Came to the forums to say thank you Mo for your leadership and sticking to the vision you have of your company; I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to make, firing someone is never easy. But I'm happy that we can put this matter behind us.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Uh huh just someone stirring the pot...AGAIN. This was back in March anyway and it seems everyone has been happily playing the game since then. Has it affected your personal game play in any way since then? NO.........ignore the posting and move on.
3 months is hardly a long time ago. If it were 3 years ago I might be able to let it slide. But 3 months? no way.
And just HOW does this affect you and playing GW2 now? It just looks like trolling trying to keep everything hostile and tore up.
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
I'm pretty surprised Peter Fries got fired as well. He was polite during the whole exchange from what I saw. I wonder if they were looking for a reason to get rid of him anyway and this was just an excuse. Going forward I think the game devs will be much less open with the player base for fear of losing their jobs.
I'm sad this incident happened because she shared with us a window into the challenges of how to handle character development for a character you can't define. While the only view I had into her was her Twitter account, it seemed like she existed in an amped up state of constant rage and stress, always lashing out, and never really seeming to truly enjoy anything. All of this is unfortunate and didn't have to happen, and I hope she can learn to get things under control and not see normal, everyday interactions as attacks. It was probably the last straw, but essentially telling your customers you hate them and their feedback is unwelcome is career suicide.
Edit:
After seeing the Kotaku article I'm having an even harder time giving JP the benefit of the doubt. For whatever reason, she can't take critique- to the point where she seems to see it as an injustice carried out against her. She has to tolerate it from her coworkers for professional reasons, Oh! the humanity, the tragedy of it all! No really- she makes clear what a terrible burden it is to not lash out at her coworkers. But when a mere consumer of the product she works on dares approach her in a manner that is ever so slightly critical she can't handle it. And sadly, it seems to be her M.O. It's incredibly disappointing to see this from a professional, moreover one that chose to share her perspective on the challenges of storytelling in an MMORPG. She needs to learn to separate herself from her work and understand critique is not a personal attack. This was almost certainly not her first incident.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Uh huh just someone stirring the pot...AGAIN. This was back in March anyway and it seems everyone has been happily playing the game since then. Has it affected your personal game play in any way since then? NO.........ignore the posting and move on.
3 months is hardly a long time ago. If it were 3 years ago I might be able to let it slide. But 3 months? no way.
And just HOW does this affect you and playing GW2 now? It just looks like trolling trying to keep everything hostile and tore up.
These people write the story for the game we love. If they are that ideologically biased it will have influence on the story narrative. I dont want biased bigots write the story for the games i love.
@cmpgamer.9628 said:
Would you want to keep an employee who explodes at simple criticisms and questions?
It wouldn't have been a problem if she wasn't publicly representing ArenaNet. She was apparently a good writer according to the forums of her last job, but she was known to snip at people and has a long history of this bad behavior.
Reset the password on my years-old account just to say that this response is remarkable in a time when most hateful & rude game developers are protected by their employer rather than reprimanded. Massive respect.
i am not comfortable with the swift axing of peter fries either. from my perspective, it looks much more like an attempt at covering up liability as opposed to any actual addressing of jessica price's behavior. whereas jessica has had a short history with anet and a long history of aggression and rudeness to not just gw2 community members, but social media in general; peter has had such a long positive standing with the company AND community that it was shocking to see him fired along with her for what was minimal involvement compared to jessica.
i do not agree with jessica's behavior, her rudeness towards others. however i do not agree with sweeping it under the rug without any sort of proper addressing, or even apology for her actions. i do not agree with peter being thrown in with her to be fired when he had not so much as even a handful of tweets interaction and involvement.
and lastly i do not agree with the toxicity i am seeing from the community as well, the sheer viciousness im seeing from other players here is frankly appalling, as if this was some sort of gleeful anti-feminist witch hunt for them rather than dealing with one problematic employee. as someone who is a minority in many ways including race and gender, it makes me feel unsafe as a player of this game even more so than arenanet's decision to let go of JP and PF in response to JP's actions
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Uh huh just someone stirring the pot...AGAIN. This was back in March anyway and it seems everyone has been happily playing the game since then. Has it affected your personal game play in any way since then? NO.........ignore the posting and move on.
3 months is hardly a long time ago. If it were 3 years ago I might be able to let it slide. But 3 months? no way.
And just HOW does this affect you and playing GW2 now? It just looks like trolling trying to keep everything hostile and tore up.
These people write the story for the game we love. If they are that ideologically biased it will have influence on the story narrative. I dont want biased bigots write the story for the games i love.
Seriously????? LOL ok whatever just quit stirring up people with old stuff keeping the argument going for no reason. What's done is done and ANET served the justice they felt was needed. Let it go now and be one with the force.
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
I will echo what others have said, sorry to see it came down to letting people go. Was hoping to see an apology and disciplinary action. I can only imaging at this point that there was refusals to apologize.
Unfortunate that people had to be fired, but this was an expected outcome. Can't believe people are still saying garbage on Twitter, Facebook, etc and expecting it to be personal and private with no consequences.
If you represent the company in any way, and say stuff that hurts the company and its image, you're going to be fired. This is 2k18 people.
Unfortunate Fries was collateral, but you need to pick your battles. This was not one of them, especially not on a public platform.
I... Feel bad for Peter Fries. Did he deserve some sort of disciplinary measure? Sure. Did he deserve the same thing as Jessica Price? I don't think so.
For that matter, my mind is in all sorts of places about the firing. I understand this was a really hard decision to make, and I accept that being let go is a logical consequence to JP's behavior. Still, something about this doesn't feel quite right.
@Oneiroid.9245 said:
I have to say I do not agree with the firing of Peter Fries and I feel anet has caved TOO far to community demands, as what Peter did didn't warrant such a severe reaction. He has been a long-standing employee at your company who has been nothing but nice and may have made a singular foolish choice. Surely he may have needed to be reprimanded but to go so far as to fire him is extremely rash and giving in to the 'bandwagon' of anger, and in my eyes is shameful. I'm not going to touch the topic of Jessica Price-- for Peter alone, I feel this was too severe and I feel you did not make the right decision in his case. This whole incident is already such a disaster on BOTH sides of the topic and this just makes things worse. I suppose if this is anet's choice, it cannot be undone, but to any employees reading this who have had a say in this manner, I hope that in the future you consider these things way more carefully as whatever crowd was crying for Peter to be fired really did not actually represent your whole community and was merely the loudest, not the most rational. There were better and less extreme solutions for his behavior.
I would love to agree with this since everything you said about Peter is true.
However I can't and the only reason I can't is because I cannot find Peters comments as they've been deleted.
It would be equally unfair for me to defend him as it would be to condone his firing simply because I have no access to the information he posted which only makes me even more unsure about how to feel about him being let go.
All I do know is that for 12 years he worked on two of my favorite games and for that I will always be grateful for his contributions to them.. and I even extend the same gratitude to Jess for her work on Gw2 as well even though I in no way support her social media behavior.
Overall I'm just disappointed that this happened at all.. but I am deeply relieved that this community has survived with relatively little division and toxicity to one another.
I've seen other communities utterly torn apart by far less so I'm kitten proud of my fellow Gw2 players for being better than that and keeping the Gw2 community such an great and upstanding community to be a part of.
@Queen of Chaos.7506 said:
I will echo what others have said, sorry to see it came down to letting people go. Was hoping to see an apology and disciplinary action. I can only imaging at this point that there was refusals to apologize.
I was thinking something similar. In particular, I don't feel that PF's twitter contributions to the situation should be something one wouldn't be able to recover from. But we don't know what happened behind the closed doors at the ANet offices.
I've seen posts defending her actions and I was to ask this:
If it had been a man saying those things to a female player, would you be defending their actions then?
As a female player, I can say that I was ashamed of her interactions with the community. Her language toward them was insulting and rude, and completely uncalled for. If she didn't want to have a discussion about work stuff on her day off on her "personal" account, then she shouldn't have opened the floor by posting what she did. If it was addressed in the AMA that should have been the end of it. But it seems to me that she went out of her way to further discussion about a game related topic and then lost her mind when someone stepped up with opposing ideas and suggestions.
Not sure why anyone is surprised, from the beginning you will not find a company that expressly tells their customers they want as much feedback as possible at every turn, both in game and out, no matter the platform. We all know pretty much all of everyone that works at ANet's social media accounts, and they know that too.
@saerni.2584 said:
Disappointing. As a practical matter it was likely the only option from a business perspective.
But, I’m sad to see a woman in game development brought down by cries of misandry and reverse-racism. It’s not a good look to wear. It’s another Gamer-gate.
Ever heard of who cares that someone is a guy or a girl if they do their jobe it is fine. who cares if someone is a girl of boy it is the person that matters not the race gender or what ever. If a person is not nice it doesn't matter that the person is. It is called looking at the person not there race gender or what ever.
Seriously thank you, Arenanet; from the bottom of my heart.
I know the community overreacts to things that don't deserve it, like with HoT, the mount licence (which was badly implemented at fist but didn't warrant the backlash received), when people complained about diversity in game, or the issues with release of Episode 3 more recently, but this was a serious issue, and I'm glad you did the right thing here. If you like something, you need to be critical of it, so it can be even better next time, not only from your team (which I hope didn't have this issue), but from the players; even if it were to be a "dumb" criticism, respect and cordiality are fundamental pillars, this is what makes the community in the game and around it, the best out there.
So again, thank you for discerning overreactions from bigger problems and act accordingly. You are seriously the best. I'm glad the confidence I have in you all is well placed.
@Blademaster.6123 said:
Mo, You can't let the community get away with this. The community is just as guilty here, don't bend to their will.
Well said, witch hunts are witch hunts.
Right On!!! And it seems the hunt will now continue sadly (if others have their way). Hopefully they will close all the threads and lock them away before it gets carried away even more.
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Mo
Sad person looses job over a tweet... I just wonder how many people here would still have their jobs if that standard was applied to themselves.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Mo
This is how a response is done, plain and forward. Thank you for showing your dedication to the brand you've poured your life over. We'll back you up just as you have backed us up.
People on facebook GW2 groups feel that Peters dissmissal was somewhat over the top.
But. Also worry that it was done to save face. Meaning, that JP would hav cried se-xism at ANet had she been the only one fired....
@Blademaster.6123 said:
Mo, You can't let the community get away with this. The community is just as guilty here, don't bend to their will.
Then please point directly at the first person. I'm sure you'll gladly throw the first rock.
You're questioning anets integrity as a whole. They would have lost a lot if they let this one slide. There is no excusing it.
And I can say that while STILL not agreeing with the people going directly after her, saying she has a mental disorder, saying she is a disgraceful human being etc. Personal attacks don't belong in that type of discussion but they happen when you have SO MANY different people with different opinions, different moods, different outrage.
JP's tone and antagonistic diatribe against Deroir and Inks were absolutely inexcusable. You cannot verbally attack someone for voicing a difference of opinion. I doubt she'll learn from this life event, if anything she'll think this was an attack on her gender.
Regardless, good move by ArenaNet. You cannot employ people that willingly go to attack upstanding members of your community, people that vouch and bring players into the game.
This wouldn't have happened if ANet employees were restricted to official forums when posting about Guild Wars and their posts had a chance to get reviewed before going live. I know many don't like this but companies have to be careful because one wrong move can destroy their business. If they were restricted an employee's bad day would never have escalated into the loss of their jobs and ANet loosing valuable employees.
@salt.6759 said:
I'm pretty surprised Peter Fries got fired as well. He was polite during the whole exchange from what I saw. I wonder if they were looking for a reason to get rid of him anyway and this was just an excuse. Going forward I think the game devs will be much less open with the player base for fear of losing their jobs.
Why?
There is nothing wrong with being open. JP's initial post about the writing process for the commander is an excellent post. There's nothing wrong with it. Her conduct in her replies to Deroir, however, are. And those comments have nothing to do with being open. It's conduct, behavior. And that is what got her fired. Not her initial post about the writing process. Please don't get things mixed up. It misrepresents the entire situation to people who are less informed on the current situation than others (and I've seen quite a few responses already that clearly show a lack of knowledge about what has been going on).
I'm sure most of ANet's employees have no problem being polite. And I'm sure they also know that the information part of JP's posts was not the problem to begin with, nor do I see them suddenly withholding information for fear of being fired. Then again, there's no way to know that for sure since we can't play both scenarios against each other to see what happens, can we? Just have a little faith.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Mo
Sad person looses job over a tweet... I just wonder how many people here would still have their jobs if that standard was applied to themselves.
I'm sure this is only the beginning. Have seen a few threads already of people "bringing attention" to other alleged Devs. Some allegedly faked? Not entirely clear at this point.
@Blademaster.6123 said:
Mo, You can't let the community get away with this. The community is just as guilty here, don't bend to their will.
Well said, witch hunts are witch hunts.
Right On!!! And it seems the hunt will now continue sadly (if others have their way). Hopefully they will close all the threads and lock them away before it gets even more carried away.
@Tasida.4085 said:
Seriously????? LOL ok whatever just quit stirring up people with old stuff keeping the argument going for no reason. What's done is done and ANET served the justice they felt was needed. Let it go now and be one with the force.
@VCRwolfe.6452 said:
i am not comfortable with the swift axing of peter fries either. from my perspective, it looks much more like an attempt at covering up liability as opposed to any actual addressing of jessica price's behavior. whereas jessica has had a short history with anet and a long history of aggression and rudeness to not just gw2 community members, but social media in general; peter has had such a long positive standing with the company AND community that it was shocking to see him fired along with her for what was minimal involvement compared to jessica.
i do not agree with jessica's behavior, her rudeness towards others. however i do not agree with sweeping it under the rug without any sort of proper addressing, or even apology for her actions. i do not agree with peter being thrown in with her to be fired when he had not so much as even a handful of tweets interaction and involvement.
and lastly i do not agree with the toxicity i am seeing from the community as well, the sheer viciousness im seeing from other players here is frankly appalling, as if this was some sort of gleeful anti-feminist witch hunt for them rather than dealing with one problematic employee. as someone who is a minority in many ways including race and gender, it makes me feel unsafe as a player of this game even more so than arenanet's decision to let go of JP and PF in response to JP's actions
I also agree that the termination of Peter Fries was interesting to say the least from what we currently and probably ever will know.
But I just felt like I had to say that if you want to convince members of this community about something wrong of their actions, that it might be best to frame it in a more tasteful manner. Saying that this incident has made you feel unsafe from being a minority in many ways isn't going to sit well with the players as it comes across as if many are needlessly hostile towards those of a different race/gender/etc. when they sincerely aren't. If anything this community as a whole is one of the most friendliest and more welcoming communities that I've seen out there when compared to almost every other online gaming environment, I'd even go so far to say that you're bound to find more unfriendly people on something like Hello Kitty Online compared to Guild Wars 2.
WvW players are a different story though, but they have a reason to be really salty most of the time.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Mo
Sad person looses job over a tweet... I just wonder how many people here would still have their jobs if that standard was applied to themselves.
No offense but it's clear you don't know what this type of idiocy can do to the image of a company. Like I said in one of my previous posts, I work for a big corporation as well, if I start to get into fights with customers or potential customers on social media where I clearly state I work for said company, I do represent this company in these silly fights. I'd be out on my rear end before you could sneeze, I promise you that. No one is saying that people can't vent their frustration or have their own opinion about things, but you can NOT do that while you're representing a private enterprise. The story would be totally different if said devs didn't advertise their employer's name in the open like that.
I dont believe Peter deserved to be fired because e tried to defend his co-worker. He didnt call names or anything and he engaged in discussion rather than going in a blocking spree.
Whilst I understand your position with Jessica Price I think Peter fries being sacked is rather ridiculous. He didn't 'attack' anyone he merely supported Jessica Price and rather mildly at that.
@lkilian.1854 said:
I understand JPrice getting fired. She was just disrespectful. But Peter Fries? Really?
Yes, really.
Peter could have been the one to help the situation more than anyone else. He also made a careless choice as JP did. He chose to take a side, support JP's response, and put down a player. I was hoping it could be rectified with an explanation and an apology from the two, but whether it was a difficult or expected decision, it ultimately became a necessary one.
We've lost two good writers from the team, but this can lead to growth for the game and hopefully those two writers for the future.
@saerni.2584 said:
Disappointing. As a practical matter it was likely the only option from a business perspective.
But, I’m sad to see a woman in game development brought down by cries of misandry and reverse-racism. It’s not a good look to wear. It’s another Gamer-gate.
She got brought down for a pattern of behavior stretching back to the dawn of Twitter and dancing on the grave of a dead cancer victim
[Atari Teenage Riot voice] NO REMORSE
This 1000x. Thanks A.net and O'Brien, you made the right choice.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Mo
Sad person looses job over a tweet... I just wonder how many people here would still have their jobs if that standard was applied to themselves.
To be fair, if it was one tweet, it probably would not have led to this. This was a series of tweets and once Reddit "investigates" it you're going to be hella scrutinized.
Many people have lost their jobs for saying stuff on social media, this is not a new concept. Jobs specifically have social media training courses and the like to prevent stuff like today.
Today was the result of one dev going too far on Twitter one too many times against the wrong person and it getting blown to a level that could not be ignored. You can't blame the internet for that, there needs to be some personal responsibility there.
Many games have CMs that have their own personal twitter accounts and there is no issue. It's only an issue if you don't know boundaries. She had the option to not reply, to not talk about work related things, to make it a personal only twitter, and a lot of other options. You don't get the option of taking a work-related topic (from a on-the-clock AMA) to Twitter, get negative feedback, saying whatever you want to the person, and then defending it as "it's my personal account".
@Xenash.1245 said:
I also agree that the termination of Peter Fries was interesting to say the least from what we currently and probably ever will know.
But I just felt like I had to say that if you want to convince members of this community about something wrong of their actions, that it might be best to frame it in a more tasteful manner. Saying that this incident has made you feel unsafe from being a minority in many ways isn't going to sit well with the players as it comes across as if many are needlessly hostile towards those of a different race/gender/etc. when they sincerely aren't. If anything this community as a whole is one of the most friendliest and more welcoming communities that I've seen out there when compared to almost every other online gaming environment, I'd even go so far to say that you're bound to find more unfriendly people on something like Hello Kitty Online compared to Guild Wars 2.
WvW players are a different story though, but they have a reason to be really salty most of the time.
oh trust me, ive played other games! while its great that this one has been the most welcoming ive seen in a long time, there is still the issue of those who are generally hateful to minorities. the gw2 community isnt free of them either and its something i can sadly attest to having played this game for a few years now. i am not saying this in any hostility, its simply the sad reality of gaming communities and the pushback experienced by minorities in them. even just looking at the subreddit has been super uncomfortable today, people decrying that social justice is ruining their game and they wont play it anymore when really, this issue is just about JP's sour behavior and not any sort of feminist agenda anet was pushing
There are many of us who will still be playing the game regardless of the witch hunts and old posts and hurt feelings etc. And speaking out against the hunts every time, until the silly hunters give up. I'm so glad I'm not a thin skinned person cos if I was i'd be crying into my pillow every night cos I get called bruh, bro, dude, boi at least 3x a day and many are guilty of using THOSE words (sexism according to forum followers) yet like other females choose to ignore it and play the game. ROFL GAME ON
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
@saerni.2584 said:
Disappointing. As a practical matter it was likely the only option from a business perspective.
But, I’m sad to see a woman in game development brought down by cries of misandry and reverse-racism. It’s not a good look to wear. It’s another Gamer-gate.
Ever heard of who cares that someone is a guy or a girl if they do their jobe it is fine. who cares if someone is a girl of boy it is the person that matters not the race gender or what ever. If a person is not nice it doesn't matter that the person is. It is called looking at the person not there race gender or what ever.
Representation matters. And the number of posts that were explicitly and implicitly sexist were pretty high. I’m not saying she shouldn’t have lost her job given the uproar. I’m saying that in the rush to judgment by the community context was lost and a number of people called for her head using language that originated in the alt-right.
No, not everyone supporting her firing is alt right. That’s not the point. The point is that alt right discourse is being normalized. As a minority in some contexts this is incredibly discouraging to me. How should I respond to that?
When the mob wins it wants more. Who will it come for next?
Northern Shiverpeaks (NSP)
Deadeye (Thief)
Commandant of P/D and Apex Predator
I'm sorry to hear that she was ultimately let go; I hope that this can be a positive learning experience for her to help her grow and flourish into a much more successful career down the road.
It's unfortunate, but it puts a major strain on a company when employees publicly make hateful comments towards others based upon gender, race, nationality or religion. Please people: learn from this. If you ever feel the need to attack someone based on one of those attributes, don't do it. If not for the fact that it will make you a better person to not do it, then at least for the fact that you will probably put your career and future on the line by doing so. Be respectful in your replies and discussions, and accept that not everyone will agree with you. If you can do that, you'll go really far.
I wish both of them the best, and I really hope that this is a turning point for her. Some of the things she said on her twitter were just horrible, but that doesn't mean that SHE is a horrible person who doesn't deserve a chance to change. She's worked at a great company, likely now has a strong resume, and this can be just a bump in the road to one day being the CEO of some big game company where she can teach the same lesson to the next generation.
If you want X, and Y is needed to get get X, you also have to want Y if you really want X. If you don't want Y, you don't want X. It's easy. Pro: Build Templates, Dungeon Rework, UW content Contra: New Races, New Classes, New Weapons, Capes
I am very sad to see this all happen, but I feel Anet made the correct decision.
Many companies, including mine, have established social media policies stating that any discussion of, or disagreement with, a client, partner, vendor, fellow employee, or the company in general is banned (excluding approved marketing). This includes personal social media accounts. Even a long-standing employee would be fired for having a public disagreement with a client, even if the client initiated the argument.
As for Mr. Fries, I feel he wanted to defend his coworker but he made the mistake of joining in the social media discussion.
It's sad to see anyone fired, but Anet has the right to expect certain standards of behavior from their employees.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Mo
Can I give a thumbs down for yet another company that encourages employees to be open and honest and then punishes them for it? Send her to some training, kitten, but this basically blacklists her forever and ever. Good job proving her point, I guess.
@Mike O Brien.4613 said:
Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.
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.
Oh so there's MORE of these kinds of people in Anet's employment. Starting to think the company of full of them.
You mean kitten types?
please give me a break, they are and have always been located in seattle. You can easily follow the entire team on social media, it is really hard to pretend to say you don't know who and what they are and believe in. They are allowed their personal beliefs, and that should not matter and has no place in a fantasy game.
There is a gigantic and massive difference between personal beliefs and attacking fans in a game that has a long standing tradition of always wanting the entire community to always give feedback, criticism, and interaction, both in game and out. The community has members that have added just as much to the game as actual Anet employees, because that is what Anet has wanted and that is the community they have cultivated from the very beginning of GW1. Has zero to do with beliefs and everything to do with actions.
I do not know if this was the final incident in a series of such where attempts to encourage improved behavior went ignored, or if this single incid3nt was considered sufficiently severe to merit termination. I had hoped that the parties involved would be given an opportunity to change the offending behavior without loss of livelihood. I do not wish unemployment on anyone in this day and age. Hopefully this all works out for the best for all involved.
I hope that those who have moved on are able to self reflect and grow from the experience. Good luck to them. I hope that this is an opportunity for some new blood to have an impact on the game. Good luck to us all.
Comments
Came to the forums to say thank you Mo for your leadership and sticking to the vision you have of your company; I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to make, firing someone is never easy. But I'm happy that we can put this matter behind us.
Good. I hope someone more decent and deserving gets the job. Someone who values the fans and has the ability to communicate with civility and manners.
And just HOW does this affect you and playing GW2 now? It just looks like trolling trying to keep everything hostile and tore up.
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
Rip .
I'm pretty surprised Peter Fries got fired as well. He was polite during the whole exchange from what I saw. I wonder if they were looking for a reason to get rid of him anyway and this was just an excuse. Going forward I think the game devs will be much less open with the player base for fear of losing their jobs.
I'm sad this incident happened because she shared with us a window into the challenges of how to handle character development for a character you can't define. While the only view I had into her was her Twitter account, it seemed like she existed in an amped up state of constant rage and stress, always lashing out, and never really seeming to truly enjoy anything. All of this is unfortunate and didn't have to happen, and I hope she can learn to get things under control and not see normal, everyday interactions as attacks. It was probably the last straw, but essentially telling your customers you hate them and their feedback is unwelcome is career suicide.
Edit:
After seeing the Kotaku article I'm having an even harder time giving JP the benefit of the doubt. For whatever reason, she can't take critique- to the point where she seems to see it as an injustice carried out against her. She has to tolerate it from her coworkers for professional reasons, Oh! the humanity, the tragedy of it all! No really- she makes clear what a terrible burden it is to not lash out at her coworkers. But when a mere consumer of the product she works on dares approach her in a manner that is ever so slightly critical she can't handle it. And sadly, it seems to be her M.O. It's incredibly disappointing to see this from a professional, moreover one that chose to share her perspective on the challenges of storytelling in an MMORPG. She needs to learn to separate herself from her work and understand critique is not a personal attack. This was almost certainly not her first incident.
These people write the story for the game we love. If they are that ideologically biased it will have influence on the story narrative. I dont want biased bigots write the story for the games i love.
It wouldn't have been a problem if she wasn't publicly representing ArenaNet. She was apparently a good writer according to the forums of her last job, but she was known to snip at people and has a long history of this bad behavior.
Reset the password on my years-old account just to say that this response is remarkable in a time when most hateful & rude game developers are protected by their employer rather than reprimanded. Massive respect.
i am not comfortable with the swift axing of peter fries either. from my perspective, it looks much more like an attempt at covering up liability as opposed to any actual addressing of jessica price's behavior. whereas jessica has had a short history with anet and a long history of aggression and rudeness to not just gw2 community members, but social media in general; peter has had such a long positive standing with the company AND community that it was shocking to see him fired along with her for what was minimal involvement compared to jessica.
i do not agree with jessica's behavior, her rudeness towards others. however i do not agree with sweeping it under the rug without any sort of proper addressing, or even apology for her actions. i do not agree with peter being thrown in with her to be fired when he had not so much as even a handful of tweets interaction and involvement.
and lastly i do not agree with the toxicity i am seeing from the community as well, the sheer viciousness im seeing from other players here is frankly appalling, as if this was some sort of gleeful anti-feminist witch hunt for them rather than dealing with one problematic employee. as someone who is a minority in many ways including race and gender, it makes me feel unsafe as a player of this game even more so than arenanet's decision to let go of JP and PF in response to JP's actions
Seriously????? LOL ok whatever just quit stirring up people with old stuff keeping the argument going for no reason. What's done is done and ANET served the justice they felt was needed. Let it go now and be one with the force.
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
Thank-you. This has greatly mended any broken trust.
I will echo what others have said, sorry to see it came down to letting people go. Was hoping to see an apology and disciplinary action. I can only imaging at this point that there was refusals to apologize.
Unfortunate that people had to be fired, but this was an expected outcome. Can't believe people are still saying garbage on Twitter, Facebook, etc and expecting it to be personal and private with no consequences.
If you represent the company in any way, and say stuff that hurts the company and its image, you're going to be fired. This is 2k18 people.
Unfortunate Fries was collateral, but you need to pick your battles. This was not one of them, especially not on a public platform.
I... Feel bad for Peter Fries. Did he deserve some sort of disciplinary measure? Sure. Did he deserve the same thing as Jessica Price? I don't think so.
For that matter, my mind is in all sorts of places about the firing. I understand this was a really hard decision to make, and I accept that being let go is a logical consequence to JP's behavior. Still, something about this doesn't feel quite right.
I would love to agree with this since everything you said about Peter is true.
However I can't and the only reason I can't is because I cannot find Peters comments as they've been deleted.
It would be equally unfair for me to defend him as it would be to condone his firing simply because I have no access to the information he posted which only makes me even more unsure about how to feel about him being let go.
All I do know is that for 12 years he worked on two of my favorite games and for that I will always be grateful for his contributions to them.. and I even extend the same gratitude to Jess for her work on Gw2 as well even though I in no way support her social media behavior.
Overall I'm just disappointed that this happened at all.. but I am deeply relieved that this community has survived with relatively little division and toxicity to one another.
I've seen other communities utterly torn apart by far less so I'm kitten proud of my fellow Gw2 players for being better than that and keeping the Gw2 community such an great and upstanding community to be a part of.
Mo, You can't let the community get away with this. The community is just as guilty here, don't bend to their will.
I was thinking something similar. In particular, I don't feel that PF's twitter contributions to the situation should be something one wouldn't be able to recover from. But we don't know what happened behind the closed doors at the ANet offices.
Well said, witch hunts are witch hunts.
I've seen posts defending her actions and I was to ask this:
If it had been a man saying those things to a female player, would you be defending their actions then?
As a female player, I can say that I was ashamed of her interactions with the community. Her language toward them was insulting and rude, and completely uncalled for. If she didn't want to have a discussion about work stuff on her day off on her "personal" account, then she shouldn't have opened the floor by posting what she did. If it was addressed in the AMA that should have been the end of it. But it seems to me that she went out of her way to further discussion about a game related topic and then lost her mind when someone stepped up with opposing ideas and suggestions.
Not sure why anyone is surprised, from the beginning you will not find a company that expressly tells their customers they want as much feedback as possible at every turn, both in game and out, no matter the platform. We all know pretty much all of everyone that works at ANet's social media accounts, and they know that too.
This has restored my faith in Anet. Thank you Mike.
Ever heard of who cares that someone is a guy or a girl if they do their jobe it is fine. who cares if someone is a girl of boy it is the person that matters not the race gender or what ever. If a person is not nice it doesn't matter that the person is. It is called looking at the person not there race gender or what ever.
Seriously thank you, Arenanet; from the bottom of my heart.
I know the community overreacts to things that don't deserve it, like with HoT, the mount licence (which was badly implemented at fist but didn't warrant the backlash received), when people complained about diversity in game, or the issues with release of Episode 3 more recently, but this was a serious issue, and I'm glad you did the right thing here. If you like something, you need to be critical of it, so it can be even better next time, not only from your team (which I hope didn't have this issue), but from the players; even if it were to be a "dumb" criticism, respect and cordiality are fundamental pillars, this is what makes the community in the game and around it, the best out there.
So again, thank you for discerning overreactions from bigger problems and act accordingly. You are seriously the best. I'm glad the confidence I have in you all is well placed.
Right On!!! And it seems the hunt will now continue sadly (if others have their way). Hopefully they will close all the threads and lock them away before it gets carried away even more.
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
Sad person looses job over a tweet... I just wonder how many people here would still have their jobs if that standard was applied to themselves.
This is how a response is done, plain and forward. Thank you for showing your dedication to the brand you've poured your life over. We'll back you up just as you have backed us up.
People on facebook GW2 groups feel that Peters dissmissal was somewhat over the top.
But. Also worry that it was done to save face. Meaning, that JP would hav cried se-xism at ANet had she been the only one fired....
Then please point directly at the first person. I'm sure you'll gladly throw the first rock.
You're questioning anets integrity as a whole. They would have lost a lot if they let this one slide. There is no excusing it.
And I can say that while STILL not agreeing with the people going directly after her, saying she has a mental disorder, saying she is a disgraceful human being etc. Personal attacks don't belong in that type of discussion but they happen when you have SO MANY different people with different opinions, different moods, different outrage.
JP's tone and antagonistic diatribe against Deroir and Inks were absolutely inexcusable. You cannot verbally attack someone for voicing a difference of opinion. I doubt she'll learn from this life event, if anything she'll think this was an attack on her gender.
Regardless, good move by ArenaNet. You cannot employ people that willingly go to attack upstanding members of your community, people that vouch and bring players into the game.
This wouldn't have happened if ANet employees were restricted to official forums when posting about Guild Wars and their posts had a chance to get reviewed before going live. I know many don't like this but companies have to be careful because one wrong move can destroy their business. If they were restricted an employee's bad day would never have escalated into the loss of their jobs and ANet loosing valuable employees.
Why?
There is nothing wrong with being open. JP's initial post about the writing process for the commander is an excellent post. There's nothing wrong with it. Her conduct in her replies to Deroir, however, are. And those comments have nothing to do with being open. It's conduct, behavior. And that is what got her fired. Not her initial post about the writing process. Please don't get things mixed up. It misrepresents the entire situation to people who are less informed on the current situation than others (and I've seen quite a few responses already that clearly show a lack of knowledge about what has been going on).
I'm sure most of ANet's employees have no problem being polite. And I'm sure they also know that the information part of JP's posts was not the problem to begin with, nor do I see them suddenly withholding information for fear of being fired. Then again, there's no way to know that for sure since we can't play both scenarios against each other to see what happens, can we? Just have a little faith.
I'm sure this is only the beginning. Have seen a few threads already of people "bringing attention" to other alleged Devs. Some allegedly faked? Not entirely clear at this point.
I also agree that the termination of Peter Fries was interesting to say the least from what we currently and probably ever will know.
But I just felt like I had to say that if you want to convince members of this community about something wrong of their actions, that it might be best to frame it in a more tasteful manner. Saying that this incident has made you feel unsafe from being a minority in many ways isn't going to sit well with the players as it comes across as if many are needlessly hostile towards those of a different race/gender/etc. when they sincerely aren't. If anything this community as a whole is one of the most friendliest and more welcoming communities that I've seen out there when compared to almost every other online gaming environment, I'd even go so far to say that you're bound to find more unfriendly people on something like Hello Kitty Online compared to Guild Wars 2.
WvW players are a different story though, but they have a reason to be really salty most of the time.
No offense but it's clear you don't know what this type of idiocy can do to the image of a company. Like I said in one of my previous posts, I work for a big corporation as well, if I start to get into fights with customers or potential customers on social media where I clearly state I work for said company, I do represent this company in these silly fights. I'd be out on my rear end before you could sneeze, I promise you that. No one is saying that people can't vent their frustration or have their own opinion about things, but you can NOT do that while you're representing a private enterprise. The story would be totally different if said devs didn't advertise their employer's name in the open like that.
Yes, really.
Peter could have been the one to help the situation more than anyone else. He also made a careless choice as JP did. He chose to take a side, support JP's response, and put down a player. I was hoping it could be rectified with an explanation and an apology from the two, but whether it was a difficult or expected decision, it ultimately became a necessary one.
We've lost two good writers from the team, but this can lead to growth for the game and hopefully those two writers for the future.
This 1000x. Thanks A.net and O'Brien, you made the right choice.
To be fair, if it was one tweet, it probably would not have led to this. This was a series of tweets and once Reddit "investigates" it you're going to be hella scrutinized.
Many people have lost their jobs for saying stuff on social media, this is not a new concept. Jobs specifically have social media training courses and the like to prevent stuff like today.
Today was the result of one dev going too far on Twitter one too many times against the wrong person and it getting blown to a level that could not be ignored. You can't blame the internet for that, there needs to be some personal responsibility there.
Many games have CMs that have their own personal twitter accounts and there is no issue. It's only an issue if you don't know boundaries. She had the option to not reply, to not talk about work related things, to make it a personal only twitter, and a lot of other options. You don't get the option of taking a work-related topic (from a on-the-clock AMA) to Twitter, get negative feedback, saying whatever you want to the person, and then defending it as "it's my personal account".
oh trust me, ive played other games! while its great that this one has been the most welcoming ive seen in a long time, there is still the issue of those who are generally hateful to minorities. the gw2 community isnt free of them either and its something i can sadly attest to having played this game for a few years now. i am not saying this in any hostility, its simply the sad reality of gaming communities and the pushback experienced by minorities in them. even just looking at the subreddit has been super uncomfortable today, people decrying that social justice is ruining their game and they wont play it anymore when really, this issue is just about JP's sour behavior and not any sort of feminist agenda anet was pushing
when it comes to Peter, in the end we dont know what went down behind closed doors.
-Maybe they did just up and fired him.
-Maybe they were looking for an excuse to axe him
-Maybe he threatened to leave if they fired JP
-Maybe there was some internal drama caused by this whole mess that led to his firing.
All we know is the two were fired. We aren't Arenanet so we dont know the exact exact reasoning why Peter was
No one can complain about having one less toxic person on the GW2 team, GG WP
There are many of us who will still be playing the game regardless of the witch hunts and old posts and hurt feelings etc. And speaking out against the hunts every time, until the silly hunters give up. I'm so glad I'm not a thin skinned person cos if I was i'd be crying into my pillow every night cos I get called bruh, bro, dude, boi at least 3x a day and many are guilty of using THOSE words (sexism according to forum followers) yet like other females choose to ignore it and play the game. ROFL GAME ON
(NOBL) rocking GW's since 2005, still rocking Sorrow's Furnace :P
Representation matters. And the number of posts that were explicitly and implicitly sexist were pretty high. I’m not saying she shouldn’t have lost her job given the uproar. I’m saying that in the rush to judgment by the community context was lost and a number of people called for her head using language that originated in the alt-right.
No, not everyone supporting her firing is alt right. That’s not the point. The point is that alt right discourse is being normalized. As a minority in some contexts this is incredibly discouraging to me. How should I respond to that?
When the mob wins it wants more. Who will it come for next?
Northern Shiverpeaks (NSP)
Deadeye (Thief)
Commandant of P/D and Apex Predator
I'm sorry to hear that she was ultimately let go; I hope that this can be a positive learning experience for her to help her grow and flourish into a much more successful career down the road.
It's unfortunate, but it puts a major strain on a company when employees publicly make hateful comments towards others based upon gender, race, nationality or religion. Please people: learn from this. If you ever feel the need to attack someone based on one of those attributes, don't do it. If not for the fact that it will make you a better person to not do it, then at least for the fact that you will probably put your career and future on the line by doing so. Be respectful in your replies and discussions, and accept that not everyone will agree with you. If you can do that, you'll go really far.
I wish both of them the best, and I really hope that this is a turning point for her. Some of the things she said on her twitter were just horrible, but that doesn't mean that SHE is a horrible person who doesn't deserve a chance to change. She's worked at a great company, likely now has a strong resume, and this can be just a bump in the road to one day being the CEO of some big game company where she can teach the same lesson to the next generation.
Sorry for your losses, ANet team.
Wow, that was fast and on point.
If you want X, and Y is needed to get get X, you also have to want Y if you really want X. If you don't want Y, you don't want X. It's easy.
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I am very sad to see this all happen, but I feel Anet made the correct decision.
Many companies, including mine, have established social media policies stating that any discussion of, or disagreement with, a client, partner, vendor, fellow employee, or the company in general is banned (excluding approved marketing). This includes personal social media accounts. Even a long-standing employee would be fired for having a public disagreement with a client, even if the client initiated the argument.
As for Mr. Fries, I feel he wanted to defend his coworker but he made the mistake of joining in the social media discussion.
It's sad to see anyone fired, but Anet has the right to expect certain standards of behavior from their employees.
Can I give a thumbs down for yet another company that encourages employees to be open and honest and then punishes them for it? Send her to some training, kitten, but this basically blacklists her forever and ever. Good job proving her point, I guess.
please give me a break, they are and have always been located in seattle. You can easily follow the entire team on social media, it is really hard to pretend to say you don't know who and what they are and believe in. They are allowed their personal beliefs, and that should not matter and has no place in a fantasy game.
There is a gigantic and massive difference between personal beliefs and attacking fans in a game that has a long standing tradition of always wanting the entire community to always give feedback, criticism, and interaction, both in game and out. The community has members that have added just as much to the game as actual Anet employees, because that is what Anet has wanted and that is the community they have cultivated from the very beginning of GW1. Has zero to do with beliefs and everything to do with actions.
I do not know if this was the final incident in a series of such where attempts to encourage improved behavior went ignored, or if this single incid3nt was considered sufficiently severe to merit termination. I had hoped that the parties involved would be given an opportunity to change the offending behavior without loss of livelihood. I do not wish unemployment on anyone in this day and age. Hopefully this all works out for the best for all involved.
I hope that those who have moved on are able to self reflect and grow from the experience. Good luck to them. I hope that this is an opportunity for some new blood to have an impact on the game. Good luck to us all.