Jeremy Soule (Skyrim/Guild Wars 2 Composer) Accused of Rape

[RedRum]

I don't even want to comprehend how fucked up the whole, "Basing his compositions off of inspiration of women". Women that he has abused. You have to be so fucked up in the head. This is right along the lines of keeping "trophies" of the people you've hurt in life. What a sick fuck.

 

[Deleted member 15395]

I wonder what the 2 ARGs she worked on are. Those emails are maddening to read through.

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I've no idea what the ARG's are but judging by the dates on the post, I think the developer (or at least one of them) is Relic. Either way, its terrible what they did to her. I would've never thought Soule capable of this, it sucks, I really like his music.

 

[Racerprose]

I've no idea what the ARG's are but judging by the dates on the post, I think the developer (or at least one of them) is Relic. Either way, its terrible what they did to her. I would've never thought Soule capable of this, it sucks, I really like his music.

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ARG - Alternate reality game

 

[Ashlette]

I don't see it there, probably got removed. I checked the Skyrim subreddit and the responses are awful. Games discussion is so toxic that I never bother with it outside this site and this is a prime example of it. These people need to grow up and see the world outside their pieces of plastic.

Yeah his work with TES was beautiful and that's now ruined but as mentioned earlier this thread, think of the work lost from his victims due to their trauma. He robbed the world of the amazing work of many others because of his actions. He killed creative fires. It sounds like he had many more victims than the woman mentioned in the OP.

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I double checked the thread to see if I posted it, and indeed I have done so. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cvy0ax/jeremy_soule_one_of_the_composers_for_this_game/

It was downvoted until it vanished from the new threads list. No removal notification or anything.

 

[whatsarobot]

Looking at the beginning of the paragraph immediately after, it doesn't sound like she's overselling it.

I assume that it's just not something she wants to go into more detail on.

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I do wish she made it a little more clear what we are dealing with here. It's a very horrible story top to bottom, but there are so many layers of issues (mis-management, grooming, disrespect, etc) that I think it's important the general reader, who just sees the word "rape" in the header, knows that this is a case of forced sexual assault.

In a me too era the differentiations matter (see Aziz vs Weinstein)

 

[Deleted member 15395]

ARG - Alternate reality game

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No no, I meant I've no clue what the ARG's she worked on where, I know what the acronym stands for. Thanks for pointing it out anyways!

 

[Deleted member 2669]

He is such a reprehensible, destructive incel that it's woven into the very fabric of his work. I'm having such a hard time processing this.

 

[ShadowFox08]

The court of public opinion vs the court of law are two different things with different standards of evidence.

Plus these kinds of sexual assault situations are a different context, usually people don't come out with these allegations unless they have a good reason to do so because of the potential backlash, career opportunities lost, etc. It takes a LOT to go through with it.

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Fair enough. Skimmmed a bit over the page. I hope justice is served

 

[Racerprose]

I do wish she made it a little more clear what we are dealing with here. It's a very horrible story top to bottom, but there are so many layers of issues (mis-management, grooming, disrespect, etc) that I think it's important the general reader, who just sees the word "rape" in the header, knows that this is a case of forced sexual assault.

In a me too era the differentiations matter (see Aziz vs Weinstein)

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She is really telling two stories, that she kinda thinks are related. The problem is, on one hand she is saying Soule took advantage of me and raped me, then goes onto talk about how crappy her bosses were and that Soule was somehow in the background pulling all the strings, but the only proof of her stories she has is her talking back and forth with them. She doesn't go into details about Soule or evidence that he was doing things in the background with them to make her job harder.

 

[Prolepro]

He was a known prick even without this mess on his head.

See ya, and good riddance.

 

[Mechaplum]

What an absolutely asshole. Fuck his music.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

We knew he was a scammer, but a rapist, too? I can't even read some of these details because it just makes my blood boil. Fuck that guy so much.

 

[Chettlar]

I didn't think that this could get any worse than just the rape, but holy fuck the stuff that happened afterwards. Ages of this bullshit and abuse from others as well, completely disallowing any possible healing from that rape, and the rapist just...there...existing, hovering around most all of it.

I'm actually a bit in tears... What the hell.

I don't know her reasoning for how she's written and censored some things, but I wish she'd also have named the people involved in the other abuse. The fact that it put her in the literal hospital and caused her to attempt suicide means these people were just as trash as Soule.

Like, I feel like just naming him means people will simply focus on him, as is happening in this thread already. But man. The rest of the people too...what the fuck.

Tetrageddon eventually made it into Communication Arts. That was one of my first big breaks after the abuse.
I remember being so paranoid that Communication Arts would realize that I don't belong, that I bought two copies of the magazine just to make sure that I was still in there, or if they removed me.
I know now that that's not how printing works, but then I was terrified that people would find out that my work is horrible.

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She goes from having confidence in her work, knowing that it's good, to completely not being able to even believe her stuff is remotely viable.

:(

The first video game place that picked Tetrageddon up was IndieCade. They wanted it in their E3 selection.
I remember how it was like when I got their email. I was speechless. In disbelief. I thought at any moment they would realize they made a mistake by wanting me there and I would get the rejection letter.
I think that IndieCade showcase marks the point where I stopped wanting to kill myself. I'm not sure what happened, but that's when I entered some sort of alternate reality where I became human again.
E3 was the pinnacle of places any of those guys wanted their work to show.

I was mortified of going because of my experiences with men. I expected to be treated like this again.
The opposite happened. It was a welcoming community. Volunteers actually volunteered to help me. They greeted me.
Men came to my area of the booth and enjoyed my work, and even went so far as to compliment it.
I know how it sounds to phrase things like that, but at the time I didn't think men could do that. I didn't think women were something you would even give that time of day. I was so broken.
Tetrageddon got a lot of press during that E3. It's like what I had been through was slowly being undone.

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Fuck I was so worried things wouldn't go down so well. E3 is notorious for a lot of little, really creepy, sinister encounters for women.

 

[Polyh3dron]

welp, dude is fucking done. none of that "if this is true" bs. there's too much of a paper trail. open and shut IMO.

you can't wield your power to treat women like shit without it getting out there nowadays.

 

[Strafer]

Fucking hell.

Skyrim is one of the most amazing game scores I have ever heard.

 

[Wulfric]

Just as an addendum since the thread title has been updated, Soule is the composer for vanilla Guild Wars 2. He parted ways with Arenanet after a dispute (unrelated to this) in 2012. The expansion OSTs are done in-house by Maclaine Diemer.

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I'm still reading the e-mails and jesus that's exploitive. She should have never had to deal with that shit.

 

[Lakitu]

Holy fuckin shit. Skyrims score is one of my favourites of all time. I dont know what to say. This is devastating. Poor girl, he sounds like the worst person alive.

 

[Deleted member 2669]

This dude is just so fucked up beyond belief.

 

[Chettlar]

I genuinely can't make myself read all the emails. It's physically painful to see someone talk like that. Like, they're so bad even without context it'd be so obvious they're in the wrong and know it. Pieces of shit.

 

[Robin]

I feel sick, the Morrowind and GW2 scores are some of mm favorite in gaming.

 

[grunkleFungus]

She is really telling two stories, that she kinda thinks are related. The problem is, on one hand she is saying Soule took advantage of me and raped me, then goes onto talk about how crappy her bosses were and that Soule was somehow in the background pulling all the strings, but the only proof of her stories she has is her talking back and forth with them. She doesn't go into details about Soule or evidence that he was doing things in the background with them to make her job harder.

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It's two facets of the common nature of misogyny. You have the man who wants to use women as sex toys and immediately throw them away, and the men who want a mommy figure to clean up their messy diapers. I hope someone publishes the names of those bosses, because none of these people deserve any anonymity. Especially that brother asshole, talk about someone better off as mulch, along with all the other people in those emails.

As for court for Jeremy Soule, it's possible if he's raped someone recently in the US that Nathalie could testify against him, under Rule 413 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. It'd only be used for "proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident," but most rape/child sexual exploitation cases rely on multiple testimonies of this kind. Not a lawyer, so take with a grain of salt.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

I think we've finally found a human being (who is a game composer) that is worse than Dragon Quest's Koichi Sugiyama. Never thought possible.

 

[darkwing]

what a piece of shit

 

[Deleted member 10737]

that's just fucked up, what a piece of shit

 

[Deleted member 1656]

You can some solace in the fact the although a single person gets the bulk of the credit—like the development of the games themselves—TES' compositions are also collaborative works from amazing orchestras full of people very unlikely to all be scumbags.

 

[fanboi]

If your employee was accused of raping another employee, would you wait for a guilty verdict in a court of law before firing them?

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Yes, I would wait, since it would be illegal to fire said person (in Sweden) before justice has been done.

Paid leave, yes, until everything is finished, and depending on the situation, come to an agreement of termination.

 

[rawhide]

He parted ways with Arenanet after a dispute (unrelated to this) in 2012.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they part ways after an unexplained incident at an Arenanet christmas party? Given further context, one has to wonder...

 

[jb1234]

You can some solace in the fact the although a single person gets the bulk of the credit—like the development of the games themselves—TES' compositions are also collaborative works from amazing orchestras full of people very unlikely to all be scumbags.

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Not much help, unfortunately. His music is almost entirely made using samples.

 

[Piggus]

Fuck, man. :( I even bought a copy of the Skyrim soundtrack signed by him. Barf.

 

[Wanderer5]

JFC, what a piece of shit (along with her bosses). Wasn't he falling from grace already? I believe I recall hearing some shady stuff about his kickstarter.

That's sickening.

The e-mails seem to match up with his previous behavior in business dealings (DirectSong failing to fulfill orders, the Kickstarter, cutting ties with Arenanet over a Christmas party invite).

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Wait what?

 

[Rob2K19]

Well, I just learned that Jeremy is my predecessor, so this news hits me personally.

 

[Trey]

Damn, the more you know. Dude put out some serious heat on the Guild Wars soundtracks. I wondered what happened with him, and it seems nothing but scamming and terrorizing women. Hope she's all right, sounds absolutely harrowing.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Well, I just learned that Jeremy is my predecessor, so this news hits me personally.

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You're composing TES6?

 

[Deleted member 2669]

While one's loss as a media consumer isn't the narrative that should be highlighted, it's also sickening to find out that this is what all of that work was made of. Essentially trophies of his victims used to feed into his success and fame. He destroyed people and made it into a success that hangs over them.

 

[Wulfric]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they part ways after an unexplained incident at an Arenanet christmas party? Given further context, one has to wonder...

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I've only seen a few ancient Reddit posts about it. Someone said he was mad he didn't get an invite, another thread said he went.

Wait what?

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See above. This is a post from 2012 with the news. Don't have Facebook at the moment so I can't confirm the validity of the FB post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/ys7fj/jeremy_soule_says_he_is_done_with_the_guild_wars/

Sorry to share less than happy news but someone bring him back ha ha! Guild Wars would not be Guild Wars without Jeremy Soule. From his Facebook statuses it seems something happened to him yesterday. "The music is invited. But not me." I really hope he changes his mind and comes back to do a future game in this series!

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It could be unrelated, but he has a history of business going sour as several examples in this thread has shown. The assault allegations are on an entirely different level though.

 

[Darkstorne]

JFC, what a piece of shit (along with her bosses). Wasn't he falling from grace already? I believe I recall hearing some shady stuff about his kickstarter.

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Yes. He created a Kickstarter 6 years ago asking for around £10k to compose a symphony. He raised over $100k due to his popularity from TES/GW. He then spent it all on developing some kind of MIDI-successor technology instead with another company he has weird links to. He still hasn't produced that symphony he took fan's money for, but he has launched a Patreon asking for even more of their money to fund his various side projects.

 

[Something Creative]

Investigated first and if found guilty then yes for sure.

Edit: The more I read the sadder I get. Fuck Jeremy Soule if this is true. I loved his music.

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Can we get this in court before we judge this guy instead of guilty before innocent?

I don't know this guy and I want justice served, but I want to hear the whole story vs one accusation

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You two, and every weak person like you, need to read this:

https://web.stanford.edu/group/maan/cgi-bin/?page_id=297

Only about 2% of all rape and related sex charges are determined to be false, the same percentage as for other felonies (FBI). So while they do happen, and they are very problematic when they do, people claim that allegations are false far more frequently than they are and far more frequently than for other crimes. Put another way, we are much more likely to disbelieve a woman if she says she was raped than if she says she was robbed, but for no good reason.

On a related note, only about 40% of rapes are ever reported to the police, and this is partly because victims know that if their claim becomes public, their every behavior will be scrutinized, they will be shamed for their sexual history, and they will be labeled as lunatic, psychotic, paranoid, and manipulative. Just because someone does not report their crime does not mean it did not happen. Furthermore, only one in two claims lead to prosecution, so if the DA decides not to prosecute, that says nothing about whether or not it happened

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And this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45565684

It's also useful to look at what we know about the kind of people who make fake accusations to see if Prof Ford fits a pattern.

According to Sandra Newman, every academic study on the issue finds that the most common type of fake accuser is actually a teenage girl trying to get out of trouble.

Often it's her parents who report the "rape" attempt. The studies suggest the false accusation can often stem from something as absurd as finding an excuse for missing curfew.

According to a 2017 report by the US National Institutes of Health , fake accusers "were primarily motivated by emotional gain. Most false allegations were used to cover up other behaviour such as adultery or skipping school".

In many cases the fake accuser has a history of lying to authorities or committing fraud. She may well have a criminal record.

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Please stop perpetuating this fucking garbage idea that it's 'just one accusation' or that he needs to be found guilty in a court of law for this to mean anything. Believe women.

 

[grunkleFungus]

Yes, I would wait, since it would be illegal to fire said person (in Sweden) before justice has been done.

Paid leave, yes, until everything is finished, and depending on the situation, come to an agreement of termination.

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Paid leave for a guy credibly accused of multiple rapes and sexual harassment? Fucking shit. Paid leave if you rape and abuse women, but if a black man dares even throw a punch he gets thrown in jail immediately. Fucking idiots.

 

[Wanderer5]

I've only seen a few ancient Reddit posts about it. Someone said he wasn't invited, another thread said he went.

See above. This is a post from 2012 with the news. Don't have Facebook at the moment so I can't confirm the validity of the FB post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/ys7fj/jeremy_soule_says_he_is_done_with_the_guild_wars/

It could be unrelated, but he has a history of business going sour as several examples in this thread has shown. The assault allegations are on an entirely different level though.

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Whatever the facebook thing was, it is gone.

Eh so be it either way. The music in the expansions and living story has been quite good anyway, if not even better than base GW2.

Yes. He created a Kickstarter 6 years ago asking for around £10k to compose a symphony. He raised over $100k due to his popularity from TES/GW. He then spent it all on developing some kind of MIDI-successor technology instead with another company he has weird links to. He still hasn't produced that symphony he took fan's money for, but he has launched a Patreon asking for even more of their money to fund his various side projects.

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Ah, seems like he just released a unfinished demo for that KS. Lovely. I hope that Patroen isn't doing well.

 

[fanboi]

Paid leave for a guy credibly accused of multiple rapes and sexual harassment? Fucking shit. Paid leave if you rape and abuse women, but if a black man dares even throw a punch he gets thrown in jail immediately. Fucking idiots.

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What does ASAP have to do with this? Totaly different and you seem to miss alot of information in that case by commenting "idiots".

And no, wouldn't get paid leave if the person was actually sentenced. But as long as the person isn't sentenced they are innocent according to law which is correct. But as an employer you could of course help the situation for the potential victim by, as I said, paid leave so the accuser can chose to go to work or not instead of being afraid of meeting the accused (of course paid leave should be offered to the accuser as well).

 

[Grudy]

This guy was always as asshole. Besides his whole kickstarter fiasco, there was another one with people on the gw2 subreddit trying to order the game's soundtrack and his services were awful. Took people's money and never sent the soundtracks until several months later or something after many complaints and nonchalantly ignoring his fans.

Also the work of the current gw2 composers after Jeremy left is quite amazing and stands up on its own, especially with the first expansion.

 

[m_shortpants]

Thats difficult to read. Disgusting.

I enjoyed his work on the original Guild Wars and the Elder Scrolls games, and they bring back a lot of memories. But I'm sure future games can find composers who aren't pieces of shit and will be better.

 

[Something Creative]

She is really telling two stories, that she kinda thinks are related. The problem is, on one hand she is saying Soule took advantage of me and raped me, then goes onto talk about how crappy her bosses were and that Soule was somehow in the background pulling all the strings, but the only proof of her stories she has is her talking back and forth with them. She doesn't go into details about Soule or evidence that he was doing things in the background with them to make her job harder.

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This situation seems sensitive enough that we should avoid hyperbole. She doesn't say he was "pulling all the strings". But she does explain that he was powerful in those circles and close to the people that eventually turned on her. It seems entirely plausible to me that, given their history and how poisoned everything became between Jeremy and her, he would poison other people against her (this is something that manipulative people do and not always overtly), though of course even she would admit she could only speculate.

 

[Deleted member 4346]

Jeremy Soule is my milkshake duck. He's arguably the greatest Western video game composer of all time; his soundtracks for Skyrim and Guild Wars 2 are a masterclass in game composition. He's also allegedly a huge piece of shit. This lady brought receipts. I have no reason to doubt her account. Just disgusting.

 

[Arm Van Dam]

That was hard to get through, she got treated like dirt all around for the work she did

I hope no-one hires Soule ever again especially after this and the Kickstarter fiasco

 

[Sibylus]

Fuck you Jeremy Soule you victim-blaming, muse-idolizing rapist grifter.

 

[spineduke]

Paid leave if you rape and abuse women, but if a black man dares even throw a punch he gets thrown in jail immediately. Fucking idiots.

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can you not? this isn't about your precious rapper

 

[Cliff Steele]

Ufff. I have a signed copy of the Skyrim OST... Boy that sure feels weird having that sitting on a display.

 

[Aurica]

Rape?? What the fuck. Only playing with custom music now. Way to fucking traumatize someone. Absolutely disgusting. I feel like anything I could say about my experiences with his music are just petty. Very disappointed.

 

[Miles Davis]

I don't really listen to anything he does, and he sounds like a terrible person with absolutely gross issues. I hope she can find what she is looking for. One of the biggest things outside of the main issue is that he was like BILL ME and never paid the woman. Like what the fuck she worked all week on that and the motherfucker is like BILL ME and doesn't pay after he gets whatever he was trying to get at sexually. What a piece of garbage.