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/

 

[RisingPhoenix]

The most hilarious thing is I have yet to see any actual Gamers defend this bitch. The Gaming Press would seem to be getting near 100% universal pushback from the actual consumers of games on their non stop White Knighting. It just further proves how utterly irrelevant they are. I notice the Arenanet guy does not seem to be in any way sweating his decision or backpedaling. (I probably doesn't help that the fools at Kotaku probably have mere weeks of employment remaining if that. And I won't be surprised if somebody takes an axe to Polygon early next year as their Venture Capital Funding finally runs dry.)

Other game company PR's didn't agree with her actions as well. The guy that looks after the Sonic the Hedgehog social media did a thread about it where, while he recognised fans can be tough sometimes, you don't know if that fan is just a kid or someone who really looks up to the characters or you. So when you attack them, you may be losing a customer in return.

That said her whole brag about GWII doesn't really affect the larger amount of people who heard about her firing as the vast majority don't play GWII - MMO's are time intensive so you tend to get sub-communities that probably exclusively spend most of their time in that game. The subreddit was very polite about the whole thing and mods were making sure any posts going below the belt in comments were deleted or banned. They can also choose to end their subscriptions if need be, which might prompt the team to throw out her work anyway (assuming it's all that noticable)

I've heard Kotaku staff have been extra aggressive lately on social media, seen one case of a writer siccing their remaining fans on people for daring to suggest an upcoming review might be halfassed

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

We're coming up on five days and people are still talking about this? I don't think I've ever seen a narrative been forced as hard as this one. It's just so blatantly wrong at every level that you'd think even the SJWs would give up and find something else to sperg about.

 

[AnOminous]

We're coming up on five days and people are still talking about this? I don't think I've ever seen a narrative been forced as hard as this one. It's just so blatantly wrong at every level that you'd think even the SJWs would give up and find something else to sperg about.

All this work without a single story from even real fake news outlets. It's all completely internal sperging by games "journalists."

 

[Munchingonfish]

I've heard Kotaku staff have been extra aggressive lately on social media, seen one case of a writer siccing their remaining fans on people for daring to suggest an upcoming review might be halfassed

Univision announced that they're looking to sell the Gawker sites. They're all probably afraid they're going to get fired soon.

 

[AnOminous]

Univision announced that they're looking to sell the Gawker sites. They're all probably afraid they're going to get fired soon.

I hope they sell it for pennies on the dollar to some sketchy operation that just hijacks the domains, fires everyone, and turns them all into disgusting tranny porn sites. Though come to think of it, they could probably keep some of the writers on as whores. It would be a step up in respectability from writing for Gawker sites.

 

[Ruin]

I hope they sell it for pennies on the dollar to some sketchy operation that just hijacks the domains, fires everyone, and turns them all into disgusting tranny porn sites. Though come to think of it, they could probably keep some of the writers on as whores. It would be a step up in respectability from writing for Gawker sites.

I hope Donald Trump buys them and just hosts mirrors of his tweets/speeches there. It seems like the kind of petty dickishness he revels in.

 

[TheMonkeyMan]

Univision announced that they're looking to sell the Gawker sites. They're all probably afraid they're going to get fired soon.

The AV Club used to be awesome but I realized that it was starting to resort to outrage clickbait some time after GG started. This was before Univision bought them but they had already gotten rid of most of the stuff that brought me to the site in the first place (classic TV reviews, features like Commentary Tracks of the Damned). Sad!

 

[RodgerDodger]

We're coming up on five days and people are still talking about this? I don't think I've ever seen a narrative been forced as hard as this one. It's just so blatantly wrong at every level that you'd think even the SJWs would give up and find something else to sperg about.

You clearly missed the early days of "Gamergate". This is what the "Journalists" of the Gaming Press do. What's real impressive is just how little backing they are getting from the general public. Particularly the Gamers. None of whom seem to be falling for the Press's bullshit at all. It doesn't hurt that they have chosen one of the most unsympathetic of princesses to white knight. Even a cursory glance at the Twitter exchange between her and the Youtuber clearly shows that she is an unbearable and wildly self important bitch.

 

[c-no]

This probably should go into GamerGate HangerOns or Celebrating Cancer Death or something but fuck it, it's obviously being spurred by what happened here.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/fruzsi...-collateral-damage-of-gamergate/#2368395a32ae

Idiot Forbes contributor basically goes "John Bain was evil and GamerGate's leader". She then has the fucking audacity to do this shit:


I only put this here because Price celebrating his death has brought out all the shitflinging assholes to do the same.

Funny thing in terms of TB being brought up here:
The tweet from Price over saying it's good TB died got a certain response from an ex-Kiwi that has a thread here.

DStecks manages to make himself look like an ass by saying its good a dead brit died from cancer and that Price must be a cool person.

https://twitter.com/TheDStecks/status/1015123673185861632
https://twitter.com/mombot/status/1015214538935791616
http://archive.is/1xJPh

Even an ex-Kiwi can't stay away from making a response over this, especially when he makes one that would get him a spot in that "celebrating cancer death" and his own thread.

 

[Pubic Enemy #1]

>get fired for being a dick
>baww about sexism
>run to the media pushing a story about sexism
>company defends themselves, points out they're not sexist, and says they did in fact fire you for being a dick
>this is "soliciting harassment"
>company praises your work to try and stay professional
>"BAWW THEY ONLY FOCUSED ON ONE THING THEY'RE ERASING WOMEN FROM HISTORY"

Holy fuck the mental gymnastics here. Still pushing this narrative that her original exchange with Deroir was "about sexism" too. Completely reframing the events. DSP would be proud of this shithead.

 

[Sissy Galvez]

Univision announced that they're looking to sell the Gawker sites. They're all probably afraid they're going to get fired soon.

I’m sure they’ll go work for even shittier sites like buzzfeed and the root. Glad these fucks are circling the toilet. They've destroyed political discourse with their infantile world views and snarky attitudes. This is what happens when you spoil children and give them medals for last place.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

We're coming up on five days and people are still talking about this? I don't think I've ever seen a narrative been forced as hard as this one. It's just so blatantly wrong at every level that you'd think even the SJWs would give up and find something else to sperg about.

GG narratives are like heroin to SJW's and game journalists, it was the biggest boon for that sector of the industry ever. So of course this narrative is being kept alive by extreme hyperbole and flat out lies because, like an addict, they've got to resort to carpet sharking looking for any crumb that may have fallen off the table 4 years ago.

Good on Arenanet for squeezing this puss filled pimple early. There's a reason why she hasn't been able to hold a job for longer than a year. I started playing GW2 again because of this.

 

[Haramburger]

They can also choose to end their subscriptions if need be, which might prompt the team to throw out her work anyway (assuming it's all that noticable)

GW2 is Free to Play, with two paid expansions(exclusive areas, abilities & content, but no level cap raise) and the option to buy Gems(in-game cash shop currency that translates to earned gold in-game at a conversion rate that fluctuates like an equity). Jessica's contributions would be limited to the Path of Fire expansion pack, which is baseline $29.99(with two more expensive deluxe options for $54.99 and $79.99) and potentially refundable. Most serious players won't refund over some drama if they still intend to play, since it would lock you out of a lot of current content areas & mounts. Also anyone who has the expansion and at the very least logs in while content is current gets those Living Story episodes unlocked on their account for free. Newcomers who haven't been playing have to pay essentially $5 for the story chapters(strings of missions with voice acting and cosmetic rewards/new map areas), and Path of Fire has 3 currently in play(the core story intro is free, which is probably 6-8 hours of content).

The paying whales might abstain from buying their usual Gem quantities though, which is where the game really takes a hit. GW2 runs on the backs of rich perverts and furries that spend hundreds if not thousands of disposable income dollars on buying vanity items to bling out their characters for showing off to plebs & broadcasting their affluence while cybersexing each other. Price is fired so it's a non-issue, but if she had stayed on,Gem sales would have dipped and it would have been considered anyways.

 

[BuckBumble]

The most hilarious thing is I have yet to see any actual Gamers defend this bitch. The Gaming Press would seem to be getting near 100% universal pushback from the actual consumers of games on their non stop White Knighting. It just further proves how utterly irrelevant they are. I notice the Arenanet guy does not seem to be in any way sweating his decision or backpedaling. (I probably doesn't help that the fools at Kotaku probably have mere weeks of employment remaining if that. And I won't be surprised if somebody takes an axe to Polygon early next year as their Venture Capital Funding finally runs dry.)

Unlikely on the Polygon side, Youtube being the assholes they are right now are donating $25 million to organizations including Vox Media to "combat fake news".

https://youtube.googleblog.com

 

[knightlautrec]

Good on Arenanet for squeezing this puss filled pimple early. There's a reason why she hasn't been able to hold a job for longer than a year. I started playing GW2 again because of this.

Same, actually. If anyone else has we should start up a kiwi GW2 guild.

What an absolutely insufferable cunt, I can't imagine anyone looking at her behaviour and thinking "hmm she seems employable"

Me either. But you know some virtue signalling studio has already offered her a job because she's a poor oppressed wimmins who can't hold her own.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

broadcasting their affluence while cybersexing each other.

I don't know where you've been hanging out in game, but I've never once seen anything even remotely close to this, thankfully.

 

[CharlesBarkley]

Who the fuck cares about a MMO storyline - Esp. guild wars 2? lol

 

[Secret Asshole]

It didn’t do bad for its budget. But it substantially underperformed what they promised, and only made a fraction of what the male led movies did. When the entire point was to prove how much better movies staring women in testosterone charged male roles will do. The problem wasn’t that the movie lost money. It is that it proved the narrative wrong, again.

And that’s the heart of it. The core consumer for these types of properties isn’t buying what these ideologically compromised merchants are attempting to force sell them. The customer knows what the customer wants, and these sorts of things are not it. The customer has grown sick of paying for nonstop abuse and is taking HIS money elsewhere. There is no magical Woke customer base willing to pay for shit like Jessica Price. Cudos to Arenanet’s execs for realizing that right away and dealing with the problem quickly and to their customers benefit.

There isn't. Because normal people don't want 'woke' shit in their entertainment. When I load up a game or a shooter, I don't care about woke shit. I don't care if women are playing or not.

I've got rape threats from women, had women call me a faggot in online games and threaten to murder me and cut my dick off. You think these women want woke content up in their shit? I think not.

The base they are courting doesn't exist. They spend their money on fashion shit, apple, expensive apartments and meals. They barely consume 'nerd' entertainment. It will not ever attract them. Its all about sanitizing a space they find 'problematic'. Problem is, capitalism will always win. The more 'woke' something gets, the more money it loses. You're supposed to respect the art, not the artist. This is a problem with these people as they want to interject themselves into their art and entertainment. Its not selling and never will sell. 'Wokeness' in companies should only be done in the way these people exist: In a superficial manner that does nothing.

Also problematic games are more fun, more engaging and more thoughtful than any 'woke' game could ever possibly be.

View attachment 492933
https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/894937732174159873

Laws exist to protect society, which includes the government....and other people in society. I can't use my freedom of speech to discriminate against you for your race or gender for any reason, even in private enterprise, which the government has nothing to do with.

The problem is that getting fired for your opinion OUTSIDE of your job is a relatively new thing. Like, 3-4 years new. Before social media, it was pretty difficult to get fired from something you said or did off the job because it was tough to find out. With social media its criminally easy. The first amendment didn't predict things like movies or radio or videogames and doesn't really know how you deal with that, and other capitalistic enterprises.

The founder's intention is used in the supreme court, if you follow a certain law philosophy anyway, and I believe the founders intended for you to be silenced by nobody, especially your employer for your opinions. Because if your livelihood is threatened by your speech, your rights are being restricted. The reason why we don't have any laws protecting people from this is because its so fucking nebulous and everyone would be suing the moment they got fired. But the spirit of the first amendment is that your life and property should not be threatened by your speech.

However, this wasn't a freedom of speech issue. This was just someone being a stupid fucking cunt.

The biggest problem I have is no one is taking anything from Peter Fries. No one from what I've seen has gotten his side of the story. It's been a woman, Jessica Price, no one else. The idea of this being a gendered issue is ridiculous, and the fact that Fries was not ever questioned (and I'll admit, it's kind of bullshit that he got fired too for just merely defending her, and wasn't as vitriol as Price) proves this is a narrative/agenda pushing action, not a gendered issue.

Everyone ignores Fries because they want to make it a gender issue. And you have to remember, Fries actually wants to work again. He's not giving interviews, he's keeping his head down on social media. He's a 13 year vet in the industry. He's said positive things about his employer, made no salt about his firing and generally went on radio silence. I mean, he was obviously fired so it didn't look gendered but he doesn't seem to care. That's because he knows which way the wind is blowing. He may be 'woke', but he doesn't seem like a fucking idiot. So what he's doing is essentially maintaining his professionalism, keeping it simple, so he can get hired again. At you know, a good company.

As for this stupid cunt, maybe she'll find a job writing for Brianna Wu or a no-name mobile dev. Her days of writing in the AAA industry are fucking gone unless a soyboy or feminist is REALLY that stupid to hire her after this. Journalists may be playing harps for her, but she's fucking radioactive.

 

[mindlessobserver]

We're coming up on five days and people are still talking about this? I don't think I've ever seen a narrative been forced as hard as this one. It's just so blatantly wrong at every level that you'd think even the SJWs would give up and find something else to sperg about.

Price needs to let it go, and the game journalists need to start exercising some editorial control. ArenaNet cannot keep letting it's brand be dragged through the mud like this. Price, Polygon, Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun have danced very close to the line where they can be sued. In Prices case I think she has already blown way past that line since she does not have the journalist shield the other asshats have. But if those gaming "news" sites keep pushing this narrative and misrepresenting what is going on, they are going to find themselves in the legal area of willfull maliciousness. And when that happens the shield goes down and ArenaNet can sue them for millions. No company will tolerate so much slander for long. Not when the defamation risks hurting their brand and product sales.

At the very least this Derar guy definitely has a case against Price. Especially if she keeps labeling him a misogynist. That is not an idle claim, it comes freighted with huge financial implications for someone whose career is in social media. This is not college. You can't just say throw those accusations at people and then have nothing to show they are true.

 

[Secret Asshole]

No, let the gaming sites keep pushing this narrative. I WANT them to constantly defend this malignant cunt. Then companies will see how many actual gamers agree with them. This will only reduce their journalistic impact even more than it already has.

This idiotic cunt has been a boon to destroy the reputation of journalists as even shitty YouTubers and LowT gamers can't even look at this shit anymore because its so fucking obvious as to why she was fired.