ArenaNet has let go two Guild Wars 2 devs following a heated Twitter confrontation

Update: Price has now given an interview to Kotaku in which she explains her original tweets. “By the time that guy came along, I was so tired of having random people explain my job to me in company spaces where I had to just smile and nod that it was like, ‘No. Not here. Not in my space,'” she says. “[CEO Mike O’Brien] told me I was going to look back and regret this because we were doing amazing work and I ruined it. The only regrets I’ve ever had, however, have been in situations where I didn’t stand up for myself, not ones in which I did, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. My only real regret here is that I encouraged other women to come on board and promised them it was a safe company for them.”

She does have kind words for most of her former ArenaNet colleagues as well as the community, suggesting that it’s a small portion of the community that is a problem. “But 10% of your fandom being toxic is still a really high percentage.” Ultimately, she echos other industry developers and journalists in arguing the precedent is deeply troubling: “The message is very clear, especially to women at the company: if Reddit wants you fired, we’ll fire you. Get out there and make sure the players have a good time. And make sure you smile while they hit you.”

Multiple publications, including Kotaku and GIbiz, have also released pieces admonishing ArenaNet for its decision.

Update: In The Verge’s interview, Price debunked the rumor that she’d been given warnings over her social media presence in the past. The Verge says “she believes her firing was an emotional reaction on the part of ArenaNet co-founder Mike O’Brien.” As she puts it, “He fired me personally, and the meeting was mostly him venting his feelings at me. […] I understand being afraid when you see the Reddit mob coming for you, but if people with less power can weather it – and we do, regularly – so can he.”

Update: RPS’s piece, which characterizes ArenaNet as “throwing [the writers] to the wolves,” points out that Price was harassed on the Guild Wars 2 sub even on the first day ArenaNet hired her; the author further suggests that ArenaNet has suffered a “failure to understand the context of the situation and to stand by [its] employees.”

Update July 7: Deroir, the influencer whose original tweet prompted the – his words – “unfortunate incident” and “insane situation” spoke on a stream last night, saying he didn’t want any of this to happen, that it was a misunderstanding, and that he doesn’t even expect an apology. “ArenaNet as a company did nothing wrong,” he is clear. “I know it’s not my fault, you guys can tell me a million times it’s not my fault, but I still feel like the catalyst, I guess.” He also says he “did feel bullied” and “never wanted to partake in a public discourse about gender” and wishes things had been de-escalated, though ultimately he says he understands why some in the community considers the firing of (at least Price, as he expresses sympathy for Peter Fries) a celebratory day – in fact, he says he thinks it was for him too and finds the “rando asshat” memes amusing in spite of his feeling “conflicted.”

Worth pointing out is that a few days before the incident, Deroir had said on his stream that he considered Price a “god” in her field.

Update July 9: Friend of the site Wolfyseyes has a great piece up on the topic, and WoodenPotatoes has a fairly nuanced video breaking it all down; we recommend both.

Update July 9: Price’s latest interview, with Polygon, sheds even more light on the circumstances and justifications surrounding her firing, as Price claims she was “given no opportunity to argue [her] case.”

“[O’Brien] spent some time insisting that developers must be friends with the company’s customers, and that it was unacceptable to say that we aren’t, even when we’re not on the clock. […] There was zero reason for him to be there. He wanted to vent his anger, and he had the power to command a woman to stand there while he took his feelings out on her, so he did. Then he walked out, [the manager] got my stuff from my desk and the HR person asked for my key card.”

She also reiterates that ArenaNet promised she “wouldn’t have to check [her] identity at the door” and that ArenaNet executives promised “they wanted [devs] to speak up about the ugly things, the harmful things, and that [devs] wouldn’t be punished for doing so. […] And so it’s devastating that a company talking all that talk folded like a cheap card table the first time their values were actually tested.” As for the impact on the industry, she has harsh words:

“Let’s be clear: In 2018, it’s absurd to pretend ignorance of what would happen to a woman fired for speaking about sexism, because he feels she got too uppity. […] He painted a target on everyone’s back. He didn’t just fail Peter and me, or even the employees for which he was responsible. He failed the entire industry. […] He caved to a handful of people and an army of bots and sock puppets. […] Now he’s got almost every female developer I know — as well as some men — furious with him. I’ve got recruiters pinging me promising they’ll steer candidates away from ArenaNet, and game design professors saying they’re going to warn their students away. I’ve also had a lot of ArenaNet co-workers and other industry colleagues contacting me to express how afraid this has made them.”

Price expresses her adoration for Fries; she said she didn’t know he would step in. “He deserves none of this crap.” And she also says while she doesn’t regret her original snark to Deroir, she does wish she had “moderated her language” given that “rando asshat” seems to have upset ArenaNet so much. Apparently, she’s still under extreme bot harassment, so she’s got a “security team handling [her] social media.”

Polygon also got Mike O’Brien to issue a statement; he essentially says the duo were fired for “attacking” community members and that he had already decided on that course of action before the flames of Reddit began licking at his doorstep on July 5th. Here it is in full:

Jessica had identified herself as an ArenaNet employee on Reddit and Twitter, had been discussing Episode 3 storytelling with fans on Reddit, then had written a 25-part tweet about how we tell stories in MMOs, relating it back to Episode 3. She was representing the company. The expectation was to behave professionally and respectfully, or at least walk away. Instead, she attacked.

Concerns have been publicly raised that she was responding to harassment. It’s not my place to tell employees when they should or shouldn’t feel harassed. In this case, however, our employees could have chosen not to engage, and they could have brought the issue to the company, whereby we would have done everything we could to protect them.

We won’t tolerate harassment. When an employee feels harassed, we want them to bring the issue to us, so that we can protect the employee, deal with the issue, and use it to speak to the larger issue of harassment.

Whatever Jessica and Peter felt internally about the situation, this was objectively a customer engaging us respectfully and professionally, presenting a suggestion for our game. Any response from our company needed to be respectful and professional. A perceived slight doesn’t give us license to attack.

We’ve all dedicated our careers to entertaining people, to making games for the purpose of delighting those who play them. We generally have a wonderful relationship with our community, and that’s a point of pride for us. We want to hear from our players. It’s not acceptable that an attempted interaction with our company — in this case a polite game suggestion — would be met with open hostility and derision from us. That sets a chilling precedent.

The tweets were made on July 4, when the studio was closed for the holiday. We were aware of them that day, and decided we’d need to take action in the morning. The fact that the community’s anger was escalating on July 5 could make it look like our action was a response to the community’s anger. But that wasn’t the case. We took action as soon as we practicably could.

I hate to let an employee go, and I wish the best for Jessica and Peter, as for any former employee, in whatever they choose to do next.

Whatever you thought of the tweets, Jessica and Peter were also part of the team that brought you the kidnapping scene in Episode 1, which was a wonderfully well-executed scene. That’s how I want to remember their time at ArenaNet.

Update July 10: A few new pieces that are relevant:

• Massively OP Guild Wars 2 columnist Tina Lauro Pollock has explored ArenaNet’s latest PR nightmare in the latest edition of the long-running Flameseeker Chronicles.
• MOP Podcast hosts Justin Olivetti and Bree Royce have a detailed chronology and takeaway discussion on the fallout in this week’s Massively OP Podcast (link should be live at 4 p.m. EDT Tuesday).
• And the IGDA has called for greater transparency among video game studios specifically in regard to their social media policies and harassment management plans – yes, this is directly influenced by the ArenaNet dust-up.
• We have inquired with ArenaNet about its own formal social media policies and will report on that if the studio responds.

Update July 10: Game Workers Unite, a game industry unionization lobby, has issued a statement of support for Price and Fries, denouncing their firing by ArenaNet, accusing ArenaNet of “normalizing a work environment in which employees’ personal social media accounts are monitored,” and characterizing Mike O’Brien’s leadership as “inadequate.” Here’s an excerpt.

“Regardless of how one feels about Price’s actions and regardless of where one draws the line between rudeness and exasperation in Price’s tweets, the fact of the matter is that there is an entire spectrum of responses ArenaNet could have taken, but chose not to. The company could have done anything from pulling their employee aside and discussing their behavior, to giving them an internal reprimand and offered them additional training. Instead, ArenaNet, under the clearly inadequate leadership of Mike O’Brien, made the knee-jerk reaction to fire a member of their team. No dialogue, no nuance, no empathy. […] The unethical firings of Price and Fries, together with the reactions of toxic individuals inside and outside of the Guild Wars player community, have had a chilling effect across the industry. Countless workers have been harassed over social media and many are concerned about the implications of this event, some going so far as to delete their personal social media accounts in fear of similar retaliation from hostile players and bosses. ArenaNet has signaled to the entire industry that our job security can be, and almost certainly will be, imperiled by the most vitriolic and volatile players. This event carries echoes of Gamergate, and will only embolden harassers further.”

Update July 10: Polygon has yet another piece out on the subject today, an editorial that blasts Mike O’Brien (“what makes this situation so unique is O’Brien’s inability to act like an adult”) and bizarrely, Deroir, whom it calls “tone-deaf.” “Deroir’s lack of empathy for what happened throughout this controversy is notable, as is his claim that he’s a feminist,” the publication opines. “For that to be more than a word in a tweet, he should have understood how his tweet came off, and where Price’s anger came from. Price’s response to his tweet was more aggressive than the situation called for, but Deroir’s tweet doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Price’s anger is the result of a long history of men in gaming who try to explain the jobs of women in development to them, and makes perfect sense in that context. While Deroir may not have been the worst example of that trend, his tweet definitely exists in the proud tradition of male gamers talking down to the women who make their games.”

Update July 11: MOP reader Skoryy has pointed out that a pair of former ArenaNet developers have tweeted their dissatisfaction with the way the company handled Price and Fries, suggesting it is part of a serious and ongoing problem at the company.

From Kate Welch, a well-known developer and former web and UI designer for ArenaNet on Guild Wars 2: “not sure if all y’all know this but i was at ArenaNet for four years, shipped GW2, and loved so much of my time there. […] but this shitty executive approach to dev/player relations existed back then, too. and I’m so sad to see that it seems to have gotten worse. […] it’s ALMOST like there’s someone there who loves throwing people under the bus to get some fucking Reddit attention, and who has done it with alarming regularity.”

From Angel McCoy, former narrative designer for Guild Wars 2: “These firings feel like a heavy-handed, knee-jerk reaction in an effort to assuage player discontent. Especially when you consider Peter has put his soul, blood, and sweat into that company for 12+ years and has been a great social media voice for GW2 for almost as long. […] Add to that how little they value company loyalty… well… it’s not pretty. They’ll probably be able to hire 2 or 3 young, inexperienced writers with the money that just went back in the pool from Peter’s salary. They forget the cost of ramp-up time. Peter was an expert. […] When Peter left, he walked out with a lot of knowledge that they will miss. […] Ultimately, players will pay the price.”

Update July 11: Former ArenaNet developer Jessica Price has just made a string of new statements on Twitter discussing some of the issues surrounding the ongoing Guild Wars 2 fiasco. Her primary complaint seems to be with the fact that ArenaNet – especially Mike O’Brien – “escalated” her (and Peter Fries’) firing, knowing what the mob’s response would be.

“The announcement was an escalation. The company could have chosen to say “their remarks don’t represent the company, we don’t agree with what they said, and they’re no longer with the company,” she writes. “That’s not what they did. They framed an interaction on my personal social media in which I told a few individuals who (I thought) were being assholes that I wasn’t on the clock and wasn’t going to feign affection for people who are being assholes as ‘attacks on the community.'” Consequently, she argues, O’Brien effectively provoked the mob, knowing what harassment would follow after she and Fries had been painted as “enemies of the community”; she calls it “active solicitation of harassment,” using the mob as punishment and then maintaining “silence in condemning the harassment,” which she says is “profoundly telling.” Also worth noting here is that Price appears to be acknowledging error in assuming that the initial comments from Deroir (and others) were intentionally malicious.

Price also criticizes O’Brien for “[reducing her] contribution to GW2 to one scene from one episode,” which she believed is an example of “women’s work [being] erased or minimized.” She is here responding to O’Brien’s statement to Polygon, which he ended by saying, “Whatever you thought of the tweets, Jessica and Peter were also part of the team that brought you the kidnapping scene in Episode 1, which was a wonderfully well-executed scene. That’s how I want to remember their time at ArenaNet.” So, she corrects the record:

“In terms of *influence*: the entire season is mine. I led the season story breaking meetings, I led the episode outlining meetings, and every line of dialogue went through me. Everything you’ve seen of the story so far this season is my work, and you’re going to be seeing my work in it for a long time. A bunch of the content you’ll be seeing is also work led by women: female team and game design leads, female writing leads, female cinematics leads. It’s the best content GW2 has produced. Women in this industry lead, and aren’t going anywhere.”

Her final takeaway? “If you’re a dev in this industry, take a very careful look at what ArenaNet has done, and get a guarantee from your management that they’re not going to do it to you.”

We reached out to ArenaNet in light of Price’s latest statements; ArenaNet has once again declined to comment. (We had previously inquired about the company’s social media policies.)

Update July 12: The game developer unionization lobby, Game Workers Unite, has another blog post up condemning ArenaNet for “inciting further harassment of [its] employees” and “strongly [denouncing] Mike O’Brien for his poorly conceived statement.”

“The facts are clear: when ArenaNet fired two of its employees, a new wave of harassment was unleashed. All the while, ArenaNet has remained silent about this, seemingly content to watch their former employees and industry peers suffer. […] It is sobering to consider that if ArenaNet had chosen to say nothing, Price and Fries would have been better off than they are presently. This is not merely a case of workers losing their jobs and being abandoned by their studio. It is a case in which an employer has escalated and effectively encouraged further harassment of their former employees, through deliberate silence about the attacks suffered by their workers combined with an extraordinary choice of words in a public statement.”

Update July 12: MMO blogger (and MOP reader!) Serrenity has a piece up on the Lvl 42 blog homing in on the psychology of the Reddit response to the drama, specifically the prejudices and delusions of the mob and the power dynamics confronting women in game dev. It is a perfect companion piece for the nuanced discussion started by prominent YouTuber John Teasdale yesterday.

Update July 12: Gamasutra’s recent editorial on the topic covers multiple angles, including the revelation that harassers are making use of a form email sent to game studios intended to harass female developers, the apparent double-standard at play in harassment of female devs vs. male devs who say the same things, the “archipelago of privacies” facing social media users, and the clear need for game studios to have codified policies on this topic. Indeed, the author suggests “O’Brien’s ill-advised move was, in part, the result of what appears to be an entirely opaque or even non-existent social media policy,” something many of our readers have discussed as well.

Update July 12: VentureBeat’s piece has plenty to dig into too; it catalogues the ongoing form-mail harassment of female game devs, chronicles the indie game studios that are now shifting to make their social media and harassment policies more clear, and includes quotes from multiple game devs, men and women, who’ve suffered the wrath of gamer mobbing. There doesn’t seem to be agreement on how best to handle harassment; while one dev says he tries to kill the trolls with kindness, another argued it’s safer to block rather than unintentionally encourage potential stalkers via engagement. Still others leave the platforms altogether.

“The damage from ArenaNet’s decision isn’t just being done to the women who are being harassed. It’s being done to everyone who is now afraid to speak out on Twitter. The damage is in the pause, the moment where marginalized people will now hesitate before sharing their stories. It renders people’s struggles invisible, because the people who are struggling are often the ones who can suffer the most if their livelihoods are taken away.”

Update July 13: Kotaku’s latest piece recaps the incident as well as the increased attacks on female game developers over the last week; one transgender developer, who for obvious reasons prefers not to be identified publicly, told the site that trolls had sent at dozens upon dozens of letters to her employer attacking her, at least 50 or so with the “%FEMALENAME” variable showing they were a form letter being used by known e-thugs associated with 4chan and Goobergate. Multiple game studios responded to Kotaku’s call for input on how they aim to handle incidents like these moving forward. Pretty much every studio listed backs it developers, and some went so far as to openly criticize ArenaNet for its handling of the issue.

“This idea that an angry mob can get people fired because publishers like ArenaNet are scared to take some heat on behalf of their employees? It’s shameful,” Hinterland founder Raphael van Lierop wrote. “Who do they think is going to make the games once all the developers have been fired? The angry internet mob? We need to find a better balance, because this entitlement culture is burning people out.”

“This level of openness is quite rare in our industry, and because we ask our team to be part of that, it’s essential for them to know that if they somehow ended up the target of a hate mob, then we would absolutely have their back,” vowed Double Fine’s James Spafford.