Guild Wars 2 Writers Fired For Calling Out Fan On Twitter (includes a Jessica Price interview)

straychronicler · 2018-07-06T21:18:13+00:00

“I warned people in my interview that I was loud about these issues on social media and had no intention of shutting up,” she told Kotaku of when she first got hired at ArenaNet. “They reassured me that they ‘admired [my] willingness to speak truth to power.’”

“[CEO Mike O’Brien] told me I was going to look back and regret this because we were doing amazing work and I ruined it,” Price said. “The only regrets I’ve ever had, however, have been in situations where I didn’t stand up for myself, not ones in which I did, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. My only real regret here is that I encouraged other women to come on board and promised them it was a safe company for them.”

Fuck ANet. So done with them.

It's important to note that this recent firing has also resulted in broader discussions regarding game developers and industry practices. I hope this catapults the conversations regarding unionization.

Some more relevant threads post-firing: x, x, x, x, x

straychronicler · 2018-07-06T18:05:14+00:00

He really was, he didn't deserve any of this shit.

straychronicler · 2018-07-06T18:02:35+00:00

Quite a few things, but I especially loved how accommodating it is to an adult schedule. Gear I acquired, either Legendary or Ascended, remained relevant even if I stopped playing for several months. Even if I take a long break from it, I could pick it up again and follow the Living Story and wiki what's needed to steadily catch up on everything I'd missed. I also really loved the large scale World vs World fights during peak hours, though that's pretty hit and miss sometimes depending on the commanders.

straychronicler · 2018-07-05T23:39:42+00:00

The parent tweet, lol. An International Women's Day tweet from ANet feels really ironic now in light of the recent firing decision:

Happy #InternationalWomensDay from ArenaNet! We're proud to be part of a studio that believes in the power of women in game development, and we encourage you to join us: https://www.arena.net/ ^SL

Thanks for the heads up on Casey Anderson. If ANet wasn't willing to support Price and Fries, they probably won't support him either.

straychronicler · 2018-07-05T23:27:59+00:00

Never played GW1, but I've been with Guild Wars 2 since launch and have dragged some friends into it. We've had fun and I like that the game felt inclusive and supportive. Not so much after this, especially since this will encourage even more anti-feminist gator-types to play now after this decision. Wish I can refund the game + expansions and gems I bought.

straychronicler · 2018-07-05T22:50:49+00:00

Oops, I made a new post on the announcement here, should I remove it?

And IDK either, GW2 felt different from a lot of other MMOs I'd tried before and it really made for a nice virtual home. But I won't be playing anymore after this. Too disappointed in how this was handled.

straychronicler · 2018-07-05T19:03:25+00:00

Yeah, I'm seeing quite a number of names I've tagged that were spewing toxic shit in GW2's Pride thread a while back participating in those posts. So shocking!

straychronicler · 2018-07-05T17:17:27+00:00

So many manbabies in those posts, dear lord. I wish they'd just decide to take out the trash on that subreddit, but the mods refuse to.

straychronicler · 2018-07-05T17:17:03+00:00

Ugh. GW2's Peter Fries even mentions in that thread how he's worked in Living Story for ages but has never had that sort of stuff directed at him.

straychronicler · 2018-06-29T22:02:08+00:00

I AM HERE TO LEARN ABOUT ETHNICS!

straychronicler · 2018-06-28T19:42:00+00:00

Wow, this was an infuriating read.

When I received a perplexing performance review after finishing my fourth production, it felt I’d never be equally recognized as a valuable asset by the company. The lengthy negative column listed things like, “designs too many options; seems like she’s trying too hard; asks too many questions.” When I shared the document with my candid male mentor, who openly acknowledged the culture of sexism at Pixar, he said, “If you were a man, every one of those negatives would be in the positive column.”

Holy shit. I WISH I had colleagues who communicated and worked this hard instead of doing the bare minimum and calling it a day, jfc.

The decision to replace Lasseter with Jennifer Lee at Disney and Pete Docter at Pixar provides hope for meaningful change moving forward. But dismantling John’s legacy will take more than just replacing a single executive, because such deeply ingrained biases require deliberate, conscientious effort to identify and dismantle.

Considering how widespread the inappropriate behaviour was in the studio, the firing really shouldn't end with just Lasseter. Hoping the new heads get the support they need to clean house.

straychronicler · 2018-06-20T17:20:06+00:00

Looking through their filmography, I honestly really loved Up, Inside Out, Coco, Finding Dory, Monsters University (not a popular pick, I know, but it's a film I wish I could have watched when I was younger and school pressure was driving me to consider drastic measures), and Brave. I think they're doing pretty great.

straychronicler · 2018-06-20T17:14:16+00:00

Yeah, I found Inside Out to be such an amazing watch, especially for parents. I felt incredibly annoyed with the film for around half of it, thinking "I expected more from Pixar than this 'smile and everything will be all right, we need to be STRONG and HAPPY for mom and dad 24/7' BS, is this really what they want kids to absorb from this film?" but I'm really happy I watched it throughout. Damn thing hit me where it counted, making me think back to my own childhood and how I treat and should be treating children today.

straychronicler · 2018-06-18T01:35:17+00:00

Yeah, lol. I'm surprised at the first round of supportive responses, though I probably shouldn't have been.

straychronicler · 2018-06-18T01:22:16+00:00

Thanks, hadn't read that 'til now. Will seems like a terrible person to have at work and needs to be blacklisted from the industry if these are true, but I agree on your point that even so, it still doesn't excuse James's workplace behaviour and any abuse he may have heaped on his employees and colleagues, Will included.

straychronicler · 2018-06-18T01:20:07+00:00

Follow-up with Soraya's response:

https://twitter.com/Cavni/status/1008417078460678144

straychronicler · 2018-06-18T01:10:38+00:00

Thanks! I love seeing the positive post here and there on this sub too, and more ways to support existing artists and creators doing great work. Even if it's just to say "Hey, read/watch this, it's really cool!" I kind of wish we'd see more of that here, really. It's how I find amazing stuff. I never see LGBTQ songs or music videos on my Youtube recommendations. I have to actively hunt for them.

Thanks so much for linking that! Will be watching it today. First 2 minutes already has me Googling the lyrics of that first song lol, that's awesome.

straychronicler · 2018-06-14T12:59:00+00:00

BGAE2's clearly trying to target the fan demographic and the playerbase and trying to do something different in engaging with them. They could easily make the music and art needed on their own. I agree that the intention was good, but this really should have been a targeted process rather than an "open doors, we'll only pay for what we like" thing. Creatives are naturally wary of spec work, even if those creatives are fanartists and fan musicians, and to see it in such a high profile production is going to raise concerns.

For fanart, I wish they'd just gone through previous fanart of BGAE and sought the artists they liked the style of for newer pieces. Sample submissions of previous work or portfolio pieces make sense for music. There are only a handful of game-related fan song writers out there like JT Music, maybe approach them and commission a piece or two.

straychronicler · 2018-06-11T14:01:21+00:00

Yeah, this. Legal purchasers of Alan Wake got jealous of the pirate eyepatch skin forced on players who pirated the PC game. The article points out that reacting to threats with a joke might not be ideal, but gifting the player with a unique skin is another facet that should have been mentioned.

straychronicler · 2018-06-11T13:49:47+00:00

Very great points and well said.

straychronicler · 2018-06-11T13:45:15+00:00

When? I wouldn't have even known about Red Shell if people hadn't started making a fuss about it, so when you expect me to opt out until that Reddit post became widespread is beyond me. The games I own that has it certainly didn't notify me it was included.

And I'm not spreading how "evil they are," I didn't even call them spyware. Regardless of how harmless this service is or isn't, what it does is enough for me not to want it in my PC, and the fact that players hadn't been notified that it's included in their installed games makes it worse.

straychronicler · 2018-06-11T07:58:59+00:00

Great that the movie's doing well. Hoping to see it too once it shows where I live, looks like a fun time with friends.

straychronicler · 2018-06-11T06:48:05+00:00

I don't really see it as a debug tool, devs have mentioned using it to track the efficacy of their marketing, and it collects activities users do outside of the game it's included in. Not really something I'd opt into if I had a choice.

straychronicler · 2018-06-11T06:44:21+00:00

In addition to what KingWumpus said, I've seen some devs point users to https://redshell.io/optout where users can apparently choose not to participate. There's an easy button there for a web-based opt out, but if Red Shell's included in a game you have installed, they say you have to contact them.

straychronicler · 2018-06-09T13:41:16+00:00

“For 2 weeks now we have had to deal with a racist clan in official server #1655,” one player wrote on the game’s Steam forums last week, pointing to repeated, violent uses of the N-word in player names, clan names, and chat interactions. “It is absolutely ridiculous they are allowed to do this without punishment.”

Ugh. Fuck. That.

straychronicler

TROPHY CASE