Culture Guild Wars 2 writers fired following heated Twitter exchange with streamer - Gamergate, the gift that keeps on giving.

Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet recently parted ways with writers Jessica Price and Peter Fries, who were involved in a contentious Twitter discussion with Guild Wars 2 Twitch streamer and YouTuber Deroir, who is also partnered with ArenaNet through its content creator program.

On Tuesday, July 3, Price wrote a lengthy Twitter thread about writing for MMOs, particularly Guild Wars 2, and why player characters are uniquely difficult to write compared to protagonists in singleplayer games. To put it simply, she discussed how to give characters personality in a way that also leaves room for players to create their own character. In a reply to Price's thread, Deroir argued that branching dialogue options could give players more ways to define their character's personality, overcome the MMO-specific constraints Price discussed, and improve the roleplaying potential of Guild Wars 2.

Yesterday Price highlighted Deroir's reply in a series of tweets suggesting he was uninformed and that his reply was condescending.

Among those tweets, the one that's drawn the most ire, particularly on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit, is Price's remark about "rando asshats" talking down to experienced writers and developers.

Responding to the mounting criticism of these tweets, Peter Fries defended Price's position in a now-deleted tweet which is archived here, saying "she never asked for [Deroir's] feedback".

For his part, Deroir said that he "meant no disrespect" and simply wanted to create "dialogue and discussion" with Price. He also apologized for any offense his argument may have caused.

In a post to the Guild Wars 2 forums, in a thread explicitly about Price and Fries' tweets, ArenaNet president Mike O'Brien characterized the statements as "attacks on the community," saying "two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players" and that those employees are "no longer with the company." O'Brien also said "the statements they made do not reflect the views of ArenaNet at all."

It's no grand secret that game developers, especially women, are regularly targeted by fans who want to lash out, condescend or place blame, to say nothing of the insults, threats and other toxicity routinely hurled their way. That being said, this incident was not on the level of the harassment maelstroms we've seen in the past. A developer explained their writing philosophy, a partnered content creator offered feedback, and that developer responded somewhat rudely. Ordinarily that would be the end of it, perhaps followed by a round of apologies or someone stepping away from their role temporarily, but in this case ArenaNet felt the need to immediately fire the employees involved.

And the usual assclowns are out in full force:

https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/guild-w...lowing-heated-twitter-exchange-with-streamer/

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Actually, groomergrate, once they realized their brilliant plan of waiting for someone to act like an idiot and be punished was about to come to fruition, was emboldened by their success. After she was fired, each and every gravygrater went and murdered a tranny woman POC, and used their blood to write letters demand other females be fired.

Actually... how much does vox pay for an article? They'd buy this.

 

[Wargarbl]

Wow. Someone pointed out to me a while back, when I posted a Rebecca Gerber tweet that mentioned Delafina777, that Jessica was a borderline cow. I never bothered to follow up and see who she was. She really introduced herself to the stage with a flourish.

This all blew up so badly, it got me thinking about social media policy and what a goddamn minefield it is for employers. Especially when your employee is mixing personal and business interaction on their personal social media. It has produced two of the biggest shitstorms in the gaming sphere: Alison Rapp and Jessica Price.

Price had to be fired. She went way over the line & blew up on at least two streaming partners over objectively benign interactions, when ANet considers streamers their primary marketing channel. That's inexcusable and should keep her on the blacklist of every mainstream employer for the foreseeable future. Even the ones that virtue signal support know how bad what she did really was, can see her history of combative social media, and realize she's a ticking time bomb unless she's completely removed from customer interaction and social media. If she gets hungry enough, maybe that will happen.

In the meantime, I guess she's financially secure enough (??) to feel good about slandering her former employer and dog whistling more abuse on them from game journalists disreputable blogs and screeching twitter harpies. Taking credit for all of her colleagues' work ("every bit of dialog was mine because I was the team lead" or whatever) in her parting shot was really a nice sociopathic icing on the delusional cake. If anyone hires her, they deserve the inevitable result when history repeats itself.

It took Alison about 2 years of sperging and showing her snatch to the entire internet before she figured out she was on the wrong path. It will be interesting to see Jessica's journey. JP's Twitter profile pic is outdated or shopped, because here is reality:

No jaunty scarf, smol cowboy hat, or non-chalant, looking away smirk. Just a bitter asshole bent on destroying her own career and trying to take her employer down with it.

Conversely, I don't think Fries needed to be fired. I have no idea what went on behind closed doors. Maybe he did something spectacularly dumb ("If you fire her, you have to fire me!"; "I won't apologize for drunkenly wading into a Twitter ragefest and making it worse!"). But I think even a mild apology would suffice. Something like "I saw my co-worker in the midst of a big argument and instinctively tried to help out, I apologize for any offense I gave the community" probably works. Then lay low on social media (his footprint was much more benign than JP's) and get back to work. I kind of wonder if he was fired because he's a WHITE MALE and it would look bad if they canned Price but not him. Whatever, he should find a new gig w/o too much bother.

TIL I'm glad I'm not an employer that has to worry about someone setting my business' reputation on fire because they can't control themselves on Twitter. I'm also glad I'm not insane enough to believe posting business-related material on my social media which specifically mentions my employer is a "private space that no one is entitled to respond in".

 

[AnOminous]

Well she knows she fucked up and she probably wont get hired after the shit storm she caused, so she's trying to keep herself relevant for sweet pity bucks or maybe a pity job.

My guess is she didn't get any kind of severance, they told her just to GTFO and never come back. No way a lousy conniving cunt like this turned down a severance with a non-disparagement clause on principle. Also if she had she'd be crowing about how noble she is for doing it.

Well she knows she fucked up and she probably wont get hired after the shit storm she caused, so she's trying to keep herself relevant for sweet pity bucks or maybe a pity job.

I hope she gets her dream job at a company that then immediately goes broke from woke.

I kind of wonder if he was fired because he's a WHITE MALE and it would look bad if they canned Price but not him.

I'd bet on it. Unless there was some office politics reason we don't know. There was nothing fireable about that.

This is why you don't white knight, especially if you actually are white.

 

[Ruin]

It will be interesting to see Jessica's journey. JP's Twitter profile pic is outdated or shopped, because here is reality:
View attachment 495066

Yikes, I hope she has some other skill because looking like that she can't fall back on being a "cute" gamer girl/camwhore like Ali did.

 

[AnOminous]

Yikes, I hope she has some other skill because looking like that she can't fall back on being a "cute" gamer girl/camwhore like Ali did.

Ali's cuteness didn't last long. All that whoring takes a lot out of a girl it seems. You'd deteriorate less from a meth habit.

No please, I hope she stays in the spotlight and the idiots pick this as their hill to die on. She's so obviously awful, it's a great and easy way to separate people who will not see reality when it's slapping them in the face, and sane people, regardless of their general leanings.

People said the same about the obvious sociopathic scammer Zoe Quinn, and she's currently doing fine, and fucking DC gave her a comic title.

 

[CrunkLord420]

If they're going to go with this email campaign narrative they need to provide email headers. Sure, you could fabricate them, but at least it's something.

 

[Munchingonfish]

If they're going to go with this email campaign narrative they need to provide email headers. Sure, you could fabricate them, but at least it's something.

You already know they're not going to provide anything. Anyone asking for proof will be labelled a gaslighting victim blaming Nazi enabling the harassment of women.

 

[Yellow Yam Scam]

https://kotaku.com/in-the-wake-of-arenanet-firings-game-studios-rethink-t-1827591298

Kotaku wrote another article. Read the comments. They're almost all negative in regards to the article. Interesting stuff.

Edit: Grabbed screenshots myself.

Spoiler

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

I don't think this has been brought up yet, but the reddit post that all these article and tweets take as a basis for going "this is what they think they can do to us" has been confirmed as a false flag by the original poster.

The post. (archive)

"If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you."

The confession. The user has since deleted their account but of course, there are always archives.

So yeah, if you think this controversity couldn't get any faker, here you go.

 

[Bread Fetishist]

https://kotaku.com/in-the-wake-of-arenanet-firings-game-studios-rethink-t-1827591298

Kotaku wrote another article. Read the comments. They're almost all negative in regards to the article. Interesting stuff.

Edit: Grabbed screenshots myself.

Spoiler

View attachment 495356 View attachment 495357 View attachment 495358 View attachment 495359 View attachment 495360 View attachment 495361 View attachment 495362 View attachment 495363 View attachment 495364

That Benji Smith guy in the fourth image is absolutely right.

 

[GethN7]

https://kotaku.com/in-the-wake-of-arenanet-firings-game-studios-rethink-t-1827591298

Kotaku wrote another article. Read the comments. They're almost all negative in regards to the article. Interesting stuff.

Edit: Grabbed screenshots myself.

Spoiler

View attachment 495356 View attachment 495357 View attachment 495358 View attachment 495359 View attachment 495360 View attachment 495361 View attachment 495362 View attachment 495363 View attachment 495364

It's refreshing to see even people who otherwise would be defending Price can still smell bullshit and call it such.

 

[superscript]

Metafilter cried and blamed society, as usual. https://archive.fo/o1UUI

Deroir didn't "chime in to disagree" - he mansplained video game writing to a fucking video game writer and negged her writing at the same time. Nothing he suggests contradicts what she said about MMO character design. One of the worst things about twitter is that it is full of men like Deroir who are gasping for chances to tell women they're wrong about something.

Agreed. What is so complicated about “Don’t go up to someone, virtually or in real life, and start a debate about how they did or are doing their job”? They work there, you don’t, they know what they’re talking about, you don’t. The customer is not right.
​

No more criticizing the President.

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

Deroir didn't "chime in to disagree" - he mansplained video game writing to a fucking video game writer and negged her writing at the same time. Nothing he suggests contradicts what she said about MMO character design. One of the worst things about twitter is that it is full of men like Deroir who are gasping for chances to tell women they're wrong about something.

The saddest part is that he was idolizing her on twitch just a day earlier. It's pretty likely that he was just trying to get in contact with her and thought that joining in on a topic she was talking about on twitter would be a good way to do so. Obviously, things didn't work out that way. I don't get how anyone who watched that clip and has at least the slightest bit of social understanding (yes, I know, this is where I'm losing them) could construct that twitter exchange as an attack.

By the way, was Deroirs response ever posted? Here it is if not.

 

[Next Task]

Metafilter cried and blamed society, as usual.

Oh, classic Metafilter. Everything circles back to how poor Jessica Price is so put upon and couldn't ever be expected to put up with such mean harassment, with the majority of likes going to snarky 'this is why I hate men/gamers/the internet' one-liners. And anyone wondering where the mansplaining is, or the one user who was 'I'm a woman and I play Guild Wars 2 and I don't think this is fair' eventually get shouted down to the point the mods have to come in and essentially tell them their viewpoint isn't welcome in the thread because it's making it too fighty - as if they're the ones being rude and aggressive and dismissive, instead of trying to understand.

And of course that even one user, let alone two, may say that they agree with the general points but have even a slight difference of opinion (like in Deroir's own tweets, no less) is regarded as an invasion of a brigade of sealioning misogynists. It's no wonder they support Price - like Price, anything less that obsequious agreement and active support is the same as being a Nazi troll.

I could get if people disagree with the firing because you shouldn't fire someone over tweets. I've seen enough people who don't buy this media-enforced narrative say that about Price, and even moreso Fries. But that's hardly far enough for these people - no, Price has to be a perfect victim and crusader for women's rights and her enemies have to be the damn dirty gamergate manbaby MRA neckbeards, and if you disagree with that assessment because you can read the fucking tweets yourself, well, you must also be a misogynist trashfire of a human...

Metafilter really is a concentrated circle-jerk of an echo chamber.

 

[superscript]

Metafilter really is a concentrated circle-jerk of an echo chamber.

Metafilter was like the mature version of SA. There was a big community who created content about a variety of subjects. Then they got taken over by people who dragged every thread down with their drama and the admins refused to add features that people wanted. Most people ran away to Reddit and the site is mostly people who are invested in the miserable discourse.

Surprising there isn't a thread for Mefi.

 

[LastCaress]

I almost told a customer to go fuck himself and I probably wouldn't be fired but that involved a dog with priapism.

 

[Haramburger]

The customer is not right.

I blame Jimmy John's for popularizing this anti-meme.

 

[Racist Trash]

https://kotaku.com/in-the-wake-of-arenanet-firings-game-studios-rethink-t-1827591298

Kotaku wrote another article. Read the comments. They're almost all negative in regards to the article. Interesting stuff.

Edit: Grabbed screenshots myself.

Spoiler

View attachment 495356 View attachment 495357 View attachment 495358 View attachment 495359 View attachment 495360 View attachment 495361 View attachment 495362 View attachment 495363 View attachment 495364

"Wow kotaku I can't believe you would lie to us about this subject!" "But we still believe you about what you said about goobergabe in no way could you have been lying to us then!"

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Wait wait wait... she's claiming, that in Pathfinder, ELVES are LITERALLY ALIENS?

Unless there's a splat book I don't own or a one-liner somewhere I glossed over, that's not what happened. What it means, is she knows very little about Golarian history and/or confused them with gnomes.

Gnomes, some disaster happened in the Nex (IIRC) and they fled to Golarian (Fantasy Magical Earth) because of the disaster. They have more in common with fey than humans, due to the First World and the like. They're not exactly aliens, more like magical disaster refugees who have adapted to life on Golarian.

Elves, they were a primary species. They foretold of a disaster that would blanket Golarian in death and darkness. They crafted a magical fortress in the Nex (Again IIRC), and then all fled to it. After the disaster, they returned to Golarian and were shocked to find out that they were a little behind everyone they left behind in the context of magic, technology, arts and philosophy. They aren't aliens, they're one of the progenitor races.

Aliens DO exist on Golarian. A giant spaceship crashed in "Not Africa". There's some androids that have blended into society, often pretending to be elves to explain why they don't age.

Unless I missed a major splatbook or something, she's wrong as shit. I mean, unless she's spoiling some major plot point coming down the pipe from Paizo, in which case, she might wanna watch what she says, because if I had something that major to bombshell with and some fired salty employee spoiled it, I'd be fucking PISSED.

And if she's that goddamn ill-informed, about Pathfinder (And, as someone pointed out above, Grampa Gary's bit with the strength) then she had no fucking business working for Paizo.

I hate to give this bitch any fucking credit for anything beyond basic metabolic actions, but it seems she's correct.

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Sovyrian

Evidently Sovyrian is located on Castrovel (Golarion's closest neighbor) and the elves originally came from there. It's insane, and I'm not sure why Paizo would take that route (especially with the gnomes already filling the role of 'not from here').

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

I hate to give this bitch any fucking credit for anything beyond basic metabolic actions, but it seems she's correct.

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Sovyrian

Evidently Sovyrian is located on Castrovel (Golarion's closest neighbor) and the elves originally came from there. It's insane, and I'm not sure why Paizo would take that route (especially with the gnomes already filling the role of 'not from here').

Nope, STILL not aliens.

I specifically referred to this part...

Sovyrian is the ancient refuge of the elves of Golarion, who used the Sovyrian Stone to flee there via a portal in -5293 AR to escape the destruction of the Starstone. They remained there for millennia, and only began to return in 2632 AR when they learned of the demon Treerazer's attempt to corrupt the magical gate.[1] It is commonly accepted that Sovyrian is the ancestral home of the elves.

When the Aboleth called down the Starstone, the elves used the stone to flee (The old stuff I had make references to it could have been on the first world or the Nex) to their refuge, not returning until long after the Dark Times were over.

When their diviners and astronomers determined that Earthfall would be a cataclysmic event, they departed Golarion through these gates to their mysterious legendary homeland of Sovyrian, where they remained in isolation for thousands of years.

From the same Wiki.