The controversial ArenaNet firings of Guild Wars 2 writers (READ OP)

[Waffle-Stomper]

There was apparently no guideline or social media policy at her workplace.

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Does there need to be? I thought that if you make comments on social media with your company name attached to it you're speaking as a representative of the company's culture and the type of people they employ? From an outsider perspective, up until the firing it appears that ArenaNet was fine with employing individuals who would explode on fans and publicly tell individuals to "fuck off" whether the fans (or trolls) deserved it or not. Not exactly someone I would want associated with my company.

It's exactly why I don't post anything crazy on my social media especially since I've seen a couple of co-workers let go based on their social media activity. Isn't that one of the reasons you use the name CannonFodder and not your real name on here?

 

[CannonFodder52]

Does there need to be? I thought that if you make comments on social media with your company name attached to it you're speaking as a representative of the company's culture and the type of people they employ? From an outsider perspective, up until the firing it appears that ArenaNet was fine with employing individuals who would explode on fans and publicly tell individuals to "fuck off" whether the fans (or trolls) deserved it or not. Not exactly someone I would want associated with my company.

It's exactly why I don't post anything crazy on my social media especially since I've seen a couple of co-workers let go based on their social media activity. Isn't that one of the reasons you use the name CannonFodder and not your real name on here?

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I believe some of the discussion is around how game companies are pushing their employees to interact with the community off the clock, participate in AMAs etc. But in ArenaNet's case there was no policy outlining consequences for unacceptable social media use. Part of this story is that Fries was also fired for a far less substantial social media comment, which leaves current ArenaNet employees under an unclear one strike termination policy. The Verge article mentioned that the employees they spoke to expressed alarm due to this new unclear precedent.

 

[Spyware]

Many are saying people are ignoring the firing of Fries and that he didn't do anything remotely as bad as Price did and so on. But I don't think Price was fired for using words like "rando asshat" and "hurt manfeels", even tho it definitely didn't help her. I think it was things like this that made ANet see red:

and

Saying the fans are not allowed to comment on stuff regarding the game just because it's said on Twitter goes against pretty much everything ANet has said. And if you really want your Twitter to be "private" either make it actually private or at least don't talk about your work on it.
Pretty much everything else he said was based on Deroir and the community being sexist because Price got comments about her work and he didn't. Ignoring that she talked about work stuff and he didn't at this time (and he didn't seem to talk about work on Twitter?). He and all the other men at ANet that talk about work on Reddit, the official forums and Twitter (for those few who do) get comments all the time, so I dunno what's he's trying to say there really.

As we have seen, MO posted this with the message of them being fired:
"I want to be clear that the statements they made do not reflect the views of ArenaNet at all. As a company we always strive to have a collaborative relationship with the Guild Wars community. We value your input. We make this game for you."

And "a spokesperson" has said this (according to Variety):
"We are committed to fostering open, constructive dialogue with our community around our games. Earlier this week, two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communication, and they are no longer with the company."

 

[Waffle-Stomper]

I believe some of the discussion is around how game companies are pushing their employees to interact with the community off the clock, participate in AMAs etc. But in ArenaNet's case there was no policy outlining consequences for unacceptable social media use. Part of this story is that Fries was also fired for a far less substantial social media comment, which leaves current ArenaNet employees under an unclear one strike termination policy. The Verge article mentioned that the employees they spoke to expressed alarm due to this new unclear precedent.

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So the problem is the need for a policy for employees to understand that attacking individuals on social media isn't acceptable use while working for an employer within an at-will employment state? Typically an offer letter will state something along the lines of, "in accepting the offer of employment, you certify your understanding that your employment will be on an at-will basis, and that you are not entering into a contract regarding the terms or the duration of employment". If Jessica didn't sign anything that stated such, it might be worth her to lawyer up :O

I must be out of the loop here but is it uncommon for game companies to push their employees to interact with the community off the clock? I don't know if I necessarily agree with the Fries firing, but is there anything that indicated that it was a one-strike termination? Is that the type of interaction that ArenaNet was pushing for?

 

[subpar spatula]

It's shallow excuse after shallow excuse all to avoid putting any wrongdoing on Price at all, and it's just so transparent that people feel like saying anything negative against Price will feed into a GG narrative and that must be stopped at all costs, even if we have to reach to make up a load of nonsense to spin the story in one way

Maybe that is how GG works, no context, only black and white, the soon as one angle loses traction, switch to another angle, but I think we're better than that. It's not hard to say she made a mistake, but also that she shouldn't have been fired.

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Ok. She made a mistake. I think everyone agrees on that. Why the constant need to reinforxe that part? Like, it seems there's strong desire to make sure everyone knows just what attack she did on a polite community member. It's hard to have this discussion because the paramerers were created by GamerGate influences which is why people cite this as an "attack" or "toxic behavior" on her part.

It just seems weird to have to constantly push her professionalism when it's not that important in the overall story.

Like, you do understand the tricky nature of this right?

 

[Niceguydan8]

Ok. She made a mistake. I think everyone agrees on that. Why the constant need to reinforxe that part? Like, it seems there's strong desire to make sure everyone knows just what attack she did on a polite community member. It's hard to have this discussion because the paramerers were created by GamerGate influences which is why people cite this as an "attack" or "toxic behavior" on her part.

It just seems weird to have to constantly push her professionalism when it's not that important in the overall story.

Like, you do understand the tricky nature of this right?

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It's important because it's the root cause of the whole thing, and it's certainly divisive. Some people think the company was fine firing her. Some don't. Some people think Deroir was mansplaining, some don't. Some think her response was fine. Some don't. All of these discussions stem from her response to Deroir on a public platform working for a company (which she cited on her public profile) that embraces community interaction, and it's important to acknowledge that.

 

[Deleted member 24907]

Many are saying people are ignoring the firing of Fries and that he didn't do anything remotely as bad as Price did and so on. But I don't think Price was fired for using words like "rando asshat" and "hurt manfeels", even tho it definitely didn't help her. I think it was things like this that made ANet see red:

and

Saying the fans are not allowed to comment on stuff regarding the game just because it's said on Twitter goes against pretty much everything ANet has said. And if you really want your Twitter to be "private" either make it actually private or at least don't talk about your work on it.
Pretty much everything else he said was based on Deroir and the community being sexist because Price got comments about her work and he didn't. Ignoring that she talked about work stuff and he didn't at this time (and he didn't seem to talk about work on Twitter?). He and all the other men at ANet that talk about work on Reddit, the official forums and Twitter (for those few who do) get comments all the time, so I dunno what's he's trying to say there really.

As we have seen, MO posted this with the message of them being fired:
"I want to be clear that the statements they made do not reflect the views of ArenaNet at all. As a company we always strive to have a collaborative relationship with the Guild Wars community. We value your input. We make this game for you."

And "a spokesperson" has said this (according to Variety):
"We are committed to fostering open, constructive dialogue with our community around our games. Earlier this week, two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communication, and they are no longer with the company."

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None of what he said is a fireable offense, sorry. A disciplinary action was the only appropriate course of action if tweets like that really did make them "see red" as you put it. Keep in mind ANet is a company that at that moment had no social media policy.

When discussing Price, people like to try to shut down that discussion since she was objectively aggressive ("rando asshat", etc.), but that argument falls apart when talking about Fries. It's no coincidence that of the people I've talked to here who see nothing wrong with firing Price over her comments, all have said the firing of Fries is suspect and they don't attempt to defend ANet over that.

 

[Spyware]

None of what he said is a fireable offense, sorry. A disciplinary action was the only appropriate course of action if tweets like that really did make them "see red" as you put it. Keep in mind ANet is a company that at that moment had no social media policy.

When discussing Price, people like to try to shut down that discussion since she was objectively aggressive ("rando asshat", etc.), but that argument falls apart when talking about Fries. It's no coincidence that of the people I've talked to here who see nothing wrong with firing Price over her comments, all have said the firing of Fries is suspect and they don't attempt to defend ANet over that.

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I'm not saying I agree with them being fired, but I can see what ArenaNet means with their statements.
No need to say "sorry" to me, thanks.

Also your bolded word is factually wrong:
"Two employees confirmed that ArenaNet has not significantly revised its social media policy since 2011, and that it includes general rules about anti-harassment and being mindful of how individual tweets might be read as representative of the company. But they say penalties and consequences for violating those guidelines had not been discussed with employees, and they fear the precedent set now is a one-strike termination."
They have one, it just wasn't clear enough.

 

[subpar spatula]

It's important because it's the root cause of the whole thing, and it's certainly divisive. Some people think the company was fine firing her. Some don't. Some people think Deroir was mansplaining, some don't. Some think her response was fine. Some don't. All of these discussions stem from her response to Deroir on a public platform working for a company (which she cited on her public profile) that embraces community interaction, and it's important to acknowledge that.

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It's pretty obvious the root cause of her firing was being a woman. She upsetted a large male crowd who took her offence as a nuclear bomb.

It's pretty obvious at this point which is why other studios are improving their social media to protect against harassment.

 

[Deleted member 24907]

I'm not saying I agree with them being fired, but I can see what ArenaNet means with their statements.
No need to say "sorry" to me, thanks.

Also your bolded word is factually wrong:
"Two employees confirmed that ArenaNet has not significantly revised its social media policy since 2011, and that it includes general rules about anti-harassment and being mindful of how individual tweets might be read as representative of the company. But they say penalties and consequences for violating those guidelines had not been discussed with employees, and they fear the precedent set now is a one-strike termination."
They have one, it just wasn't clear enough.

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I mean it's not a policy if there's zero discussion about penalties and consequences...

 

[Nymphae]

I was listening to the guys on Giant Bomb talk about this last night. Starts out kind of "wow that was pretty out of line", but then veers more into apologetics as Jeff and crew explain how, as internet celebrities, they can sort of understand lashing out when you hear the same suggestions over and over again on social media. I just thought to myself, Jeff what is the cost of just not using your energy replying to these "randos" on twitter? Like what are the consequences to just ignoring them?
I don't use any social media aside from maintaining a FB account for some reason, and it just baffles me how people get caught up in this online drama. Sure, I can understand how receiving thousands of unsolicited suggestions could get annoying - what I don't understand is why this is a priority for these people. People are not owed responses, I would just not talk to them rather than engage in shit slinging on social media.

 

[Waffle-Stomper]

None of what he said is a fireable offense, sorry. A disciplinary action was the only appropriate course of action if tweets like that really did make them "see red" as you put it. Keep in mind ANet is a company that at that moment had no social media policy.

When discussing Price, people like to try to shut down that discussion since she was objectively aggressive ("rando asshat", etc.), but that argument falls apart when talking about Fries. It's no coincidence that of the people I've talked to here who see nothing wrong with firing Price over her comments, all have said the firing of Fries is suspect and they don't attempt to defend ANet over that.

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If I were in the position of deciding Fries employment, I wouldn't have treated it as a "fireable offense", however, his firing has nothing to do with race, religion, or any other protected class/disability under the civil rights act/ADA law and they do not need a cause to fire him.
If they felt inclined to give a reason, they could have said that he brought unwanted attention to the company and it's employees and it would have been just.

the fact that it was linked to Price is the only reason why people are so distraught.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

Many are saying people are ignoring the firing of Fries and that he didn't do anything remotely as bad as Price did and so on. But I don't think Price was fired for using words like "rando asshat" and "hurt manfeels", even tho it definitely didn't help her. I think it was things like this that made ANet see red:

and

Saying the fans are not allowed to comment on stuff regarding the game just because it's said on Twitter goes against pretty much everything ANet has said. And if you really want your Twitter to be "private" either make it actually private or at least don't talk about your work on it.
Pretty much everything else he said was based on Deroir and the community being sexist because Price got comments about her work and he didn't. Ignoring that she talked about work stuff and he didn't at this time (and he didn't seem to talk about work on Twitter?). He and all the other men at ANet that talk about work on Reddit, the official forums and Twitter (for those few who do) get comments all the time, so I dunno what's he's trying to say there really.

As we have seen, MO posted this with the message of them being fired:
"I want to be clear that the statements they made do not reflect the views of ArenaNet at all. As a company we always strive to have a collaborative relationship with the Guild Wars community. We value your input. We make this game for you."

And "a spokesperson" has said this (according to Variety):
"We are committed to fostering open, constructive dialogue with our community around our games. Earlier this week, two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communication, and they are no longer with the company."

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Why do creators have to happily listen to audience feedback they didn't request on their Twitter?

Maybe it's time to start drawing these lines in a policy, but firing with no discussion is such bullshit.

 

[Blizz]

Why do creators have to happily listen to audience feedback they didn't request on their Twitter?

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They can choose to ignore it too.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

They can choose to ignore it too.

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They don't have to, it's their Twitter and people are replying directly at them. Do you want to be spoon-fed because you can't handle the real discussion that you provoked?

This "thick-skin" copout is beyond ironic. Who should really be ignoring it?

 

[Niceguydan8]

It's pretty obvious the root cause of her firing was being a woman. She upsetted a large male crowd who took her offence as a nuclear bomb.

It's pretty obvious at this point which is why other studios are improving their social media to protect against harassment.

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I mean even if you think that (I don't think it's that clear cut) it still stems from her reaction that caused this whole thing, doesn't it?

 

[Deleted member 24907]

If I were in the position of deciding Fries employment, I wouldn't have treated it as a "fireable offense", however, his firing has nothing to do with race, religion, or any other protected class/disability under the civil rights act/ADA law and they do not need a cause to fire him.
If they felt inclined to give a reason, they could have said that he brought unwanted attention to the company and it's employees and it would have been just.

the fact that it was linked to Price is the only reason why people are so distraught.

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That's true, although I don't think Price was fired specifically because she was a woman, I think ANet'A response was tone-deaf and overly aggressive (and ended up pandering to the shitty fans who DID want to see her fired because she was a woman). They seemed so desperate to appease the fanbase they turned the firings into a public execution for brownie points.

 

[oni-link]

It's pretty obvious the root cause of her firing was being a woman. She upsetted a large male crowd who took her offence as a nuclear bomb.

It's pretty obvious at this point which is why other studios are improving their social media to protect against harassment.

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She wasn't fired for being a woman, she and a male colleague were fired for being unprofessional and after that a hate movement celebrated that because half the people who were fired are women and they happen to hate women, so to counter that people are reaching to dismiss her unprofessionlosm and focus on her gender because they believe anything other than this indirectly supports GG

That said, the company were in the wrong for firing them both, but that's another point

 

[subpar spatula]

I mean even if you think that (I don't think it's that clear cut) it still stems from her reaction that caused this whole thing, doesn't it?

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And her reaction got this mega reaction because she's a woman. Plenty of men in the industry get away with worse thingd like Vavre or large assortment of streamers and what not.

 

[Niceguydan8]

And her reaction got this mega reaction because she's a woman. Plenty of men in the industry get away with worse thingd like Vavre or large assortment of streamers and what not.

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You keep seeming to sort of sidestep what I'm actually saying though. No matter what you think of what happened afterwards, the root cause of all of this is her reaction to Deroir. That is what caused everything to happen.

Also, Vavra is in a different situation than Price. Some of that could definitely have something to do with gender, but he's also the co-founder of his studio and controls his own employment. Price, or really anyone that is working for a company that they aren't in charge of aren't in the same situation as Vavra or CliffyB when he was with BossKey, for example.

I feel like the Vavra/CliffyB comparisons are really weak because they have to handwave so many important factors away to make the comparison make any sense whatsoever.

 

[oni-link]

And her reaction got this mega reaction because she's a woman. Plenty of men in the industry get away with worse thingd like Vavre or large assortment of streamers and what not.

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Streamers tend to be their own bosses, but that still didn't stop YT dropping Pewdiepie, and yes, I too am surprised when studio bosses don't fire themselves when they say stupid shit on Twitter

 

[Deleted member 2652]

Streamers tend to be their own bosses, but that still didn't stop YT dropping Pewdiepie, and yes, I too am surprised when studio bosses don't fire themselves when they say stupid shit on Twitter

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Or that their employees don't hold their bosses accountable.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Streamers tend to be their own bosses, but that still didn't stop YT dropping Pewdiepie, and yes, I too am surprised when studio bosses don't fire themselves when they say stupid shit on Twitter

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No one harassed PDP or any male streamer that said the N word. Which is way worse that what price did, and when I mean harassment I mean the own GG2 community + GG.

 

[oni-link]

No one harassed PDP or any male streamer that said the N word. Which is way worse that what price did, and when I mean harassment I mean the own GG2 community + GG.

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Trust me, if PDP was working on a games narrative team and he dropped the N word he would have been fired, and they wouldn't have been happy with him slagging off their games fans either

 

[Mobius and Pet Octopus]

You keep seeming to sort of sidestep what I'm actually saying though. No matter what you think of what happened afterwards, the root cause of all of this is her reaction to Deroir. That is what caused everything to happen.

Also, Vavra is in a different situation than Price. Some of that could definitely have something to do with gender, but he's also the co-founder of his studio and controls his own employment. Price, or really anyone that is working for a company that they aren't in charge of aren't in the same situation as Vavra or CliffyB when he was with BossKey, for example.

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Their point is that if she wasn't being targetted by GG/misogynists/etc. that this incident would have not been blown up to inordinary proportions and arenanet wouldn't have felt pressured to do anything about her.

Think about this separate situation for a second. A company received hundreds of complaints about a transgendered woman and were prepared to fire her. They didn't fire her because it became apparent that the letters were faked in an attempt to seem like more people were angry. This was a real situation btw and shows the lengths that they'll go to get someone they don't like fired, just because they can.

If she was a man she wouldn't have been targetted by GGers and this incident would have frankly been relatively minor. And fries probably wouldn't have been fired either. It's easy to think that the punishment wouldn't have been as severe if GGers didn't amplify outrage.

 

[subpar spatula]

You keep seeming to sort of sidestep what I'm actually saying though. No matter what you think of what happened afterwards, the root cause of all of this is her reaction to Deroir. That is what caused everything to happen.

Also, Vavra is in a different situation than Price. Some of that could definitely have something to do with gender, but he's also the co-founder of his studio and controls his own employment. Price, or really anyone that is working for a company that they aren't in charge of aren't in the same situation as Vavra or CliffyB when he was with BossKey, for example.

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Her being mean to a person isn't the root cause. It was a catalyst for hateful people to prop of ethics and professionalism in the work place. They don't do this to the many racists, misogynists, and other bigoted people in the industry. Like, we have 70+ pages of people arguing her professionalism while issues like a trans woman almost being fired for being trans all because of this hate mob is passed over so quickly.

Like, I get y'all want to make sure people know just how rude she was but it gets draining knowing people want to keep circling that particular bit instead of moving on.

 

[Deleted member 2171]

She wasn't fired for being a woman

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Except there's multiple male devs out there with twitters where fans basically brag about being roasted by them and not a fucking single hand wring over "they're representing their company where's my unflinchingly nice customer service from a person that doesn't even work in customer service"

The double standard of where men can be abrasive but women that do it are "mean" absolutely exists, even outside of Twitter.

Of course her Twitter is public, and Derior can @ her all he wanted, but he wasn't obliged a PR spiel response, and it's hilarious because gamers keep going on about how they had PR responses, and then literally complain when they get honest, non PR responses.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Trust me, if PDP was working on a games narrative team and he dropped the N word he would have been fired, and they wouldn't have been happy with him slagging off their games fans either

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Obviously he would be fired, but not from the community + calculated harassment campaign mob asking for his head.

 

[Ralemont]

Do you want to be spoon-fed because you can't handle the real discussion that you provoked?

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That's an argument against Price. The notion that people should not respond on Twitter, a platform literally created and designed for that purpose, is nonsense. There are avenues for Price to talk about game development where she won't be subject to responses. She chose her personal Twitter.

This isn't like when someone says to just "ignore" harrassment, because in this particular case she wasn't harrassed by Deroir. If you can't handle ANY feedback at all that isn't glowing praise of what you say, to the point where you're actively going to be a jerk to someone, then get off Twitter.

If she was a man she wouldn't have been targetted by GGers and this incident would have frankly been relatively minor.

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It was absolutely not minor, even without GGers. The GW2 community was really upset about this. As for whether or not she would have been fired, I'm guessing still yes. Though it being a counterfactual, we'll never know.

 

[Deleted member 2171]

Trust me, if PDP was working on a games narrative team and he dropped the N word he would have been fired, and they wouldn't have been happy with him slagging off their games fans either

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Racism is not the same as not providing Disney-rated responses to someone on Twitter over a game dev discussion. They are not equivalent, are not even in the same realm as each other, and it's fairly obvious those trying to equate people fired for the n-word on their Twitters and firing Price for not-being-nice are either unable to process context or are mad over the N-word firings and are looking for any reason to get an "even-up" firing in response.

Being okay with a racist getting their receipts pulled over Twitter and being against a game dev being fired on Twitter for "she said the mean words" are perfectly fine co-existing in the same mind. "Gamer" is not a race, nor an identity.

 

[subpar spatula]

It was absolutely not minor, even without GGers. The GW2 community was really upset about this. As for whether or not she would have been fired, I'm guessing still yes. Though it being a counterfactual, we'll never know.

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Why imply GW2 is free from GamerGate folk? Like, what makes GW2 immune to their presence?

 

[oni-link]

Why imply GW2 is free from GamerGate folk? Like, what makes GW2 immune to their presence?

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Is there a load of Tweets from the GW2 community where they're calling for her head before she was fired?

I assumed there must be because people keep saying they fired her because they were demanding she was fired, but if the evidence of this has been posted I must have missed it

 

[Mobius and Pet Octopus]

It was absolutely not minor, even without GGers. The GW2 community was really upset about this. As for whether or not she would have been fired, I'm guessing still yes. Though it being a counterfactual, we'll never know.

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Relatively minor is what I said. GGers and arenanet's response amplified this up a huge amount. And you say we'll never know, and you're right because she was fired. But we'll also never know because GGers+others made the incident seem like a bigger deal than it was. It's important to recognize the role the GGers had in the backlash imo and what they're capable of as evidenced by many documented situations.

 

[subpar spatula]

Is there a load of Tweets from the GW2 community where they're calling for her head before she was fired?

I assumed there must be because people keep saying they fired her because they were demanding she was fired, but if the evidence of this has been posted I must have missed it

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That's not on me to prove. I am calling out the dubious nature of the claim.

 

[Interested Observer]

Why do creators have to happily listen to audience feedback they didn't request on their Twitter?

Maybe it's time to start drawing these lines in a policy, but firing with no discussion is such bullshit.

Click to shrink...

They don't have to, it's their Twitter and people are replying directly at them. Do you want to be spoon-fed because you can't handle the real discussion that you provoked?

This "thick-skin" copout is beyond ironic. Who should really be ignoring it?

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This is utterly absurd. If you don't want responses then don't post your message on an open forum. Start a blog, write an article for a site, there are all sorts of avenues.

P.S. don't you dare respond to my post.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Their point is that if she wasn't being targetted by GG/misogynists/etc. that this incident would have not been blown up to inordinary proportions and arenanet wouldn't have felt pressured to do anything about her.

Think about this separate situation for a second. A company received hundreds of complaints about a transgendered woman and were prepared to fire her. They didn't fire her because it became apparent that the letters were faked in an attempt to seem like more people were angry. This was a real situation btw and shows the lengths that they'll go to get someone they don't like fired, just because they can.

If she was a man she wouldn't have been targetted by GGers and this incident would have frankly been relatively minor. And fries probably wouldn't have been fired either. It's easy to think that the punishment wouldn't have been as severe if GGers didn't amplify outrage.

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How can one think that though? I have no idea if she would have still been fired. According to ArenaNet(take it with a grain of salt of course), she was fired for her poor interaction with a community member, and that doesn't change with or without added pressure from the GG folks. That interaction was still there and it undoubtedly was the root cause of the whole thing.

I guess I just personally can't buy into counterfactual scenarios as easily. Would she have been fired for that response in her exact same situation (see: somebody that is not in upper management at a studio that he/she owns or has a stake in) if she were a male? Hell if I know, but I do know that getting fired for reacting poorly to a customer regardless of gender isn't an uncommon reason to be fired for a position that interacts with customers. I'm just not ready to say "well of course she wouldn't have been fired if she were a man" because I'm not exactly sure where that has been proven. That's a scenario that literally nobody can prove because the situation is something that we can't replicate. All that I have seen are comparisons with CliffyB, Kamiya (lol), and now Vavra, which are all awful comparisons.

 

[oni-link]

That's not on me to prove. I am calling out the dubious nature of the claim.

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I'm not asking you to prove anything, I'm just realised my understanding of the timeline might be wrong

I thought she was fired before people had much time to send email campaigns and Tweets to the CEO demanding she was fired

From my understanding she was fired before people had a chance to demand she was fired, and if I'm wrong about this I'd like to be corrected. Did anyone actually demand she was fired?

 

[Spyware]

Other devs and studios don't have the same management or same community. Saying this guy or that guy wasn't fired for worse doesn't matter at all unless you're pointing at an ArenaNet employee.

This situation got out because the community took offense, then the hate mob joined and blew it up like a nuclear bomb. Other communities may not have taken it the same way but the GW2 community felt attacked. Not by a woman, but by a dev that says the opposite of what the company says they stand for.

 

[subpar spatula]

I'm not asking you to prove anything, I'm just realised my understanding of the timeline might be wrong

I thought she was fired before people had much time to send email campaigns and Tweets to the CEO demanding she was fired

From my understanding she was fired before people had a chance to demand she was fired, and if I'm wrong about this I'd like to be corrected. Did anyone actually demand she was fired?

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ArenaNet won't comment of email inquiries.

 

[Ralemont]

Why imply GW2 is free from GamerGate folk? Like, what makes GW2 immune to their presence?

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I am sure there are some misogynists that play GW2. I'm sure there are some that were gleeful she was fired. There's no evidence that this was the driving force behind the community's response at large, which was united in holding Price as the person of blame here, even if they weren't united in what was to be done about it (ie firing). Indeed and to be contrary, the idiots happy that they got her fired with their outrage had their posts largely downvoted whereas most people agreed (observable by upvotes on Reddit, for example) were sad that Price had put everyone in this situation but happy that ArenaNet had addressed the community's desire for something to be done.

Edited: last sentence was a bit unfair.

 

[Spyware]

I'm not asking you to prove anything, I'm just realised my understanding of the timeline might be wrong

I thought she was fired before people had much time to send email campaigns and Tweets to the CEO demanding she was fired

From my understanding she was fired before people had a chance to demand she was fired, and if I'm wrong about this I'd like to be corrected. Did anyone actually demand she was fired?

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She was fired the day after the tweets, and the situation blew up on the day of the tweets. It was a holiday and MO claims they would have taken action immediately if they could have. But that wasn't possible so it's just that, only claims.
But yeah there was a massive mob screaming for blood on especially Reddit all night before the meeting where she was fired took place. Before the majority of the hate mob arrived there (an hour or so after iirc), the community was "just" upset and confused that someone would do what these devs did, asking for ANet to take some sort of action. The community also tried to downvote the harassment at the start but the posts blew up and appeared on bigger gaming subreddits and even on r/all. The more sane voices were just drowned in the hate, either by being downvoted themselves or by giving up.

 

[Mobius and Pet Octopus]

How can one think that though? I have no idea if she would have still been fired. According to ArenaNet(take it with a grain of salt of course), she was fired for her poor interaction with a community member, and that doesn't change with or without added pressure from the GG folks. That interaction was still there and it undoubtedly was the root cause of the whole thing.

I guess I just personally can't buy into counterfactual scenarios as easily. Would she have been fired for that response in her exact same situation (see: somebody that is not in upper management at a studio that he/she owns or has a stake in) if she were a male? Hell if I know, but I do know that getting fired for reacting poorly to a customer regardless of gender isn't an uncommon reason to be fired for a position that interacts with customers. I'm just not ready to say "well of course she wouldn't have been fired if she were a man" because I'm not exactly sure where that has been proven. All that I have seen are comparisons with CliffyB, Kamiya (lol), and now Vavra, which are all awful comparisons.

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Personally it doesn't have to be definitive. I don't think she definitely would not have been fired if she were a man and subsequently not targeted by GG harassment. For me it's enough that she probably wouldn't have been fired. I don't think she should have been fired considering all the context surrounding the situation. I think she reasonably thought that the person was being rude and condescending, and overly demanding of her attention. I don't think she responded well, but there are many things arenanet could have done in response to this situation aside from firing her. Even if they still chose to fire her, the way they fired her so publicly and knowing the consequences of their actions is still bad and something that doesn't have perhaps the appropriate amount of discussion. Just to touch on this, I think arenanet fully knew what was going on and did it anyway. They just didn't care enough because appeasing the GGers means more revenue. It's possible they didn't think it through fully. In which case I'd say their lack of care or caution is a problem, aka negligence.

edit:
To be clear, being targetted by GG harassment doesn't even play that huge of a role for me. If this was a man being fired for what he said, I'd probably still think that he shouldn't have been fired (in fact I think that way about fries as well). The internet needs to calm down on demanding people are fired for making a mistake. I do think these calls were amplified by GG and people who just don't like her.

 

[Ralemont]

Relatively minor is what I said. GGers and arenanet's response amplified this up a huge amount. And you say we'll never know, and you're right because she was fired. But we'll also never know because GGers+others made the incident seem like a bigger deal than it was. It's important to recognize the role the GGers had in the backlash imo and what they're capable of as evidenced by many documented situations.

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They did amplify it, I agree. I also think some context is needed here for GW2, which is that Anet has had several pretty big screw-ups in the community within the past few years. So the sudden suggestion that player feedback was not welcome is, as O'Brien said, very chilling and alarming for the playerbase. Did that necessitate her firing? No. Does that mean her firing was unjustified? No. Her response was not reasonable at all and as multiple people in positions to fire someone would and have told others in this thread, that she would have been fired from their company. This is, in the US, a firable offense. Another complaint here is that it shouldn't be and labor laws suck. While that's true, I don't think it applies in this case either. Basic human decency should be required for employees dealing with customers who aren't harrassing them. Price appeared incapable.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

From my understanding she was fired before people had a chance to demand she was fired, and if I'm wrong about this I'd like to be corrected. Did anyone actually demand she was fired?

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A /pol/ thread about her comment that received hundreds of replies was started more than 14 hours before she was fired. not conclusive proof in and of itself, but draw your own conclusions

 

[saint2e]

First post on ResetEra so I'll jump in with both feet.

Opinions!

1. I feel that Fries and Price were being jerks to their customers, and quite disrespectful to a key community contributor, though probably didn't realize it at first, I'm guessing.
2. Being jerks to customers shouldn't have resulted in them being fired. I dislike firings from social media "tempests in teapots" (ie- Donglegate), which I would classify this as one. Don't get me wrong, there are legit fireable social media situations (ie- "Hope I don't get AIDS!"), I just don't feel this is one of them.
3. I'm hoping that the firings occurred because this wasn't their first strike, because that's an overreaction if it is.
4. I'm thinking perhaps Fries was fired because they had already decided to fire Price (for whatever reason) and didn't want to appear sexist by singling out the woman involved in the whole ordeal, but not the man.
5. Neither Fries or Price have apologized (to my knowledge) for their parts in this ordeal, which is usually the standard thing to do in PR faux pas', so perhaps their refusal to do so contributed to the decision to fire them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to duck and cover.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

I finally got a chance to listen to the Waypoint segment that so many folks in this thread praised.

They got a ton of basic facts completely wrong in their opening description, but even aside from that, they were operating under the assumption that Price and Fries were fired due to mob backlash or extreme community aggression primarily from Reddit threads calling for their collective heads.

Is there any hard evidence of this at all? Even in this thread, which I must admit is where I'm primarily getting my information about this incident, all of the links to threads on Reddit and the GW2 forums were really not that massive for the most part and had a lot of negative sentiment about Price's words, but I didn't really see anything in terms of people calling for her firing? I couldn't see much on Twitter, either. I understand that Price has been subjected to ongoing harassment in her career, but was there actually an enormous backlash that could be classified as "mob rage" or whatever other term in regards to this particular incident?

 

[Deleted member 2652]

This is utterly absurd. If you don't want responses then don't post your message on an open forum. Start a blog, write an article for a site, there are all sorts of avenues.

P.S. don't you dare respond to my post.

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If you don't understand the difference between speaking your mind and starting a dialog, then I don't know what to tell you. In your world developers should never talk openly and this industry would be worse off for it. Or i'm sorry, they shouldn't talk openly unless it's approved in whatever specific avenues you say are okay.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

If you don't understand the difference between speaking your mind and starting a dialog, then I don't know what to tell you. In your world developers should never talk openly and this industry would be worse off for it. Or i'm sorry, they shouldn't talk openly unless it's approved in whatever specific avenues you say are okay.

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It's fine to not be interested in a dialogue and to ignore responses. You don't owe anyone a reply, but the nature of Twitter as a platform invites responses from fellow users. Getting mad that someone responded is crazy. Obviously getting mad at the content of their reply is another story.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

It's fine to not be interested in a dialogue and to ignore responses. You don't owe anyone a reply, but the nature of Twitter as a platform invites responses from fellow users. Getting mad that someone responded is crazy. Obviously getting mad at the content of their reply is another story.

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I agree that the context of the reply is important.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

I agree that the context of the reply is important.

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Absolutely. The context is why this thread even exists. It's why ArenaNet chose to fire Price and Fries in the first place. No one reasonable would have been bothered if she said the same things against a legitimately shitty person saying legitimately shitty things to her.

They don't have to, it's their Twitter and people are replying directly at them. Do you want to be spoon-fed because you can't handle the real discussion that you provoked?

This "thick-skin" copout is beyond ironic. Who should really be ignoring it?

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Whether we like it or not, saying things on a non-private Twitter account is the same as making public statements. We should not be surprised when we get responses.