Vaginas and Morons - Bioware Engages in War of Words with the Internet

[c0mc0]

My question is, how is the homosexuality being shoved down your throat?

It isn't, but homophobes tend to be hyperbolic idiots who often think one can 'pray the gay away'.

*Golf clap*

Well done for indulging in a little hyperbolic idiocy of your own there. I'd suggest that it's far more likely that the collection of homophobes attacking Hepler are teenage boys (to whom, being gay is the ultimate insult), rather than religious fanatics. But don't let that stop you attacking one minority while defending another.

I think it's rich to expect devs to bend over and take abusive criticism with a smile and an apology to those who are offering it. The comment from the studio GM should be seen for what it probably is - someone who knows Hepler personally, who probably considers her a friend or at the least, a respected member of his team and who went in to bat on her behalf against people who were way over the line and attacking her personally. If I had been in his position, I'd probably have done the same thing. And I wouldn't be apologising for offending those who attacked her or those who are offended that he had the audacity to say something back to them.

BTW - In that screenshot from (which provided approximately 0% evidence of complete idiots being employed at Bioware, btw) what I am assuming is the Dragon Age forums (I haven't played it), "David" comments on why certain things that a gamer may expect may not turn out to be true. Now, I could be wrong here, but they're talking about DA3 - an unreleased game, aren't they? If so, I read his comments about the death of Leliana to mean that they may come up with a way of bringing that character back - that she may not have, in fact, died and that he isn't willing to say any more. I'm assuming some sort of Spock-being-reborn-in-Star-Trek-II type story contrivance may be used. Could be wrong though. Maybe it is just piss poor writing where they're contradicting their own story. Who knows. (Or cares...)

[Marius]

If they perma kill Leliana I shall hunt them all down with a shotgun.

She can't die, though. As I said in another topic related to this, Leliana is DA's Johnny Cage. She's there to remind people of the fragile existence of the fourth wall.

[bhammet]

I'm conflicted on this. I don't like how one person had to take the flak but at the same time I can understand the anger out there. People are forced, many do not have an interest, just a pay check requirement. Same goes for some games themselves now. Developers are more limited creatively through external influences, unrelated to gaming.

We love drama, look at the article title. We live in a connected world now, some like to share their opinion aggressively, it never works but it always manages to sidestep the real issue. We have an insanely corrupt culture and we all seem to not give a ****.

By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no ****' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil ****' presence.

Bill Hicks

[Marius]

By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no ****' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil ****' presence.

Bill Hicks

...relevance?

[bhammet]

By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no ****' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil ****' presence.

Bill Hicks

...relevance?

Life? Just planting seeds.

[Marius]

This topic has no relevance to marketing, and Bill Hicks used marketing himself. Every successful performer only gets that way by marketing themselves.

[Nekosan]

"I just figure they're jealous that I get to have both a vagina AND a games industry job, and they can't get either."

That's a pretty good zinger though.

Yeah see the funny thing is that I think she was actually correct, a bunch of basement dwellers just happened to all cry at the same time and the fact that she's female and working that position made her a target.

It's not like she personally dramatically lowered the standard of games writing, a bunch of misogynist losers just decided to play the hate game and it turned into an internet hate bandwagon, you only have to hang around reddit or 4chan for a little while to see how easy it is to set people off even when it's totally unjustified (see the jurassic park jeep incident), people are WAITING for an excuse to hate someone anonymously.

[c0mc0]

...you only have to hang around reddit or 4chan for a little while to see how easy it is to set people off even when it's totally unjustified (see the jurassic park jeep incident), people are WAITING for an excuse to hate someone anonymously.

Ok, I have to ask. What's this "Jurassic Park jeep incident"?

[Nekosan]

...you only have to hang around reddit or 4chan for a little while to see how easy it is to set people off even when it's totally unjustified (see the jurassic park jeep incident), people are WAITING for an excuse to hate someone anonymously.

Ok, I have to ask. What's this "Jurassic Park jeep incident"?

Basically a guy posted a "check out the jeep i made" thread on reddit to show off his JP copy jeep, the developer (i think it was telltale) making the new JP game saw it and wanted to borrow it for a vendor show or e3 or something, they paid for all the transport etc and sent someone to personally be there for the loading etc.

Week later the guy gets his jeep back and his paint was scratched and it was damaged in some other way, he makes a post on reddit about how "so and so screwed me over and refused to cover the damage they caused" and the reddit hate machine goes into overdrive and CRUCIFIES the PR chick who was in charge of the borrowed jeep, I can't remember what happened but i think she eventually quit the job due to stress.

Turns out later that said jeep was in excellent condition and that it had been damaged in transit by one of the tiedown straps because the owner didn't secure the roof properly, the owner of the jeep was too lazy to claim it via the movers and then REFUSED the offers from the head of Telltale ($1000 check for some sticker damage IIRC), unfortunately reddit had already pretty much ruined this chicks life and made her change all her contact details etc before the head of Telltale came out and said "wtf man?".

All this was done on the word of somebody that nobody knew IRL and without hearing the other side of the story, it also turned out later that multiple people came forward who had problems with the owner being a douchbag about other matters in the past as well.

Places like Reddit and 4chan offer an easy forum for people with grudges to start a hate train on somebody simply because there's a pile of people out there who are angry and mean spirited and will just latch on to any reason at all to make another person miserable, sadly you see new stories about the sort of trolls that put this kind of thing together and they're never 15 year old kids, it's always some fat 40 year old who smokes 2 packs a day and hates their life.


Edit: bonus points for legit usage of the word "vagina" in a front page article title rofl.

[tdenh2]

I just figure she is jealous that I get to have both a penis AND a good body, and she can't get either.

Now see how quick that ticks some people off who know nothing about the subject matter? Bioware, smarten up. Also i have already pre-ordered gears of effect 3 that multiplayer is too damn addictive.

[RedShirt]

@TheD
I'd like you and others to keep in mind that the woman at the centre of all this didn't do anything to deserve the abuse she received. It's as simple as this group of idiots deciding that they hated BioWare, and that Jennifer Hepler, as a representative, deserved their personal hatred. Anyone who has experience in internet forums knows how this works, and the kind of people who usually do it. In trying to prove that they're the biggest man by being the biggest loudmouth, they show just how low and common they are. There's no excuse for this kind of rubbish.

And yes, there's ample evidence that being a woman and daring to show yourself on the net makes you more of a target than men, just by being a woman.

Also, people's attitudes toward BioWare or any group should be kept in check by this common courtesy thing that I keep hearing about. If you can't show respect toward people you don't know, you don't deserve any yourself.

[Xwaste]

Expecting the whole internet using world to always show common curtesy is the sort of wilful ignorance that gets companies like Bioware into these messes. Yes the internet can very easily and quickly turn into a toxic cesspool, but a multi-national company with revenues in the millions should be able to hire a couple of people that have some clue as to how to manage their online presence and mitigate damage.

It really can only take such a small insignificant amount of people online to turn something nasty, so getting your knickers in a twist and acting like these Bioware employees did just exposes it to a much larger audience.

The call of sexism is off though. Fat ugly men online get taunted for it too. If there is one thing fair about the internet is that it will insult all things to its logical hyperbolic extreme equally.

[Marius]

Expecting the whole internet using world to always show common curtesy is the sort of wilful ignorance that gets companies like Bioware into these messes. Yes the internet can very easily and quickly turn into a toxic cesspool, but a multi-national company with revenues in the millions should be able to hire a couple of people that have some clue as to how to manage their online presence and mitigate damage.

By doing what? Having fake Twitter accounts that go through PR managers like many large companies do?

Pretty crappy solution.

People like having direct contact with developers and such. It's only natural that sometimes things like this will happen.

But I have heard of game directors who won't let their own staff post on the internet due to these issues. It's sad, though.

[Drakand]

well this thread seems to have exploded, good issue to cover GON

she didn't deserve the flack she was getting. A missed opportunity for some direct (and could have been ongoin) contact with a key staffer at Bioware is pretty ****. doesn't seem like that opportunity will be arising again either based on what has happened.

I've barely played any Bioware games, i'm about a third of the way through ME at the moment and really enjoying it so don't have an opinion on degradation of writing.

[Makena]

What I find most hilarious about this now, is the copilotdork that Aaryn Flynn called out, was featured in a destructoid article about this, and is now getting personal attacks directed at him, and wants destructoid to take down the article.

Seemingly he thinks that he apologised after being a total dick, that that makes it all ok.