Developer harassment

Korplem said:

You certainly have an interesting worldview, ManWhoJaped.

How can you claim that there have never been any death threats in the history of game development? It's a little ridiculous.

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Because I have seen countless cases of such accusations and they always turn out to be conflated BS. I've also seen that bioware constantly lies about their customers and calls them trolls, racists, homophobes, etc. at the slightest provocation.

I am sure some people have gotten real death threats at some point, but how does a mature person handle that? They call the police. Ploice will take it seriously, and usually find the person involved and talk to them (I know from experience) then you can go from there. They don't hold a press conference to announce how set upon they are in their valiant crusade to bring gender friendly entertainment to the masses.

When you exploit a bad situation I have to wonder, was this a real situation at all? That's why people doubt sandy hook. Because special interest groups register dozens of facebook accounts right before the day of the attack or right after and then play up how bad a tragedy it was.

I think it really happened in that case but when you see a bunch of people rehearsing lines you realize this is all a load of crap like the totally true "cnn live from baghdad" reports from persian gulf filmed on a bluescreen. The tragedy might be real but the reporting is just made up crap. And think of it, how many people who just had their kids gunned down are going to talk about it on tv? ZERO!

In short it's total BS. I doubt this is the real reason she is leaving. They milked this for all it's worth. They are also the ones who made her say that in the first place, so they basically set her up from the beginning and were planning this all along.

Either that or it got a much worse response than they anticipated and now she has to go. So then they make up some lies about death threats, adding to the endless collection of made up lies they have generated over the years. Ok. So if it's true let's see some police records.

ManWhoJaped said:

BULLSHIT!.

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OK, so I understand that you are fairly thick based on many of the laughably inane things you espouse (the racial genetics widely debunked crap, as an example) ... but I will speak slowly so you might understand, since you have failed three times already that I know:

I
Was
NOT
Speaking
About
YOU.

Korplem said:

You certainly have an interesting worldview, ManWhoJaped.

How can you claim that there have never been any death threats in the history of game development? It's a little ridiculous.

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Because in his world there is no racism, no sexism, probably slavery and the holocaust didn't exist. And if you try to claim they did - YOU are the problem.

He is one of those who always hopes to be right through a volume of words and those 'I have seen ... ' anecdotes.

MWJ: I haven't heard of any false death threats. Then again, I don't really go looking for them. But, it only seems fair to ask the same of you as you ask of them. Do you have any proof? I could see them not wanting to air out everything in the case of a death threat, it might motivate trolls to attempt to get their death threats shown to the public. Also, in the article linked earlier, about Hepler, the company security told her about the threats, so I assume some precautions were taken (such as contacting the police -- seems like that would be a standard procedure).

But, I'm not sure why you're so upset about it. I've decided that I'm not BioWare's target audience anymore so I've simply been ignoring them. The hostility of their forums, whether from members or the company itself, doesn't concern me. My thinking of the subject is sort of like Black & White's view of gods (I don't make a habit of using B&W as a reference, by the way ). If enough people stop believing in them, they will cease to exist. BioWare is no longer in my personal pantheon of developers. They could go on making homosexual dating simulators with rpg elements like being able to level up the amount of hit-points your b-hole has and it wouldn't bother me. I just wouldn't pay them any attention.

Especially weren't you the guy who complained about harassment at the Codex? Guy calling work to get you fired? Really think people stop at death threats? I'd be surprised.

Death threats are quite common when you're in the public eye.

A lot of people are morons - and they think nothing of making such threats just for kicks.

Doesn't mean anything in most cases, but it can't be comfortable.

As for Bioware - we all know they've fallen from grace in terms of artistic integrity - but to take it into the personal space like that is just beyond stupid.

As for why this woman is leaving - we'll never know, and I honestly don't care.

It's not like Bioware is important for enthusiast gamers anymore - and since I want everyone to be happy - I can only hope she'll find something more suitable to her tastes and talents.

ManWhoJaped seems to have emotional issues and seems to be taking this very much to heart.

I would recommend spending a decent chunk of time investigating why strangers have such a profound effect - and perhaps deal with issues before coming back. Then hostile communication might not even be necessary.

Just an idea, though.

She makes it clear she didn't leave because of the threats, but having left, she has chosen to highlight the abuse to make others aware.

It's not acceptable IMHO. There have been a wave of threats on twitter recently and the police in the UK are investigating, because for our laws, it crosses a line to use any media/communication in that way.

When you're young, you don't always know better, and you don't understand the consequences of your actions until the first time you are called up on something and given a ticking off. With the internet, young people (or young minded, to be polite to them) don't have the feedback and ticking off that they'd get in real life if they did this, so they don't understand the consequences. I'm pretty sure that with enough education (for them or their parents), or if they are spoken to by the police etc. they will realise and their behaviour will change.

What *really* upsets me is this (new verb !) "swatting".

Here, in Germany, they'd try to find out who caused it and make him (or her) pay for the costs it needed.

Any one who does a fake police or firemen/fire service alarm here must pay the costs of it.
And that can become really expensive for a younger person.

txa1265 said:

He is one of those who always hopes to be right through a volume of words and those 'I have seen … ' anecdotes.

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I must admit that this is kind of my style, too.

Although I only write a lot ("wall of text") when I'm *really* angry about something.

And I do try use examples to illustrate what I mean as well.

But still - I'm not him.

ManWhoJaped said:

I think it really happened in that case but when you see a bunch of people rehearsing lines you realize this is all a load of crap like the totally true "cnn live from baghdad" reports from persian gulf filmed on a bluescreen. The tragedy might be real but the reporting is just made up crap. And think of it, how many people who just had their kids gunned down are going to talk about it on tv? ZERO!

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Regarding this "filming on blue screen" : Do you remember those attackers in London who attacked an solder with knives and killed - and afterwards WANTED to be filmed by tiny mini-smartphone-cameras to spread their hate ?
http://www.channel4.com/news/machete-attack-soldier-woolwich-london

Why does developer harassment exist ?

Because of selfishness. Because people believce that their opinion is somehow "better" than the opinion of developers.

More on selfishness here : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/17/labour-coalition-promote-selfish-individualism

And don't be surprised that on the surface, this article *seems* not to be about selfishness at all ... It is. It is.

Please try to read this article "between the lines" ! It reveals how much selfish our "western societies" have become.

Related , from an Gamasutra article :

Another sign that games are broadly representative of The System is their obsession with depiction, rationalization and defense of violence. Guns are iconic of one’s sense of privilege over another — I’m powerful because I can end your life. The whole idea of wielding a gun is bound up in racism and classism: If some poor person tries to take what’s yours, you can kill him, and if you were raised under American capitalism you probably have some problematic ideas about what that target who wants to take what’s yours looks like.

In opposition to the ideologies that come with celebrating weaponry, rock songs in the 1990s were about mocking or dismantling the American obsession with arms. Pearl Jam did this, as did Rage Against The Machine (probably the most overt ‘protest band’), raging about how fear of violence creates oppression within systems. Rock music in the 1990s had meaning precisely because it encouraged youth to question systems, not to support them.

And yet video games continue to lavish upon shooting — insistently, while “gamer culture” militantly defends it. In some circles of “gamer culture,” players are actually motivated to hate speech at the very idea that you might try to take their guns. This is worse than the most strident caricature of a shotgun-toting conservative — these are young people upset about virtual guns, with the gall to liken it to a free speech issue, no less.

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From the comments there :

Now, I want to be clear here, I am not saying there should be no more "NOUN of WAR(insert suffix here)" games with bald white dude protagonists. There's definitely a place for that. What I want, and I think part of the point of this article, is games that are different.

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It's from this article : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/198376/grunge_grrrls_and_video_games_.php?page=1

I'm actually glat that sites like Gamasutra actually exist.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Why does developer harassment exist ?

Because people believce that their opinion is somehow "better" than the opinion of developers.

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Not really - take away games and people continue harassing. The trolling it turns out has nothing to do with the subject, some people just want to troll.

I just found this at Gamasutra : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...om_Gamescom_to_a_Jewish_identity_in_games.php

A timeline of a thing that has happened at Penny Arcade, linked to by Gamasutra as well : http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline

Bad stuff. REALLY bad.

The "funny" thing is that it goes on even until today.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

A timeline of a thing that has happened at Penny Arcade, linked to by Gamasutra as well : http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline

Bad stuff. REALLY bad.

The "funny" thing is that it goes on even until today.

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Christ.. All that fuss because of one stupid cartoon strip?

Dez said:

Christ.. All that fuss because of one stupid cartoon strip?

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Actually no ... It was the aftermath, taking the typical American shaming of rape victims, insulting and belittling of female opinions, and even worse and transgender, and basically saying absolutely the wrong thing every time ... When they could have just said 'we're sorry, we didn't think' ... Instead of celebrating and making pro-rape culture tshirts.

Subjects like rape, as far as I am concerned, don't belong on network tv at all. I really cringed at the rape scene in buffy the vampire slayer even though oddly some actual rape victims seemed to think it was something that "helped" them somehow.

But I am far more disturbed by the reaction to the original comic than to the trolls or the comic itself. First off it's not a rape joke. There had to be SOMETHING bad that was going to happen to the guy, and if it wasn't male rape then how is murder/torture/etc. somehow better? No real rape victims I know get excited about stupid crap like this, that same crazy blogger also complains about every single tv show, book, etc. ever made. Even Mad Men is misogynist because the "villain" Don Draper became popular (which shows how well this misguided propaganda works). I made a blog post a long time ago about how catty they made women look in season 4 of mad men (while trying to be feminist!), and then lo and behold peggy changes her tune in the next season and quotes back the exact words I said about not being threatened by people who are smart and wanting to hire the best person to learn from them.

Also I dream of genie is totally misogynist. I loved that show, but you know, it's complete fantasy and even as a kid I understood that. And so is bewitched, totally misogynist as well. So what's not misogynist?

You can ignore trolls, unfortunately you can't ignore how crap TV has become because of idiots like her, or that every mainstream action movie now seems like a combination recruiting ad for the army and political propaganda tool. Even a show like game of thrones that has babykilling can't get some serious character depth because they can't be politically incorrect ie have people who are like real people about subjects that touch on politics.

Downton Abbey is a decent show and there's no political stuff in there I disagree (war is bad, what a stunning revelation, thanks) with but it still makes the show a lot worse. The dad is never allowed to be right about anything, ever. Anyone who's bad or shows a reactionary attitude has to be wholly, illogically bad at all times. Only exception is Thomas who's bad all the time but it's not his fault because being gay he gets abused a lot (offscreen apparently, as no one on the show itself does anything but bend over backwards to be accomodating). As a character he's the only one I really like, probably because even that shallow kind of depth is better than none at all.

And a lot of that was pointed out to me by a WOMAN as we watched the show together! I have to think all the internet guys whiteknighting womanhood in general would have a different attitude if they actually knew some women, outside of a couple of nutcase bloggers who don't talk about anything but the horrible patriarchy and all its evil. Maidens whiteknighted 27, maidens deflowered, 0.

Someday I hope I find all the imaginary power of the white man and make it mine, then nothing can stop me! The hint is nobody gives you anything, and that kind of commie logic is paralyzing to your advancement. You have to actually go out and do it, not try to rewrite the rules to somehow give yourself an advantage or indoctrinate people to behave as you'd like them to.

Ultimately, propaganda just doesn't work. That's the real lesson from 1984, change the language and rewrite history all you want and people still make their own conclusions. Nazis used to play propaganda in the barracks 24/7 and all they got was tired and cranky soldiers out of it. Same with TV and movies today. If you want to ruin some shows then ruin the crap you watch not stuff that you only watch so you can be pissed off and writing a letter. Ultimately the creative people should be deciding on content not some censor, or really worse than a censor, a revisionist that wants to rewrite everything to suit some ridiculous political nonsense no one cares about, but everyone feels like they have to agree with or they get called a racist homophobe misogynist.

So whats the latest internet outrage this week. It seems a new one pops up everyday. When did playing, making games, or even being affiliated with anything in the media become so political?

Couchpotato said:

So whats the latest internet outrage this week. It seems a new one pops up everyday. When did playing, making games, or even being affiliated with anything in the media become so political?

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Everything is political now, get in line or get ready for the gulag.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

I just found this at Gamasutra : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...om_Gamescom_to_a_Jewish_identity_in_games.php

A timeline of a thing that has happened at Penny Arcade, linked to by Gamasutra as well : http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline

Bad stuff. REALLY bad.

The "funny" thing is that it goes on even until today.

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Its called marketing. You fell in hook line and sinker. They feed on sensationalism, they are after all comedians in drawn form.

ManWhoJaped said:

Everything is political now, get in line or get ready for the gulag.

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Nah I'll remain neutral rather than spout insane theories.

I do have to ask what does forced labor camps, and citizen repression have to do with gaming, and the media? Sounds a little crazy if you ask me. Do you need a shrink.