9 ms·

ArenaNet ‘folded like a cheap card table,’ says fired Guild Wars 2 writer

50 points by MilnerRoute 8y ago

FussyZeus 8y ago
I'd like to get clarification because the way the article flows, it seems like they're saying Jessica Price was engaging with the fanbase aggressively via official channels, and not her own personal twitter account, which is a huge difference. Are we now in a place where your employer gets to dictate how you present yourself on social media? When I'm on the clock, absolutely, I have to stay on message when using the official accounts, but on my own? Fuck all of that, and fuck anyone who thinks that way. I am my employer's resource from when I come into the office to when I go home, and for brief moments whilist remote-ing in to handle an issue, and outside of that I should have legal protections to do whatever the hell my heart desires, and that includes talking. And tangent-ally related: > Today in being a female game dev: ‘Allow me — a person who does not work with you — explain to you how you do your job.’ That is beautiful, and the essence of my growing rage at my fellow nerds in various fandoms.
- deleted 8y ago
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- MilnerRoute 8y ago
  It appears it was her personal account. “The message is very clear, especially to women at the company: if Reddit wants you fired, we’ll fire you,” Price says. “The quality of your work doesn’t matter. Your personal space, your personal social media, is not yours; you are on the clock 100 percent of the time. We own you. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541318/guild-wars-arenanet-jessica-price-peter-fries-fired-reddit https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541318/guild-wars-arenan...
  - ars 8y ago
    And this is why she got fired. She turned this issue into a "women" thing, which it never was. She's toxic to any company, and especially other women.
  - lucio 8y ago
    She was talking about her job, the fan was very polite, and after her response, sad when mistreated. You don't mistreat the people who pay for your product, even more when they're polite. I can't see gender involved in this issue. Anyone treating a paying customer like that on a public forum, on a work-related issue, has high chances to be fired.
- vvanders 8y ago
  Yeah, the whole thing is just levels of stupid. The fact that a fellow writer who got involved was fired as well is just gasoline on the fire. I spent a fair bit of time in that industry and generally the ones running the studios were not the most level-headed people. There's all sorts of abuse that happens because "Hey, it's games! You should be lucky to work in such an industry!".
- Sacho 8y ago
  > And tangent-ally related: > Today in being a female game dev: ‘Allow me — a person who does not work with you — explain to you how you do your job.’ > That is beautiful, and the essence of my growing rage at my fellow nerds in various fandoms. Perhaps you should temper your growing rage with the facts. Here is what Deroir actually said - https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096 https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096
  - lucio 8y ago
    and then https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014564971416518656 https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014564971416518656
  - chc 8y ago
    He was not himself rude, but that doesn't mean his comment wasn't part of an irritating pattern of comments from lots of different people. For a completely different example of the same phenomenon, every individual person who makes the "People Eating Tasty Animals" joke at vegans is only making a mild jab, but in aggregate it gets very tiresome for the vegan who hears it over and over and over.
    - mrguyorama 8y ago
      So because other men sometimes doubt the intelligence of women in general, I am never allowed to question a woman?
      - chc 8y ago
        If you know more than her, go right ahead. If she is an experienced professional in a field and you've never done it a day in your life, then yeah, trying to teach her is kind of presumptuous. This isn't just a female thing — it's poor behavior no matter who you're dealing with — but women have to deal with it more often, so it can be more aggravating for them.
        Bekwnn 8y ago
- chomp 8y ago
  If you make posts on Twitter and social media with your personal account, but present yourself as "Employee of so-and-so" and muse about your product and engage people with that persona, you've blended your personal and work personas. Anything you do on your personal account now reflects on the company. >I am my employer's resource from when I come into the office to when I go home, and for brief moments whilist remote-ing in to handle an issue, and outside of that I should have legal protections to do whatever the hell my heart desires, and that includes talking. If you separate work and personal life so distinctly, then why talk about work and present your work persona on your personal accounts!
  - basic1 8y ago
    That it's a personal account doesn't even matter, the Internet outrage machine will come for your job, this isn't limited to any specific subculture.
  - FussyZeus 8y ago
    Oh that is such a load. Who on earth goes through twitter accounts or Facebook accounts to evaluate the employees of a company before they decide to do business with them? I simply can't envision a scenario where Bob's Hot Dogs is going to refuse to use a payment processor like Square because one of Square's marketing people posted to twitter once like 2 years ago that hot dogs suck. And where are we drawing the line here? So you're saying by virtue I'm saying I'm an X at Y Company that I'm now representing that company 24/7 until I quit? That's insane, full bore insane. > If you separate work and personal life so distinctly, then why talk about work and present your work persona on your personal accounts! Because who doesn't!? I follow hundreds of people who regularly discuss their careers and what they do at work, most of them being developers and admins.
    - Karunamon 8y ago
      >And where are we drawing the line here? Answering most of your questions: Causing controversy. Just faffing about on social media, even negatively, generally won't be a problem until such time as you portray your employer in a bad light (say, by shouting at their customers apropos of nothing) and cause them a PR issue.
- deleted 8y ago
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- Arzh 8y ago
  To an extent, (in the eyes of the business) she was actively acting as a representative of the product (discussing the development of the product) and bashing the users of the product (calling them asshats). If that is harmful to the business it doesn't matter if it's on "your time". I would view this differently if she was fired for a tweet that was political in nature or something like it. If I was in charge I'm not sure I would have done the same thing but I can understand the reasoning.
  - chc 8y ago
    Your position here seems to be opposed to anyone who works for a company having any kind of free speech. Please consider whether this is a position that is maximally good for society. She didn't say anything offensive or harmful, just expressed frustration with a pattern of communication that she gets.
    - ars 8y ago
      > having any kind of free speech Exaggerate much? Don't speak as a representative of your company. It's not that hard. You can talk about anything else you like, but don't make people think it's coming from the company. Free speech doesn't give you the right to put words in other peoples', or companies' mouths.
      - chc 8y ago
        She wasn't speaking as a representative of the company there. I don't see how you could possibly construe it that way. Here's what she said: > Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job." If you did take that as an official company statement, it would seem to mean that ArenaNet's official position is that ArenaNet is a female developer who is tired of having her job explained to her by men. It's such a tortured and nonsensical interpretation of her comment that I can't see how you'd read it as anything but her personal feelings as a female game developer.
    - Sacho 8y ago
      > She didn't say anything offensive or harmful Well, this is what she said(during the incident, she's said much worse in other cases), do you still think she didn't say anything offensive or harmful? https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014581433937981445 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014581433937981445 https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1014555719352213504 https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1014555719352213504
lucio 8y ago
How about analyzing the facts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q50oy4-UJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q50oy4-UJM Is this guy analysis correct?
- chc 8y ago
  It would be more useful to present your ideas here instead of linking to a 20-minute YouTube video.
  - stefan_ 8y ago
    Of course if you try to write down your ideas, it forces you to think about what you are saying. At that point you realize that a 20 minute ranty YouTube video probably fits into a paragraph or two of refined thought. I must be getting old but any controversy that involves any amount of YouTube bloggers is an immediate sign to not bother. It's intended to generate outrage and views, in that order.
    - lucio 8y ago
      I think the facts should precede any statements of ideas in this case. Since the article do not present the facts as a sequence of events, the video I linked seems to be useful.
  - lucio 8y ago
    The video is about the facts, you can dismiss the extra 10% of the video. Unless he's hiding some facts, it seems like a good summary.
astebbin 8y ago
I’m struck by the apparent no-warning nature of the firing. Were internal expectations clearly set for how employees should behave when interacting with fans and customers? Do companies like ArenaNet with especially vocal fan communitiecs generally have codes of conduct for employee-customer interaction?
- rellui 8y ago
  Seems to be partly answered by Mike Obrien: Whatever Jessica and Peter felt internally about the situation, this was objectively a customer engaging us respectfully and professionally, presenting a suggestion for our game. Any response from our company needed to be respectful and professional. A perceived slight doesn’t give us license to attack. We’ve all dedicated our careers to entertaining people, to making games for the purpose of delighting those who play them. We generally have a wonderful relationship with our community, and that’s a point of pride for us. We want to hear from our players. It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company — in this case a polite game suggestion — would be met with open hostility and derision from us. That sets a chilling precedent.
abledon 8y ago
Considering how big that company is — they should have spent some $$$ on hr/twitter policy training/guidelines so mucky situations like this could be avoided. And also, if they persist, quick to be resolved as it would be more akin to a policy lookup in a legal contract
rellui 8y ago
Here are the tweets that "triggered" this chain of event which the article fails to quote. https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096 https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096 And the subsequent response by Price https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136
- aeleos 8y ago
  Those two tweets are quoted by the article.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  At least when I was reading, those seem to be linked (now?). Regardless, reading those is much more informative than hearing it from second-hand sources.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
chomp 8y ago
I think ArenaNet made the right call. She was using her personal twitter account to represent her employer. Her reaction to a fan was over the top, and not representative of the company's values. What is Twitter if not a global discussion forum? Deroir's comment was a polite disagreement. I have no idea how she would want people to phrase their disagreement, or is this a case of "don't @ me with your opinion?"
- whack 8y ago
  The article barely mentions the original messages that sparked this row, and it's really worth reading them before forming an opinion. Deroir: "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design ....." Price: "Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job." Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: ... I'm not your courtesan... Don't expect me to pretend to like you. like, the next rando asshat who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me--as if, you know, having worked in game narrative for a fucking DECADE, I have never heard of it--is getting instablocked. PSA." I get that it can be annoying when someone who isn't an expert disagrees with you, but her response was uncivil, rude, inflammatory and derogatory. It's unfortunate when people can't disagree without taking things personally.
  - MrMember 8y ago
    I don't understand how anyone can defend Price here. Her reaction to a polite, innocuous question is so over the top ridiculous it almost reads like satire. Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today Who even talks like this in real life?
  - cleanyourroom 8y ago
    Agree, this would get you kicked from an AOL chatroom. A heuristic I still find useful for some reason.
adrianhon 8y ago
I've find it profoundly disturbing just how many people feel it's perfectly fine, and indeed laudable, for companies to immediately terminate employees during a situation like this. Even if you think that Price's actions were wrong, the fact that she had no warning and no recourse seems wrong. Yes, I know ArenaNet is based in an at-will employment state (Washington) so they are legally permitted to do this, but just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. But hey - all hail our corporate gaming overlords, right?
- 1ris 8y ago
  A bit of outside perspective: Insulting a customer is one of the rare occasions, besides crimes against the employer, that justify a termination in Germany. Where it is essentially impossible to fire a specific somebody.
  - btschaegg 8y ago
    My thoughts on this, too: If I were to pull a stunt like this in my industry, I'm pretty sure I'd be gone the next day. As for disciplinary actions: From an outside perspective, I think we can't really tell if there wasn't any internal dialog prior to the firings. If you look at her follow-up statements, I kind of doubt Price would have shown any remorse when asked about the incident internally... Edit: So, to say this more explicitly (since we're on the internet here): I don't think the outside public will ever have all the necessary facts to be able to judge if the firings were justified or not; especially since that decision alone is highly subjective.
- vvanders 8y ago
  Yup, I think Rami Ismail has pretty good take on it[1]: > I can't believe that the official ArenaNet statement is "the company that just made a public brutal example out of you & your co-worker could've protected you from feeling harassed if you just let us know". In such a small industry it's such a stupid move. Quick way to drive out talent from the studio. [1] https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1016480513857609728 https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1016480513857609728
rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
On one hand, nobody should have the presumption of work-life independence on social media. If I go to a restaurant and act like a real jerk on Twitter and talk trash about the food and service without restraint or civility, I should not be surprised if my boss calls me in the next day to talk about how I am implicitly representing my employer’s institution, even though that has nothing to do with my job. That being said, the response from ArenaNet was beyond disappointing. Any two-bit boss could have convinced the developer to write an “I’m Sorry, There Were Valid Criticisms from the Guild Wars Community” blog/Medium post, told the developer to keep quiet on social media for a while, and let the whole thing breeze by. Instead, the boss decides to not only intensify the issue (and make the company look easily bullied by a loud minority of players), but hands ammunition to the online gaming rage mob to shut down or kick out anybody they don’t like. And this is all well post-GamerGate. The implications of sexism are too obvious. Bad move, ArenaNet.
- rellui 8y ago
  "The implications of sexism are too obvious." How do you see this? ArenaNet fired Peter Fries (male) for doing the exact same thing.
  - rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
    It’s naive to think that in a post-GamerGate world, an enraged internet hate mob wouldnt attack a female developer for the slightest provocation. It’s awful and it’s ugly but it happens far too often to deny the presence of toxic sexism, even if the instigators didn’t engage in sexism to begin with. The mob then in turns threatens the company and scares executives into using blunt maneuvers to avoid extended online hate campaigns that can hurt sales, which are particularly sensitive in gaming because the capital costs for games are so high. Price was fired for defending her from said mob.
    - wolco 8y ago
      Would it matter if the reddit group was all female or if this person was a male? No the person still should be fired.
jessaustin 8y ago
What a cesspool. Reading this makes me want to never spend another dime on a computer game...
- abledon 8y ago
  You’re in luck! Guild wars 2 is free to play. I’ll see you in the plainsfields!
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    F2P if anything makes all of this worse...
swsieber 8y ago
(Edit: Taken in isolation:) Over-reactions all around. Price's initial reactions were over the top (they are linked here), as well as ArenaNet's reactions. When a dev drops a production database by accident, you shouldn't fire the dev. You train the dev, fix the issue, and get better policies in place. Yet they fired Price for something much more easily repairable. What do I think the proper solution entails? You get her a separate business twitter account, publicly apologize for the farce, and instigate a good personal/work social media separation policy. Edit: I think the company lacks integrity. Instead of taking responsibility for a problem, they burned their employee.
- ndiscussion 8y ago
  Dropping a production DB would generally be an accident - this seems more like poor judgment.
- ars 8y ago
  > Yet they fired Price for something much more easily repairable. Being a touchy dev is repairable. But trying to turn this into some sort of women developer issue is much worse, doing that is toxic to all the other women you work with because it makes people disregard them with: "oh she's just being a women". They did the right thing firing her. And she has made life much worse for all other women developers, who are normal and can take criticism as humans without saying "I'm a woman, you can't criticize me".
  - swsieber 8y ago
    I think her post-firing reaction made this unrepairable and very toxic, but I think even her second tweet about being a female developer could have been worked around with an official apology. Her reactions are unwarranted though - the small nit pointed to her on twitter is something I would raise with somebody, regardless of gender (disclaimer - not the one who posted it).
- guitarbill 8y ago
  That's assuming this was the first and only incident - we don't know if it was.
imode 8y ago
Jessica's actions were disgusting. There is no excuse for this behavior, and it's just pandering towards gender issues to disguise and sweep away her attack on somebody offering feedback. Polygon is not an unbiased source. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQK3OcdkD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQK3OcdkD4
orbifold 8y ago
Why someone would willingly under their own name participate in these kind of flamewars that will be preserved for eternity is beyond me.
koverda 8y ago
It seemed like Derior was engaging her in a respectful discussion, and the GW writer took it as a gendered offense for a reason that I can't seem to figure out. Maybe it's because Derior is a man? Either way, I do think that it's pretty ridiculous to get fired for something like that, I'd guess that ArenaNet wouldn't fire someone they though was truly valuable for an offense like this.
code_duck 8y ago
Having read the exchange that triggered this, I feel like I would not want this person representing my company. The comment that the fan made was respectful and constructive, and apparently due to her prejudices, she assumed he was acting with specific negative motives, despite any logical evidence of this in his words. She asks (on Twitter) ‘ask yourself what would make him say that’... when all he did was respond to her ideas about game design, respectfully? I think her political beliefs are interfering with her job duties.
speeder 8y ago
Some important details many posters here might miss: 1. Jessica Price was seemly fired before for having conflicts with her costumers, in another company. 2. Jessica Price did some other stuff on twitter that were ticking fans off, for example she wrote a tweet commemorating TotalBiscuit death (instead of offering condolences) 3. The person she called a "rando asshat" that shouldn't give his opinion about game writing to her, is a official partner of ArenaNET, is wildly popular, has an NPC named after him, and he is famous because he analyzes the game lore. He probably knows more about GuildWars lore than she did. 4. She also attacked another official ArenaNET partner that tried to explain to her why she was overreacting. 5. She, and Peter Fries, made clear that when off the clock they don't have to pretend to be nice and that fan feedback is not welcome, thing is, Jessica Price had ArenaNET name in her twitter account, and the conversation started when she was on the clock, the initial conversation was on July 3th. 6. The person she called sexist and whatnot, was replying to her AMA, and he was very polite, also he was a super fan of hers, there is videos of him praising her, this is why he wrote he was "dishearted" with her reaction. 7. And for wider context, community got angry so fast because several other incidents like this been overlooked, for example Rami Ismail wrote a bunch of openly racist stuff on twitter and got no punishment over it, when the pair were fired, people were genuinely surprised, and now the subreddit and forum is littered with people praising the devs instead, or telling what their favourite part of the game is, and so on. And disclosing: I never played Guild Wars 2, neither interacted with any of hte persons involved, neither used or bought any other products any of the persons involved worked on, I am just a bystander that was fascinated by what was going on.
- aeleos 8y ago
  I don't think commemorating is the right word, more like celebrating his death. Here is what she said: > The kindest thing I can say is "I'm glad he's no longer around to keep doing harm." Here is the tweet: https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1000045432007938048?lang=en https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1000045432007938048?l... Really really disgusting and distasteful thing to say.
  - jedimastert 8y ago
    Holy hell that is a messed up thing to say. Like "could and maybe should be fired for that alone" kinda messed up.
wolco 8y ago
This person is a snowflake who can't handle fans voicing an opinion so they turn the issue into a gender issue to rally support. This person represents everything that is wrong with the gaming industry.

50 points by MilnerRoute 8y ago

I'd like to get clarification because the way the article flows, it seems like they're saying Jessica Price was engaging with the fanbase aggressively via official channels, and not her own personal twitter account, which is a huge difference. Are we now in a place where your employer gets to dictate how you present yourself on social media? When I'm on the clock, absolutely, I have to stay on message when using the official accounts, but on my own? Fuck all of that, and fuck anyone who thinks that way. I am my employer's resource from when I come into the office to when I go home, and for brief moments whilist remote-ing in to handle an issue, and outside of that I should have legal protections to do whatever the hell my heart desires, and that includes talking. And tangent-ally related: > Today in being a female game dev: ‘Allow me — a person who does not work with you — explain to you how you do your job.’ That is beautiful, and the essence of my growing rage at my fellow nerds in various fandoms.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
MilnerRoute 8y ago
It appears it was her personal account. “The message is very clear, especially to women at the company: if Reddit wants you fired, we’ll fire you,” Price says. “The quality of your work doesn’t matter. Your personal space, your personal social media, is not yours; you are on the clock 100 percent of the time. We own you. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541318/guild-wars-arenanet-jessica-price-peter-fries-fired-reddit https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541318/guild-wars-arenan...
- ars 8y ago
  And this is why she got fired. She turned this issue into a "women" thing, which it never was. She's toxic to any company, and especially other women.
- lucio 8y ago
  She was talking about her job, the fan was very polite, and after her response, sad when mistreated. You don't mistreat the people who pay for your product, even more when they're polite. I can't see gender involved in this issue. Anyone treating a paying customer like that on a public forum, on a work-related issue, has high chances to be fired.
vvanders 8y ago
Yeah, the whole thing is just levels of stupid. The fact that a fellow writer who got involved was fired as well is just gasoline on the fire. I spent a fair bit of time in that industry and generally the ones running the studios were not the most level-headed people. There's all sorts of abuse that happens because "Hey, it's games! You should be lucky to work in such an industry!".
Sacho 8y ago
> And tangent-ally related: > Today in being a female game dev: ‘Allow me — a person who does not work with you — explain to you how you do your job.’ > That is beautiful, and the essence of my growing rage at my fellow nerds in various fandoms. Perhaps you should temper your growing rage with the facts. Here is what Deroir actually said - https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096 https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096
- lucio 8y ago
  and then https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014564971416518656 https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014564971416518656
- chc 8y ago
  He was not himself rude, but that doesn't mean his comment wasn't part of an irritating pattern of comments from lots of different people. For a completely different example of the same phenomenon, every individual person who makes the "People Eating Tasty Animals" joke at vegans is only making a mild jab, but in aggregate it gets very tiresome for the vegan who hears it over and over and over.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    So because other men sometimes doubt the intelligence of women in general, I am never allowed to question a woman?
    - chc 8y ago
      If you know more than her, go right ahead. If she is an experienced professional in a field and you've never done it a day in your life, then yeah, trying to teach her is kind of presumptuous. This isn't just a female thing — it's poor behavior no matter who you're dealing with — but women have to deal with it more often, so it can be more aggravating for them.
      - Bekwnn 8y ago
chomp 8y ago
If you make posts on Twitter and social media with your personal account, but present yourself as "Employee of so-and-so" and muse about your product and engage people with that persona, you've blended your personal and work personas. Anything you do on your personal account now reflects on the company. >I am my employer's resource from when I come into the office to when I go home, and for brief moments whilist remote-ing in to handle an issue, and outside of that I should have legal protections to do whatever the hell my heart desires, and that includes talking. If you separate work and personal life so distinctly, then why talk about work and present your work persona on your personal accounts!
- basic1 8y ago
  That it's a personal account doesn't even matter, the Internet outrage machine will come for your job, this isn't limited to any specific subculture.
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  Oh that is such a load. Who on earth goes through twitter accounts or Facebook accounts to evaluate the employees of a company before they decide to do business with them? I simply can't envision a scenario where Bob's Hot Dogs is going to refuse to use a payment processor like Square because one of Square's marketing people posted to twitter once like 2 years ago that hot dogs suck. And where are we drawing the line here? So you're saying by virtue I'm saying I'm an X at Y Company that I'm now representing that company 24/7 until I quit? That's insane, full bore insane. > If you separate work and personal life so distinctly, then why talk about work and present your work persona on your personal accounts! Because who doesn't!? I follow hundreds of people who regularly discuss their careers and what they do at work, most of them being developers and admins.
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    >And where are we drawing the line here? Answering most of your questions: Causing controversy. Just faffing about on social media, even negatively, generally won't be a problem until such time as you portray your employer in a bad light (say, by shouting at their customers apropos of nothing) and cause them a PR issue.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Arzh 8y ago
To an extent, (in the eyes of the business) she was actively acting as a representative of the product (discussing the development of the product) and bashing the users of the product (calling them asshats). If that is harmful to the business it doesn't matter if it's on "your time". I would view this differently if she was fired for a tweet that was political in nature or something like it. If I was in charge I'm not sure I would have done the same thing but I can understand the reasoning.
- chc 8y ago
  Your position here seems to be opposed to anyone who works for a company having any kind of free speech. Please consider whether this is a position that is maximally good for society. She didn't say anything offensive or harmful, just expressed frustration with a pattern of communication that she gets.
  - ars 8y ago
    > having any kind of free speech Exaggerate much? Don't speak as a representative of your company. It's not that hard. You can talk about anything else you like, but don't make people think it's coming from the company. Free speech doesn't give you the right to put words in other peoples', or companies' mouths.
    - chc 8y ago
      She wasn't speaking as a representative of the company there. I don't see how you could possibly construe it that way. Here's what she said: > Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job." If you did take that as an official company statement, it would seem to mean that ArenaNet's official position is that ArenaNet is a female developer who is tired of having her job explained to her by men. It's such a tortured and nonsensical interpretation of her comment that I can't see how you'd read it as anything but her personal feelings as a female game developer.
  - Sacho 8y ago
    > She didn't say anything offensive or harmful Well, this is what she said(during the incident, she's said much worse in other cases), do you still think she didn't say anything offensive or harmful? https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014581433937981445 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014581433937981445 https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1014555719352213504 https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1014555719352213504

lucio 8y ago

How about analyzing the facts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q50oy4-UJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q50oy4-UJM Is this guy analysis correct?

chc 8y ago
It would be more useful to present your ideas here instead of linking to a 20-minute YouTube video.
- stefan_ 8y ago
  Of course if you try to write down your ideas, it forces you to think about what you are saying. At that point you realize that a 20 minute ranty YouTube video probably fits into a paragraph or two of refined thought. I must be getting old but any controversy that involves any amount of YouTube bloggers is an immediate sign to not bother. It's intended to generate outrage and views, in that order.
  - lucio 8y ago
    I think the facts should precede any statements of ideas in this case. Since the article do not present the facts as a sequence of events, the video I linked seems to be useful.
- lucio 8y ago
  The video is about the facts, you can dismiss the extra 10% of the video. Unless he's hiding some facts, it seems like a good summary.

astebbin 8y ago

I’m struck by the apparent no-warning nature of the firing. Were internal expectations clearly set for how employees should behave when interacting with fans and customers? Do companies like ArenaNet with especially vocal fan communitiecs generally have codes of conduct for employee-customer interaction?

rellui 8y ago
Seems to be partly answered by Mike Obrien: Whatever Jessica and Peter felt internally about the situation, this was objectively a customer engaging us respectfully and professionally, presenting a suggestion for our game. Any response from our company needed to be respectful and professional. A perceived slight doesn’t give us license to attack. We’ve all dedicated our careers to entertaining people, to making games for the purpose of delighting those who play them. We generally have a wonderful relationship with our community, and that’s a point of pride for us. We want to hear from our players. It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company — in this case a polite game suggestion — would be met with open hostility and derision from us. That sets a chilling precedent.

abledon 8y ago

Considering how big that company is — they should have spent some $$$ on hr/twitter policy training/guidelines so mucky situations like this could be avoided. And also, if they persist, quick to be resolved as it would be more akin to a policy lookup in a legal contract

rellui 8y ago

Here are the tweets that "triggered" this chain of event which the article fails to quote. https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096 https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096 And the subsequent response by Price https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136 https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1014554296107483136

aeleos 8y ago
Those two tweets are quoted by the article.
guitarbill 8y ago
At least when I was reading, those seem to be linked (now?). Regardless, reading those is much more informative than hearing it from second-hand sources.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

chomp 8y ago

I think ArenaNet made the right call. She was using her personal twitter account to represent her employer. Her reaction to a fan was over the top, and not representative of the company's values. What is Twitter if not a global discussion forum? Deroir's comment was a polite disagreement. I have no idea how she would want people to phrase their disagreement, or is this a case of "don't @ me with your opinion?"

whack 8y ago
The article barely mentions the original messages that sparked this row, and it's really worth reading them before forming an opinion. Deroir: "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design ....." Price: "Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job." Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: ... I'm not your courtesan... Don't expect me to pretend to like you. like, the next rando asshat who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me--as if, you know, having worked in game narrative for a fucking DECADE, I have never heard of it--is getting instablocked. PSA." I get that it can be annoying when someone who isn't an expert disagrees with you, but her response was uncivil, rude, inflammatory and derogatory. It's unfortunate when people can't disagree without taking things personally.
- MrMember 8y ago
  I don't understand how anyone can defend Price here. Her reaction to a polite, innocuous question is so over the top ridiculous it almost reads like satire. Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today Who even talks like this in real life?
- cleanyourroom 8y ago
  Agree, this would get you kicked from an AOL chatroom. A heuristic I still find useful for some reason.

adrianhon 8y ago

I've find it profoundly disturbing just how many people feel it's perfectly fine, and indeed laudable, for companies to immediately terminate employees during a situation like this. Even if you think that Price's actions were wrong, the fact that she had no warning and no recourse seems wrong. Yes, I know ArenaNet is based in an at-will employment state (Washington) so they are legally permitted to do this, but just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. But hey - all hail our corporate gaming overlords, right?

1ris 8y ago
A bit of outside perspective: Insulting a customer is one of the rare occasions, besides crimes against the employer, that justify a termination in Germany. Where it is essentially impossible to fire a specific somebody.
- btschaegg 8y ago
  My thoughts on this, too: If I were to pull a stunt like this in my industry, I'm pretty sure I'd be gone the next day. As for disciplinary actions: From an outside perspective, I think we can't really tell if there wasn't any internal dialog prior to the firings. If you look at her follow-up statements, I kind of doubt Price would have shown any remorse when asked about the incident internally... Edit: So, to say this more explicitly (since we're on the internet here): I don't think the outside public will ever have all the necessary facts to be able to judge if the firings were justified or not; especially since that decision alone is highly subjective.
vvanders 8y ago
Yup, I think Rami Ismail has pretty good take on it[1]: > I can't believe that the official ArenaNet statement is "the company that just made a public brutal example out of you & your co-worker could've protected you from feeling harassed if you just let us know". In such a small industry it's such a stupid move. Quick way to drive out talent from the studio. [1] https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1016480513857609728 https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1016480513857609728

rm_-rf_slash 8y ago

On one hand, nobody should have the presumption of work-life independence on social media. If I go to a restaurant and act like a real jerk on Twitter and talk trash about the food and service without restraint or civility, I should not be surprised if my boss calls me in the next day to talk about how I am implicitly representing my employer’s institution, even though that has nothing to do with my job. That being said, the response from ArenaNet was beyond disappointing. Any two-bit boss could have convinced the developer to write an “I’m Sorry, There Were Valid Criticisms from the Guild Wars Community” blog/Medium post, told the developer to keep quiet on social media for a while, and let the whole thing breeze by. Instead, the boss decides to not only intensify the issue (and make the company look easily bullied by a loud minority of players), but hands ammunition to the online gaming rage mob to shut down or kick out anybody they don’t like. And this is all well post-GamerGate. The implications of sexism are too obvious. Bad move, ArenaNet.

rellui 8y ago
"The implications of sexism are too obvious." How do you see this? ArenaNet fired Peter Fries (male) for doing the exact same thing.
- rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
  It’s naive to think that in a post-GamerGate world, an enraged internet hate mob wouldnt attack a female developer for the slightest provocation. It’s awful and it’s ugly but it happens far too often to deny the presence of toxic sexism, even if the instigators didn’t engage in sexism to begin with. The mob then in turns threatens the company and scares executives into using blunt maneuvers to avoid extended online hate campaigns that can hurt sales, which are particularly sensitive in gaming because the capital costs for games are so high. Price was fired for defending her from said mob.
  - wolco 8y ago
    Would it matter if the reddit group was all female or if this person was a male? No the person still should be fired.

jessaustin 8y ago

What a cesspool. Reading this makes me want to never spend another dime on a computer game...

abledon 8y ago
You’re in luck! Guild wars 2 is free to play. I’ll see you in the plainsfields!
- jessaustin 8y ago
  F2P if anything makes all of this worse...

swsieber 8y ago

(Edit: Taken in isolation:) Over-reactions all around. Price's initial reactions were over the top (they are linked here), as well as ArenaNet's reactions. When a dev drops a production database by accident, you shouldn't fire the dev. You train the dev, fix the issue, and get better policies in place. Yet they fired Price for something much more easily repairable. What do I think the proper solution entails? You get her a separate business twitter account, publicly apologize for the farce, and instigate a good personal/work social media separation policy. Edit: I think the company lacks integrity. Instead of taking responsibility for a problem, they burned their employee.

ndiscussion 8y ago
Dropping a production DB would generally be an accident - this seems more like poor judgment.
ars 8y ago
> Yet they fired Price for something much more easily repairable. Being a touchy dev is repairable. But trying to turn this into some sort of women developer issue is much worse, doing that is toxic to all the other women you work with because it makes people disregard them with: "oh she's just being a women". They did the right thing firing her. And she has made life much worse for all other women developers, who are normal and can take criticism as humans without saying "I'm a woman, you can't criticize me".
- swsieber 8y ago
  I think her post-firing reaction made this unrepairable and very toxic, but I think even her second tweet about being a female developer could have been worked around with an official apology. Her reactions are unwarranted though - the small nit pointed to her on twitter is something I would raise with somebody, regardless of gender (disclaimer - not the one who posted it).
guitarbill 8y ago
That's assuming this was the first and only incident - we don't know if it was.

imode 8y ago

Jessica's actions were disgusting. There is no excuse for this behavior, and it's just pandering towards gender issues to disguise and sweep away her attack on somebody offering feedback. Polygon is not an unbiased source. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQK3OcdkD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQK3OcdkD4

orbifold 8y ago

Why someone would willingly under their own name participate in these kind of flamewars that will be preserved for eternity is beyond me.

koverda 8y ago

It seemed like Derior was engaging her in a respectful discussion, and the GW writer took it as a gendered offense for a reason that I can't seem to figure out. Maybe it's because Derior is a man? Either way, I do think that it's pretty ridiculous to get fired for something like that, I'd guess that ArenaNet wouldn't fire someone they though was truly valuable for an offense like this.

code_duck 8y ago

Having read the exchange that triggered this, I feel like I would not want this person representing my company. The comment that the fan made was respectful and constructive, and apparently due to her prejudices, she assumed he was acting with specific negative motives, despite any logical evidence of this in his words. She asks (on Twitter) ‘ask yourself what would make him say that’... when all he did was respond to her ideas about game design, respectfully? I think her political beliefs are interfering with her job duties.

speeder 8y ago

Some important details many posters here might miss: 1. Jessica Price was seemly fired before for having conflicts with her costumers, in another company. 2. Jessica Price did some other stuff on twitter that were ticking fans off, for example she wrote a tweet commemorating TotalBiscuit death (instead of offering condolences) 3. The person she called a "rando asshat" that shouldn't give his opinion about game writing to her, is a official partner of ArenaNET, is wildly popular, has an NPC named after him, and he is famous because he analyzes the game lore. He probably knows more about GuildWars lore than she did. 4. She also attacked another official ArenaNET partner that tried to explain to her why she was overreacting. 5. She, and Peter Fries, made clear that when off the clock they don't have to pretend to be nice and that fan feedback is not welcome, thing is, Jessica Price had ArenaNET name in her twitter account, and the conversation started when she was on the clock, the initial conversation was on July 3th. 6. The person she called sexist and whatnot, was replying to her AMA, and he was very polite, also he was a super fan of hers, there is videos of him praising her, this is why he wrote he was "dishearted" with her reaction. 7. And for wider context, community got angry so fast because several other incidents like this been overlooked, for example Rami Ismail wrote a bunch of openly racist stuff on twitter and got no punishment over it, when the pair were fired, people were genuinely surprised, and now the subreddit and forum is littered with people praising the devs instead, or telling what their favourite part of the game is, and so on. And disclosing: I never played Guild Wars 2, neither interacted with any of hte persons involved, neither used or bought any other products any of the persons involved worked on, I am just a bystander that was fascinated by what was going on.

aeleos 8y ago
I don't think commemorating is the right word, more like celebrating his death. Here is what she said: > The kindest thing I can say is "I'm glad he's no longer around to keep doing harm." Here is the tweet: https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1000045432007938048?lang=en https://twitter.com/delafina777/status/1000045432007938048?l... Really really disgusting and distasteful thing to say.
- jedimastert 8y ago
  Holy hell that is a messed up thing to say. Like "could and maybe should be fired for that alone" kinda messed up.

wolco 8y ago

This person is a snowflake who can't handle fans voicing an opinion so they turn the issue into a gender issue to rally support. This person represents everything that is wrong with the gaming industry.