Sony. Womens Rights are Human Rights. It's not hard to fucking understand. Good on Insomniac for calling out their bullshit. More studios need to be calling out their parent companies bluffs when the topic of human rights come up. What are they going to do? Shut the studio. The public and governments would eat them alive if they tried that.
 
Kyra

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I know this thread is about insomniac and Sony but silence is acceptance. Have Microsoft or Nintendo said anything? Any company that hasn't said anything regarding the matter should be dragged.
 
J-Wood

J-Wood

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,749
This is classic corporate "both sides so we don't lose business" and it fucking sucks. Take a stand and say you don't want shit heads that don't support reproductive rights on your platform anyways if they really wouldn't buy a playstation over this.
 
Kyrios

Kyrios

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Oct 27, 2017
14,622
gothmog said:
The more I read about this the more I feel certain that some of this is the chilling effect of the whole Disney/Florida bullshit. Sony is doing a terrible job trying to stay out of it, and it looks like Jim made things even worse. The subsidiaries and more importantly the employees are not having it. While the short term drama around this sucks I think it will be an overall net positive as more of these internal tug of wars come out in the media.
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Yeah I've noticed far less companies than I would have expected speak out about abortion rights. Been wondering the same with how Disney was targeted by the GOP in retaliation for speaking out.

Not excusing the way Sony is going about it though. Shouldn't be silencing your studios.
 
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