Brianna Wu / John Walker Flynt - "Biggest Victim of Gamergate," Failed Game Developer, Failed Congressional Candidate

[Optimus Prime]

I knew he had to have a real job to pay for John's nonsense.

John got very lucky with that marriage.

"Lucky" is one way to put it, especially since Frank puts up with Flu's shit. But Flu is also completely at his mercy - all Frank has to do is file for divorce and Flu will be completely without any form of sustenance.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

"Lucky" is one way to put it, especially since Frank puts up with Flu's shit. But Flu is also completely at his mercy - all Frank has to do is file for divorce and Flu will be completely without any form of sustenance.

Yes, but if all this nonsense hasn't made him do that, what will?

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Yes, but if all this nonsense hasn't made him do that, what will?

Wu giving an STD to Frank.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Yes, but if all this nonsense hasn't made him do that, what will?

John cleaning up, getting a steady job, making friends, and earning his own income that would make him independent.
Knowing that John had the mere ability to potentially say "You know what, I don't care what you say" would eat Frank up inside.

 

[Peace and Harmony]

Frank and John are serial abusers who belong together for the good of humanity. John is a mentally re,tarded leech with absolutely no life or professional skills who has zero qualms about sucking a nigger dry and then leaving him on the side of the road when he's done. Frank is a psychotic control freak who jacks off to the fact that he's bagged a total fucking loser whom he can keep clenched in his fist until one of them is dead.

It is a blessing to all decent people on this planet that they met each other and don't ever talk to anyone else.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

John cleaning up, getting a steady job, making friends, and earning his own income that would make him independent.
Knowing that John had the mere ability to potentially say "You know what, I don't care what you say" would eat Frank up inside.

I'll rephrase that to what realistic possibility will.

 

[Jaimas]

Never forget that "Brianna Wu, Godzilla of Feminists" is a two-man act (pun intended).

Also Frank is an abusive shithead who emotionally-abused his previous wife until she left sci-fi writing entirely because she was better than him.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Also Frank is an abusive shithead who emotionally-abused his previous wife until she left sci-fi writing entirely because she was better than him.

I'd say "John becoming ostentatiously better at something than Frank" would be another marriage-strainer, but given the recent revelation that John isn't even better than Frank at Peggle, this doesn't meet @Pointless Pedant 's "realistic" criterion either.

 

[Solzhenitsyn]

Realistically I would say the only two things that could cause a split in the Wu marriage is John fucking up so badly he risks Frank's career in some way, or if John's spending starts to exceed even Frank's salary. I don't consider either of those things likely, at least for the time being.

 

[AutisticSupervillain]

"Lucky" is one way to put it, especially since Frank puts up with Flu's shit. But Flu is also completely at his mercy - all Frank has to do is file for divorce and Flu will be completely without any form of sustenance.

That's not how divorce works

Frank would be required to support the same lifestyle she had while married.

Probably pay 50,000 to 80,000 in alimony

 

[Francis York Morgan]

I'd say "John becoming ostentatiously better at something than Frank" would be another marriage-strainer, but given the recent revelation that John isn't even better than Frank at Peggle, this doesn't meet @Pointless Pedant 's "realistic" criterion either.

That new piece of information still blows my mind. John plays Peggle a lot. He's played 32 hours of Peggle on Steam, gotten almost all the trophies for Peggle 2 on the PS4, and Lord-only-knows how many hours (and dollars) he's spent on Peggle on his phone. Brianna has talked up the "complex, strategic" elements of Peggle in order to legitimize it as more than a casual time-waster. There's no mistaking that he loves this game and yet Frank crushes him. Like, how can someone be this bad at everything? It's unfathomable.

 

[AnOminous]

That's not how divorce works

Frank would be required to support the same lifestyle she had while married.

Probably pay 50,000 to 80,000 in alimony

Not forever. Eventually John would have to get a job (or another cuck).

"If a marriage lasts more than 20 years, the judge has the discretion to order general alimony for an indefinite period of time. For shorter marriages, Massachusetts law limits how long alimony can last based on the length of the marriage. For example, the maximum duration of a general alimony award in a marriage that lasted five years or less is 50% of the length of the marriage; in other words, one year of general alimony is the most a judge could award following a two-year marriage. The law allows judges to deviate from these general rules in some circumstances."

https://www.divorcenet.com/states/massachusetts/mafaq_06

 

[Optimus Prime]

That's not how divorce works

Frank would be required to support the same lifestyle she had while married.

Probably pay 50,000 to 80,000 in alimony

While true, what about the housing situation? Flu wouldn't be able to live with Frank anymore, so they'd have to shack up in an apartment or something.

Truly, just cutting into Flu's available spending money would be a nightmare scenario as then they'd be responsible for their own finances. They wouldn't be able to buy all the new, hot tech on release day.

 

[PhantomDiploma]

Like, how can someone be this bad at everything? It's unfathomable.

If Brianna learns as much from playing games as she does making them, it makes sense:
"I didn't do very well with Revolution 60 in Peggle this round, but that's because of #GamerGate."

 

[Jaimas]

If you ever wanted the perfect microcosm for why Freemium Micro-Economies exist in games, Wu is your fucking poster child.

As an example, Wu got basically everything in Star Trek: Trexels, one of the most exploitative microtransaction-loaded mobile games ever made. She is absolutely willing to drop a thousand or more dollars on a game just so she can claim to be the best. Say you have a game with a playerbase of around 300,000. Of this playerbase, a tiny percentage, maybe 1500 or so, or around half of a percent, have enough money to throw around that they'll happily throw money at the games they play like it's going out of style. These are the players the industry colloquially refers to as "Whales."

Assuming you have them willing to spend a full 1000 or so in cash, you just made 1.5 million dollars through doing basically nothing. These are the players making this cancerous business model profitable; a few thousand players dropping $5 periodically on micropayments isn't driving those salivating over potential cash - it's the crazy motherfuckers willing to spend thousands to be the best that are solely for this business model taking off.

Think of that shit, every time you see a fucking Loot Box.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

If you ever wanted the perfect microcosm for why Freemium Micro-Economies exist in games, Wu is your fucking poster child.

As an example, Wu got basically everything in Star Trek: Trexels, one of the most exploitative microtransaction-loaded mobile games ever made. She is absolutely willing to drop a thousand or more dollars on a game just so she can claim to be the best. Say you have a game with a playerbase of around 300,000. Of this playerbase, a tiny percentage, maybe 1500 or so, or around half of a percent, have enough money to throw around that they'll happily throw money at the games they play like it's going out of style. These are the players the industry colloquially refers to as "Whales."

Assuming you have them willing to spend a full 1000 or so in cash, you just made 1.5 million dollars through doing basically nothing. These are the players making this cancerous business model profitable; a few thousand players dropping $5 periodically on micropayments isn't driving those salivating over potential cash - it's the crazy motherfuckers willing to spend thousands to be the best that are solely for this business model taking off.

Think of that shit, every time you see a fucking Loot Box.

Even better, you can do nothing but cosmetic microtransactions and possibly make even more because people will go fucking rabid over the chance to dress their paper doll up. The fact that my FF14 character is as close to Terra Branford as i can get is proof of this.

You don't need to sell power anymore. All you need to do is sell pretty, and you'll get people whipping out the credit cards.

 

[Jaimas]

Even better, you can do nothing but cosmetic microtransactions and possibly make even more because people will go fucking rabid over the chance to dress their paper doll up. The fact that my FF14 character is as close to Terra Branford as i can get is proof of this.

You don't need to sell power anymore. All you need to do is sell pretty, and you'll get people whipping out the credit cards.

It's not the people buying some custom gear they're after. It's not even the rare dudes buying like 200 bucks worth of content they care about.

What they want are the ones that literally buy everything. One of those is worth like 10000 regular users, 5 high investors, or 200 periodics.

Wu is their target market.

 

[AnimuGinger]

Even better, you can do nothing but cosmetic microtransactions and possibly make even more because people will go fucking rabid over the chance to dress their paper doll up. The fact that my FF14 character is as close to Terra Branford as i can get is proof of this.

You don't need to sell power anymore. All you need to do is sell pretty, and you'll get people whipping out the credit cards.

In free-to-play games, something like 50% of revenue comes from a fraction of 1% of the players. 90% comes from the top 5%.

Wu is the whale. Wu is the cancer. Wu is why EA doesn't give a shit.

 

[Chan the Wizard]

If Frank ever wanted to divorce John, he’d steam roll over him with a high priced lawyer that John could never fight. It would be a bloodbath. John wouldn’t get shit.

 

[AnOminous]

If Frank ever wanted to divorce John, he’d steam roll over him with a high priced lawyer that John could never fight. It would be a bloodbath. John wouldn’t get shit.

John could probably get a good divorce lawyer to take it on contingency.

The issue is more that Frank is likely to be extremely vindictive in divorce, as he was last time. He would do shit like consult every divorce lawyer in town just to keep John from being able to hire one, and dish all the dirt on him if he gets mad enough. Probably bully him into a lowball settlement, since John would probably end up with something.

The thing is, despite Frank's income, there probably just isn't much of a marital estate to split up. You have a few wrecked shitbox cars and other abandoned John projects, and they rent, so no home, a worthless corporation that owns nothing but the rights to one of the worst selling games in all of history, and otherwise, there's just Frank's income.

If Frank did ever get sick of John, he'd take a bit of a haircut, but John's standard of living would be immediately in the toilet. No more "classic sports cars" to turn into garbage by pretending to be a mechanic. No more trips to empty rooms to pretend to be important. No more fake political campaigns.