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 […]”.

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.

Price was already controversial after celebrating the death of popular gaming YouTuber TotalBiscuit from cancer in March 2018 on Twitter (archive) saying, “The kindest thing I can say is “I’m glad he’s no longer around to keep doing harm””.

In response to polite criticism of her remarks to Deroir, Price went on to say –

“Since we’ve got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: this is my feed. I’m not on the clock here. I’m not your emotional courtesan just because I’m a dev. Don’t expect me to pretend to like you here.”

There were many complaints on the ArenaNet’s forums and Reddit. Not long after the posts Price was fired from ArenaNet along with a white male employee called Peter Fries who had supported her. The announcement by CEO Mike O’Brien (archive) read as follows –

“Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company. I want to be clear that the statements they made do not reflect the views of ArenaNet at all. As a company we always strive to have a collaborative relationship with the Guild Wars community. We value your input. We make this game for you”.

So far so unsurprising. What is disturbing is the way these events were reported by a small number of gaming outlets, in particular Polygon and PC Gamer. Polygon’s article was written by Ben Kuchera and Julia Alexander and entitled, “ArenaNet’s firings reinforced gaming culture’s worst impulses” (archive). The article opens with a quote from an alleged fan apparently gloating in an unhinged way –

“Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of Reddit. We’re literally running the company now, they’re in fear of the very users they seek to consort with … The moment a dev steps out of line or try to talk back to a player, guess what, they’ll know we got their hands on their throat and we can squeeze any time we like.””

The tone of the comment is strange, quite out of step with the rest of the thread it came from (archive). Kuchera and Alexander had selected one of the most strongly worded posts to represent a far more thoughtful and reasonable fanbase. A small number of other outlets peddled the same line, the most extreme of which was PC Gamer which published an article by Andy Chalk entitled, “Fired ArenaNet dev calls dismissal ‘an active solicitation of harassment'” (archive).

The extraordinary piece is little more than a full-text quotation of Ms Price accusing her former employer of “solicitation of harassment”, with a note at the bottom that ArenaNet had (understandably) declined to comment. This is a very serious allegation. Harassment is a criminal offence in the United States, United Kingdom (where PC Gamer’s ultimate parent company is based) and in Canada (where Andy Chalk lives).

In the UK, to “aid, abet, counsel or procure” a crime is to be equally liable per the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861. The US and Canada have similar laws. So to say someone was engaged in ‘solicitation of harassment’, is tantamount to saying that they are a criminal accessory to harassment under the Act. In that light, PC Gamer was republishing an allegation that states on its face that Mike O’Brien is guilty of a crime.

Ordinarily, employees in the United States are employed on an ‘at-will’ basis but the US has very strong laws against sexual harassment and discrimination. If Price genuinely feels that she was treated unfavourably by her employer due to her sex or she feels that she was ‘harassed’ she has a right of civil action. Of course a difficulty she would face is that a white male employee was dismissed at the same time for the same reason and that as per Mr Ratner the media is littered with others, even at board level, fired for similar offences to those of Ms Price. However at this time Price has neither filed nor threatened proceedings as far as I am aware.

The allegation of ‘harassment’ is deeply questionable. Price is a controversial employee with a history of nasty comments and baseless attacks on social media. She has a history of criticising other former employers such as Paizo in this tweet (archive), “Most frustrating thing is Paizo management continues to act as if saying “we CARE” loudly while doing the minimum to avoid bad PR is enough”. At her current employer, it was not a first incident and dismissal was not an unreasonable response. A history of repeated and unrepentant attacks on the recently deceased, customers, former employers and referees is an easy way to become unemployed and unemployable.

In isolation this may just seem to be a typical media feeding frenzy. However, there is a more sinister history to Kuchera and Chalk’s involvement. Andy Chalk and Ben Kuchera were both members of the now defunct Game Journo Pros mailing list, that was exposed in a series of well-researched Breitbart articles. Breitbart published the entire members list (archive).

Worse, Breitbart revealed that the list had been used by some of its members for collusion on stories and employment blacklisting. Destructoid Editor-in-Chief Dale North had encouraged other members to ignore approaches from a journalist he had dismissed (archive) over political differences. The journalist had truthfully exposed a trans-person fraudulently begging funds for surgery for shrapnel. In reality it was for gender transition surgery. Florida has state laws against employment blacklisting. Shortly after this was revealed, Dale North resigned over alleged disagreement with management.

There is no evidence that Andy Chalk ever posted to the list nor that he or Future ever engaged in blacklisting. However Chalk was a member of the list and he remained silent in the face of Dale North’s call for managers and employers on the list to ignore approaches from a potential employee. Employing such a person, even in a junior role, causes a huge problem for Future PLC Zillah Byng-Maddick because in the UK not only is blacklisting against the law but many MPs and other organisations have vowed to scrutinise anyone remotely involved intentionally stigmatise them. The fact that Future PLC continues to engage such a person reflects poorly on their ethics and judgement.

Chalk’s comrade in arms Ben Kuchera has a history of inappropriate and deeply sinister comments himself, including “Pedophilia isn’t a moral wrong” (archive) and “[…] just stop being a poser and become an abortion doctor or gas a Jew. Isn’t that where the real art is?” (archive). The first comment appears to be presented as a genuine opinion on its face. The latter is clearly in a thread about ‘unpop’ or unpopular art and has more of a flavour of provocation or ‘edgelording’. Even so immature readers could take it as encouragement of anti-Semitism. Employing someone with such a history is unlikely to endear CEO Jim Bankoff to investors and to wall street.

After the Game Journo Pros list was exposed, it was closed down. Now, a small group of journalists previously connected seem once again to be displaying the same similar and counter-intuitive editorial lines. I put these concerns to Sarah Hill, the Head of Legal at Future PLC. She investigated but asserts that Andy Chalk has not in any way discussed his recent article with anyone outside the firm. I will take her at her word, on present evidence. It seems a shame however that two firms have arrived independently at such a poor destination in terms of their approach.

To be fair, at least Polygon mentioned Jessica Price’s history of inappropriate remarks and in particular her comment about the death of the cancer victim. Chalk’s article did not mention Price’s history at all. The article simply quotes Price and a call by the International Game Developer’s Association (IGDA) for better guidelines for employers and employees. Otherwise the article engages in no investigation whatsoever beyond the request for ArenaNet to comment.

To her credit, Hill investigated my concerns promptly and answered all my questions. Having said that her first response was silent on my question – “Does Future stand by its republication of the allegation that Mr O’Brien solicited the criminal offence of harassment, which is synonymous with stating that he is guilty of the criminal offence of harassment?” Instead she denied that the PC Gamer article was defamatory and denied any collaboration by Chalk outside Future PLC.

I followed up. I sent Hill a draft of this article for clarification to give her a second response to repeat the allegation against Mr O’Brien. I asked this question, because although only a judge can decide what is libellous and the law of defamation varies from state to state I would have feared to publish Andy Chalk’s article. Hill who is based in England, eventually clarified –

“1. Andy Chalk acknowledges that he was a member of the Game Journo Pros list, as a social group of fellow professionals. As your article notes, there is no evidence that Andy engaged in employment blacklisting.

2. The article reported the facts as fact and Price’s Twitter statement verbatim; Andy reported reaction to the events from other bodies (IGDA), gave right of reply to ArenaNet (who declined), and made no judgements either way. For the avoidance of doubt, Future does not allege that Mr O’Brien is guilty of the criminal offence of harassment […]“

I personally do not agree that an article that uses as its headline the strident allegations of an angry, dismissed employee is necessarily wholly impartial. Moreover Andy Chalk’s former membership of the Game Journo Pros list is well known. This may well make reasonable subjects of articles loathe to reply. However, what is notable is that when put to the question, even by a mere legal blogger, Future did not stand behind the allegations of harassment made by Ms Price. It is not quite an apology and it is not quite a retraction but it does underline the weakness of Ms Price’s position.

To better explain Hill’s words, England, the US and Canada have technical defences to libel. For example in the UK section 4 of the Defamation Act 2013 creates a defence to a defamation claim of, “Publication on matter of public interest”. This can be used when reporting a dispute. However, the defence is not always successful because the Defendant must “reasonably believe” that there a public interest. The courts do not always agree that there is an interest in reporting unproven criminal allegations. Only yesterday, pop star Cliff Richard won a privacy case against the BBC in which the UK court held that reporting an unproven allegation of sex crime was not in the public interest even when there was a police raid. Price’s allegation has not even the credibility of being the subject of any police investigation.

Neither Polygon nor Kuchera has denied any of the allegations I put to them nor commented at all.

Both Kuchera and Chalk have escaped scrutiny for a while, but their attacks on ArenaNet, its management and its fans are likely to give their well-motivated and capable opponents ongoing reason to look deeply into their own conduct and that of their employers.