GW 2 Devs/Playerbase Twitter Discussion

[Deihnyx.6318]

@morrolan.9608 said:

@"Greyraven.4258" said:Arenanet and Mike O still made the right call.

I don't think so at least not in terms of the overall health of the game and its PR. By their actions they have completely lost control of the narrative. JP is free to spin her story, they've allowed extremist elements to associate themselves with the game and left themselves open to negative stories from the gaming media. You may say the media is in the wrong but it doesn't really matter they will spin a story the way they want.

I am sick in my stomach that the video game news are so one sided. Doesnt apparently matter that men and women alike are supporting Anet's decision. Its automatically a political agenda against people who dared stepping up against harassment. No need for fact checking at all.

Except we all know here that's not true, and if they're going to play that game then I'll just call them out on this: you don't gave a deep understanding of what happened, and instead you're repeating the words of one side without hearing out the other, calling them alt rights to automatically dismiss their point. They cant even see that as a community, opinions are divided and that OF COURSE most people arent gonna agree with some pretty idiot reddit posts conveniently chosen for the sake of bias. "Newsplaining" should be a word as well?

Seriously. Sickening.

[alaskasnowgirl.6047]

@Solace.1934 said:Is this thread literally all speculation or is there some official and DETAILED post on -why- these two employees were fired? You people realize there could be more than just tweets if an official statement was not made -- like how they affect the company and not only what was posted on twitter, right? Like I'm reading PR, politics, etc but does no one actually care what is going on inside the actual company rather than how it affects YOU?

For all anyone knows this issue could have been building for a while and this was the last offense. Like, there are so many assumptions being made that it blows my mind how confident some of these posts are lol. Am I missing information? Because I've been looking for sources for all these posts and I can't find anything that supports these claims other than pure conjecture.

Look into the reddit threads on this. They should still be some of the most liked in Guild Wars 2. As far as anyone knows, this firing is just linked to the tweets. There were many and many of the tweets were very offensive for a variety of reasons. Maybe there was something internal as well, but MO chose to post that the two devs involved were fired in this thread, so that points pretty clearly to it being the recent tweets, especially since that's what everyone was upset about. Hope that helps :)!

[miraude.2107]

Going to try this one more time.

JP was in the wrong. I'm not arguing that. Anyone in customer service would know what she did was not in the right. PF is more of a grey area for me because I can see wanting to protect your co-workers and I've always viewed that as something good to see, however he did let emotions get the best of him and that wasn't the molehill to stand on.

There are 4 characters to this. JP, PF, ArenaNet and us. All parts should be acknowledged in this, something Mike O'Brien has failed to do so. The small statement he gave should have been all encompassing. I believe the community should have been taken into consideration as well for how this story played out. There is small number that are harassing these developers after the fact. That is not okay. I feel that should be addressed upon despite that it's this small number. Because the small can easily become the many. Not only are some of the articles painting ArenaNet in a bad light, they are also painting us, the community as well, with that brush because of the few. That can hurt a game more than you know. New players are fickle and there is plenty of competition. I can attest to this as I stayed far away from League of Legends for years because of the articles about toxicity. I've tried to get friends to play Overwatch only for them to link articles about people being banned over playing particular heroes.

ArenaNet needs to acknowledge this fourth character that is us. That some players did indeed harass and that there are policies against harassment both in-game and on affiliated sites like the wiki and reddit. That there are tools against harassment if you ever find the need to report. That civil discourse should be upheld by both parties in question, ArenaNet and the community.

I have seen what the small do to the community in whole. At first it festers, then it grows and eventually people either leave or become infected themselves. I don't want this game to become a game where I have to turn off chat like I've had to for WoW before I eventually gave up on the game. Guild Wars 2 is my go to game for recommending to people new to MMOs strictly because of how wonderful the community is. All said, it would have been nice to see in the initial statements about the harassment the minority has done/is doing to be acknowledged and that ArenaNet will not condone player harassment as well.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Look at the times, game journalism is dying. Don't need their well wishes. Game activist are dying, look at where they all are now. Wu is out of gaming, Anida can't break 3k views most of the time. Don't need to cowtow to them anymore. More customers read the reddit post than the journos or activists will write.Ultimately it come to this, can you market a game as the friendliest mmo with a Twitter containing as much vile comments as JP had and your company name linked to it?Why should I have sympathy for her, when she is now using her allies in journalism and activism to hurt the game I love?

[muffi.3964]

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Why should I have sympathy for her, when she is now using her allies in journalism and activism to hurt the game I love?

^this exactly, why should somebody have any advantages just because they were good at socializing? It's why most gamers hate the gaming press.

[yohoia.1850]

Agree with this. Unfair to let Peter go.

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.

I suggest that his case is revisited.

[Itzena.8452]

@"muffi.3964" said:

most gamers hate the gaming press.Citation needed. And no, "my friends from r/KIA" doesn't count.

[Twyn.7320]

@Phosphorite.6192 said:Also, yes. Racism against white people is not a thing. I don't care if you disagree, and honestly, I don't care about why you think it is a thing. It shouldn't even have been brought up in the first place, yet someone did. And it wasn't me.

If you don't believe in racism against white people, or sexism against males, then you don't believe in equality. Simple, for equality to work, the -isms have to apply across the board, otherwise it's not an equal society.

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

@Dengar.1785 said:@Magnus Godrik.5841, there is no reason for aqemployees to fear for their jobs. The only people who get fired are those who treat their customers like trash.

I didnt think Peter fries treated anyone like trash yet he canned. 10 plus years at anet thrown away for him sharing his opinion.

[Ephemiel.5694]

Every time i see people in this thread saying that this somehow enables people to act like this towards developers to get them fired, it reminds me that most of the people defending her and her behavior have no idea how companies or businesses work, have no idea how to do research on what happened and simply blindly follow HER narrative that this happened solely because she's a woman.

Also, have ANY of you seen what gaming journalists are saying about this? How she apparently went running to Kotaku and already started spinning lies about the whole thing?

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

Even now, she's telling every game journalists she can find that this is a gender thing and trying to convince everyone into thinking she actually likes the fans.

[muffi.3964]

@Itzena.8452 said:

@"muffi.3964" said:

most gamers hate the gaming press.Citation needed. And no, "my friends from r/KIA" doesn't count.

the fact that your average youtube channel has more klicks than those sites? wait for elon musks credibility website and see their ratings plummet. Most gaming press literally is fake news

[Twyn.7320]

@"Rowan.7629" said:ANet itself in years past has always seemed to take a strong "take no kitten" attitude wrt bigotry trying to worm its way into their game, both in shutting down GG-style gamerbros and in how the narrative specifically uplifts minorities. Such a heavyhanded response, seemingly at the behest of a swarming mob more interested in teaching Dirty S J W s a lesson or what the heck ever, is completely disgusting and flies in the face of what made GW2 such a unique experience.

So, if you like ANet's 'zero tolerance policy' against bigotry, why do you strongly dislike the actions of ANet in this case? They removed someone who was being a bigot, and removed someone else who was associated with their sexist bigotry. Suddenly, it's as if people are stating that: 'Oh, well we'd never do this to the bigots.' If someone started offending minority groups from the ANet office, the other side of this debate would be going crazy trying to get them reprimanded. You can't have it one way, and then criticise people for doing the same. And this is the root issue of the debate.

JP was a vile bigot in this situation, PF should've left it to rest and not been involved like other ANet developers did, and they were removed because of their actions. ANet's executives have done exactly what they've done in the past to people who are bigots. If you enjoy an equal society, or progress towards it, ANet has actually helped the cause towards this instead of bowing down to floods of people who want a small pat on the wrist for the people involved, and if it happened again, it'd be another small pat on the wrist. However, if the opposite occurred, as mentioned in my anti-minority example, the floods of people would be out for blood, as has happened several times in the industry before.

Actions have consequences, it's the first rule of public communication. The stance of some people at the moment is hypocritical and it needs to stop, in my opinion. I'm against people swarming them now with hate messages, what's done is done. However, don't climb on a high horse like you wouldn't do the same if the roles were reversed, it's unrealistic and wrong.

[Itzena.8452]

@muffi.3964 said:

fake newsAh. Well, good luck with everything.

[alaskasnowgirl.6047]

@Ephemiel.5694 said:Every time i see people in this thread saying that this somehow enables people to act like this towards developers to get them fired, it reminds me that most of the people defending her and her behavior have no idea how companies or businesses work, have no idea how to do research on what happened and simply blindly follow HER narrative that this happened solely because she's a woman.

Also, have ANY of you seen what gaming journalists are saying about this? How she apparently went running to Kotaku and already started spinning lies about the whole thing?

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

Even now, she's telling every game journalists she can find that this is a gender thing and trying to convince everyone into thinking she actually likes the fans.

WOW! This needs to be seen by more people. I can't believe she is STILL trying to push that narrative.... No, wait, I can believe it. I can't believe much of gaming media/some players are still defending conduct that should be indefensible. I wonder if anyone ever bothered to even READ the tweets, or if they just heard about this and didn't bother to see why people were upset.

[dynomite.5834]

@Magnus Godrik.5841 said:Wow.... now we will probably get even less communication from anet.

Over on Reddit, one of the Dev's (Barefoot Mike (?)) posted and said the conversation will continue; no impact. Never been a problem before with the dev's - this is an isolated case and frankly one extreme person with a long history of being a jerk. I wouldn't paint the whole ANet Dev Community or the User Community with this brush.

[muffi.3964]

@Itzena.8452 said:

@muffi.3964 said:

fake news

Ah.

Well, good luck with everything.

What are you implying? there's been huge cases of sites like kotaku being called out

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@franzi.8513 said:

@"Frenzify.6832" said:So people are upset that a woman who has proven herself to be human garbage was fired? Even if the community did gang up on her, do you guys not think that outrage against someone twisting a fan's words and using it against them is warranted? Perhaps not to the extreme sense that I'm gathering from these comments, but this woman doesn't get any of my sympathy at all, as she's shown she's just not a pleasant person at all. I'm seeing comments of sexism, but do you know what else is sexist? Thinking that any man who tries to engage you in a discussion, with opposing views, is trying to tell you how to do you job, and "mansplain," even if he's trying to converse with you in the politest manner possible. Yes, sexism exists. It exists for both sides.

"Mansplaining" doesn't mean that a man is not polite. That sort of "I'm just trying to help you by explaining you politely how you have to do your job" can be sexist, too. Someone in my family worked in a male-dominated job and experienced polite mansplaining all the time. She is not a feminist at all, but even she was annoyed about this behavior. Even though she had a lot of experience in her business, she was sometimes treated like an idiot by her male colleagues ... no matter how polite they were. It's a really big issue in some jobs. I'm sure that men can experience something similar when they work in female-dominated jobs (for example as kindergarten teachers), but just because "womansplaining" exists, too, it doesn't mean that "mansplaining" is okay and must be tolerated.

Jessica Price was part of the narrative TEAM, which means that many people were responsible for the story. But Deroir posted his critique on her personal Twitter account even though she never asked for his critique. This gave Jessica the feeling that Deroir gave her the fault for the (in his opinion) bad story just because she was a woman. Of course it wasn't Deroir's intention to hurt her feelings in any way and I'm sure that he is no sexist ... but I can understand why Jessica had the feeling this was mansplaining. When you experience sexism all the time, you start to feel more sensitive about such things.

Peter Fries didn't react stupid or wrong. He tried to defend one of her colleagues who felt treated sexist, bullied and pushed into a corner. He had very good intentions and he did the right thing. I wish there were more people like him on this world who don't look away in such a situation. It was absolutely wrong that he was fired. Now employees of Anet and other companies will surely think twice before they defend their colleagues who are bullied or treated sexist ... great.

Sorry that is just plain not what deroir did at all.JP chose to post out her work related Pro Tips into a public domain and offered it for reply.. otherwise she should of kept it private... it's that simple.As for mansplaining, I think deroir did nothing of the sort, he merely tried to interact, challenge and share opinion at a level that he was able to.. ya know he is nothing more than an amateur, by JP's very words and as such would likely not be capable of offering points for discussion beyond that level or scope.. that is why he was communicating his views and opinions in the most respectful way possible, so as not to offend or antagonise a situation. It was merely an attempt to have meaningful dialogue with JP, someone only a day previous he was calling a God for her stellar AMA input, he had zero malice or intent and absolutely no sexist angle, he was simply a loyal fan of both the game and the person in question.This is all on JP, she chose to offer her tweets to the community, but then chose to retaliate obnoxiously and absurdly when someone did.. there is simply no excuse for that, it was disgraceful behaviour from someone boasting to be an experienced professional within a line of work that sees everything she does offered out for scrutiny and critique by the community on a daily basis.Bottom line JP made made a judgement call to put it out there and then made another when deciding to act up like she did and then revved it up to a whole different level by pulling out a gender card to try to garner support and silence the poster, even after he respectfully apologised for any unintended bad feeling and left JP to carry on her rantings.All JP had to do was simply ignore and block the poster if she did not want to take on his tweet.. she chose otherwise and - Actions have Consequence again.As for PF, I agree to an extent.. he seemingly had good intentions but made a bad call to jump in and get tangled up in JP's web of absurdity....I hope JP offers some serious apology to him and his family.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

@"franzi.8513" said:"Mansplaining" doesn't mean that a man is not polite. That sort of "I'm just trying to help you by explaining you politely how you have to do your job" can be sexist, too.So if it's 2 women, suddenly it's not sexist? Think about that............

[Ashabhi.1365]

@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

Why hasn't this ended the thread? All y'all called for someone to have consequences, and they did. Nuff said. /endthread(Thank you Mike for communicating. We appreciate your effort on your players' behalf.)

[foozlesprite.8051]

I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion as far as actually firing people now given some of the comments that devs (not just these) have made on social media in the past (not just related to dev). I've worked in PR and this is a nightmare, more because of Anet's reaction than because of the Twitter comments.

Story is the biggest reason I play. Kneejerk firing two of the devs that have contributed to it and been frank about the development process is doing the opposite of boosting my confidence in the company, and I'm a little sad I just spent a chunk of money in the gem store. I guess maybe I should wait it out for a few more living story releases to feel out the effect of losing story/lore people, before I spend more money.

[Linken.6345]

Well thanks alot for doing the right thing MO, I voted with my wallet and bought gems becouse of this wise decision you made.

[Suzaku.9537]

Honestly, this whole situation is very upsetting.

Two narrative developers were fired and one of which worked there for over a decade.

Price's overreaction to Deroir was poor on her part, but it does not lessen the fact that women still do experience inequalities in the workplace. In this particular instance, though, she picked the wrong battle--IMHO, she was the sole belligerent in it until the troll hordes descended upon the battlefield to slay what principled combatants were left. If this was the Battle of the Five Armies: she was Thorin, Peter as Tauriel; the moderate commentators: Dain, Bard and Thranduil; and the trolls: Azog (and the other orcs and goblins), while Kate Welch and Angel McCoy would be Gandalf/Legolas in this situation.

However, as for the reason for her outburst, I do understand that these microaggressions build up over time--I've experience it before--I've snapped at people before over something I would normally ignore as passing flatulence. Unfortunately, these things psycho-accumulate, much like bioaccumulation occurs with physical toxins. A single raindrop is but a passing sensation, a light drizzle is a minor annoyance, but a torrential downpour from a months-long monsoon can flood your very foundations and leave you feeling cold, irritable, insecure, and stressed beyond compare. Even if it just drizzled for a year, life would be miserable in such a damp, humid, mold-infested environment--I can't blame her for snapping, but what happened afterwards is the bed that she made. You reap what you sow and if you sow seeds of fire and brimstone, your field will only yield ashes.

She could've handled the situation with more tact--if Deroir or MMOinks were less polite and derogatory to her sex, then maybe her reaction would have been more warranted than it was. In this particular instance, there were no signs of sexism, in and of itself. Inherently, Deroir's comments were devoid of the wolves decried in her pasture. His comment may not have been relevant or warranted, but it was also not the kindling for the wildfire that ignited afterwards in her responses--the fuel for that was already there from her past interactions/experiences that we are not able to fully understand as those who are not living her life or even part of her life in any significant way as individuals: we are simply idle on-lookers, and by-standers to a brief moment in her life.

As for Peter Fries, it does somewhat feel that his firing was a tad unjust for he was just defending a fellow colleague from the trolls who sought carnage for all. Of course he enabled her a little, but what friends don't? We've all jumped to a friend's defense without knowing the full story--but we've also jumped to a friend's defense because we know more of the story than whoever they're arguing with. I don't believe his misconduct was of the gravity of Price's--he did not attack the community with as much reckless abandon (but if he did use offensive language that was unbecoming of a representative of the company, I would like to see a comparative to Price's).

This entire incident has me wondering about some of the other departures from ArenaNet (ex. Kate Welch and Colin Johanson) and has me questioning Mike O'Brien's corporate management-styles a little.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

@juhani.5361 said:

@Zabi Zabi.3561 said:

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:There's only one winner in this situation:

• Not Ms. Price: She lost her job, which might have added to her stress.
• Not Mr. Fries: He lost his job which he seems to have valued.
• Not ANet management: at best they've acted in the way that was less of a loss, but no matter what they did, some group was going to be unhappy with them.
• Not ANet staff: this kind of situation is going to have repercussions and effect staff's sense of camaraderie.
• Not Deroir: though by comparison, his loss is almost not worth mentioning, this situation has got to leave a bad taste in the mouth.
• Not the GW2 community: some are satisfied with ANet's reaction, some are not, but the affair has highlighted the divides between us more than any other interaction I've followed.

The winner? The winner is people who like watching things burn.

That means we all lost.

Price would have been hazardous to the company if she was kept around and kept insulting the PLAYER BASE OF THE GAME AND COMPANY SHE WORKED FOR!

Anet did the right thing by putting the COMMUNITY OF THE GAME FIRST before TOXIC EMPLOYEES!

So the true winners are Anet, and the Community.

Some will have disagreeing opinions and will probably leave the game HOWEVER! I have noticed more new players coming in and that's a good thing!

I'm a part of the community, and I definitely _don't_feel like this is a win. And, honestly, this whole situation is a setback for women in the gaming industry-- not to mention in society as a whole. Anet's actions were necessary, but they're nothing to be celebrated. All of this brigading and mob mentality does nothing but degrade the GW2 community.How does removing a terrible person make it a setback for women in the gaming industry? I'm in the gaming industry, and I don't feel a setback at all. Wat? XD

[Loli Ruri.8307]

@Magnus Godrik.5841 said:Wow.... now we will probably get even less communication from anet. And for good reason your job may be on the line. What effect will this have? Will the next episode get postponed? Will the playerbase eventually just kill the game? Why was the sexism card even pulled? I have no idea why she just went ape kitten for comments that were far from offensive. And i also have no idea why some community members blew it up to a ridiculous level with threats. The game did recieve a huge amount of publicity of the ordeal. But was it for the good. Regardless i understand why anet had to let them go. Even when your offwork you still represent the company. I just hope the letting them go was part of the company policy and not for the reddit users.So you should be afraid of being a terrible human being? This dev was doing it since her previous job at her last company, that resulted in her being let go. This is a patented history of being a terrible human being. Why should anybody at anet feel afraid?

[Loli Ruri.8307]

@"Reincarnatie.7254" said:but it does not lessen the fact that women still do experience inequalities in the workplace.Men experience inequalities in the workplace as well. And before you say no they don't, go look at the number of workplace accidents and deaths. And that's not where it stops either. I could start citing articles of abuse against men. The reality is, humans suck. Welcome to actual equality.......

The difference is, men are told to "man up". Doesn't sound so good, when somebody tells you to "man up" every time they give you a kitten sandwich.