After the dismissal of writer Jessica Price from MMO developer ArenaNet on 05 July 2018, the media had a feeding frenzy. One particular article by Andy Chalk in PC Gamer quoted Price in its headline as calling her firing an ‘active solicitation of harassment’. After representations from Matthew Hopkins News, PC Gamer parent company Future PLC have conducted an investigation and now their lawyer has clarified that, “[…] For the avoidance of doubt, Future does not allege that [Arena Net CEO] Mr O’Brien is guilty of the criminal offence of harassment […]”.
Jessica Price, fired ArenaNet Developer, has a history of inappropriate media posts such as this one about the death of popular Youtuber “Total Biscuit”.
In fact the sacking of Jessica Price was unsurprising. Price had not only been rude to a popular fan of the firm with no provocation, but had a history of inappropriate social media conduct including celebrating a cancer victim’s death. What is disturbing is the behaviour of a small number of gaming journalists who have enabled her to vilify the company by giving her complaints a platform, including Andy Chalk at PC Gamer and Ben Kuchera at Polygon. This can only reflect adversely on Vox CEO Jim Bankoff and Future PLC CEO Zillah Byng-Maddick.
On 23 April 1991 jewellery chain CEO Gerald Ratner gave a speech about his products in the Royal Albert Hall. It destroyed his business. Joking, Ratner described his jewellery as “total crap” before going on to say that an earring sold by his firm was, “cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn’t last as long”. The speech wiped £500 million off the value of the company leading to Ratner’s departure as CEO. In the modern world of social media and instant communications, companies are even more vulnerable to the instant destruction of their brand by inappropriate communications by employees.
On 3 July 2018 Jessica Price, an writer at Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet opened a thread about writing for characters in online games. A well known streamer @DeroirGaming, made an innocuous comment –
“Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story’s narrative design;”
He went on to suggest branching dialogue as an option. In response, Price posted the following, embedding his tweet –
“Today in being a female game dev: “Allow me–a person who does not work with you–explain to you how you do your job.””
Price was accusing Deroir of sexism for a polite suggestion on a public platform. The essence of this argument was that he was demeaning her experience as she was an experienced writer and he a mere plebeian unqualified to comment. By this argument, no ordinary fan could ever comment on a game to a developer without demeaning them. Unsurprisingly this gratuitously rude absurdity, which demeans real victims of sexism and abuse, was not accepted by the game’s fans.
Continue reading →
