Side Quest, Episode 36: Forgiving (and Forgetting) Jessica Price, the Fired Guild Wars 2 Dev

No doubt.

Colin Moriarty

Amen.Industry needs some serious de-escalation.

Thank you for your kind words.

Colin Moriarty

Alright Team Colin.... I did a public service and listened to Waypoint's podcast on this subject so you don't have to. Austin, Rob, Patrick and Danielle spent the first few minutes talking about how nuanced this subject was and then put blame on literally everyone but Jessica.... They hit Twitter pretty hard for not playing speech police and they absolutely blew up ArenaNet for not "supporting" their employees. They cherry picked all of the Tweets to make it look like she was under attack, and didn't even mention her celebrating the death of Total Biscuit (RIP). Danielle seemed to imply that a personal Twitter account means you can say whatever you want to your consumers and that devs should be paid if they're going to engage with the community (wut?) They also made no bones about the fact that they felt she was clearly being harassed, a word they used at least a dozen times.... a claim that no sane person on earth would actually believe. To their credit I didn't hear anyone mention "the patriarchy" and they only used the word "toxic" to describe men maybe six times. 2/10, would not listen again. PS Colin, your video was fair and well thought out. Production values are on par with the best out there.

Brian Dewire

Part of me feels bad for propagating the story further, but it felt like something that needed a rational take.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you. That's really kind of you to say.

Colin Moriarty

Great video. I’m sure you know this, but I can’t begin to describe how important you are to this industry.

Michael Miller

My level of surprise is 0.0, keep punchin brotha

Mikey 12

IGN is one of the only sites that I can still read. Most of games media is insufferable, and their numbers certainly reflect that.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you kindly.

Colin Moriarty

Thanks!

Colin Moriarty

I've never met him or spoken with him directly, but he's talked a lot of shit about me, so I'm happy to return the favor.

Colin Moriarty

Likewise.

Colin Moriarty

Thanks! I hope so, too.

Colin Moriarty

It is only if you have the world's biggest chip on your shoulder.

Colin Moriarty

I actually talk about this on a couple of upcoming episodes of Fireside Chats, actually, but I do think there's a realistic chance of tangible and continual violence breaking out in the coming few years.

Colin Moriarty

I don't disagree with anything you said.

Colin Moriarty

I agree. It's silly. Glad you enjoyed!

Colin Moriarty

How many crosses do you think Austin Walker climbs on every week? Month? LOL.

Colin Moriarty

Colin you're definitely right on the "no one will remember this next year" part of it. And not only that, but in the beginning, you said something along the lines of "if you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, here's the story." I really had not heard about this at all. I respect your stance on it and I appreciate you taking on this topic, as I definitely learned something this week. People who go around looking for a fight like that, god damn dude, I can't handle it. Maybe the worst kind of person. If not the worst, definitely up there. Great topic, loved it. Have a good one!

Ian (616Entertainment)

I've totally disconnected from most of what's going on with politics on a daily basis because I just can't bring myself to care about the outrage.

Colin Moriarty

This is a great video. Once you left IGN I completely stoped reading the videogame website for the reasons that you state over and over and over again. A lot of these "journalist" are just ridiculous, if you don't automatically agree with them, you are every "insert insult here" known to man. No one agrees with everyone and that is great!! This is how the world progresses, this is how cool stuff is made, by having different ideas and different views, this is how conversations are started. Anyways, I now digress, I enjoyed the video, keep up the hard work

Jonathan Rice

Well done video Colin, always great to get your in-depth thoughts on these kinds of issues.

Bryan Finck

Ahhhh ok. I knew Patrick would say things via twitter but unfollowed after he and Col had an exchange a while ago. Zero clue about WP Radio and or them discussing Colin.

Mikey 12

Austin/Patrick dump on Colin on a fairly regular basis on Waypoint Radio (not sure if they see the irony of naming their "woke" company after a dying form of media). I feel like Colin tweeted and/or mentioned that the two of them have never met but only he can confirm that.

Brian Dewire

Great video!

Marius Skarsem Pedersen

Col I gotta ask, what’s the deal with Austin Walker? Did you guys ever have a professional relationship or what not?

Mikey 12

Hopefully one day evolution will kick in and everyone will be super understanding :-) pretty sure I'll be dead before it happens !!!!

Matthew Perry

As a fellow millennial, I'm embarrassed by how we all act anymore these days. Very informative video i hope we all can take a page out of your example of forgiveness.

strawhatninja

Interesting that some how a customer saying " I would prefer this..." is now "telling someone how to do their job".

Erik Peterson

If you're being paid by a company, you should be enough of a grown-up to be polite to people who buy products from that company. Not even need to be enthusiastic, simply polite. That's real world behaviour 101. The basic arrogance shown by the writer in this case is delusional. But it was still a warning rather than a firing situation.

Peter Campbell

Also, I say Colin is an exception because he doesn't seem to have much animosity to KF which he left rather than got fired.

Nicholas Swanson

There seems to be a culture of wanting to punish people by taking their jobs away. It's really annoying. It doesn't solve anything. The person is never sorry for what they did or said in those situations. Rather than chanting for someone to get fired, we should be engaging with these people with why they may be wrong until they own up to it. At the end of that process, the company still has its employee and they're a better person at the end of it. With a firing, you just send someone home who ends becoming even more bitter and an issue will likely come up again. Of course there are exceptions (like Colin), but I feel engaging with people rather than firing them is much more likely to resolve in positive effects.

Nicholas Swanson

Great piece Colin! I stuggle to understand how people can always be so outraged at every little thing or to carry a huge chip on their shoulders. It's bad for the health!

Thanks for sharing. I followed you on every point except the statement about people who don't seem to enjoy or understand video games while you displayed Austin Walker's Twitter thread. Are you applying those traits to Austin? If so, what was off base about his thread about the firings? It seems you are similarly aligned with him on this issue.

VegasBuffet

I'm finally getting to the point where I'm just getting sick and tired of all of this nonsense. I think it's like an addiction for people? Like it triggers their dopamine or something. Firings over bad behaviour... All of the alleged racism (people getting the police called on them,) the outrage in politics.... It's tiresome. Every issue or news story that's published now almost requires you to have to research and dig through multiple articles to figure out who is telling the truth and who is using a subject or topic to score political points. Ugh... like I want to watch this video but then I'm kinda like "oh, more drama? no thanks" and that's not a knock against you Colin. F me... lol.

Andrew

I find myself much more interested in her firing than her redemption. Everything seems ultimately punitive these days. When does it end?

Colin Moriarty

Possibly. As I said in the video, Arenanet was well within its rights to act as it did. My question remains, though: What now?

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! I will try.

Colin Moriarty

Yup.

Colin Moriarty

BTW, this is an exact mirror of what is happening everywhere these days. Sports: check. Politics: obvious check. We need good faith conversations. The same way gamers feel about gamer media, everyone seems to feel about the rest of the media. I know I do....

CTE

I don't know where I stand on this stuff. I generally hate the mobs that get people fired, it's terrible. The fact that she was not willing to engage in a good faith conversation with someone who has a disagreement throws up a lot of flags. Is she willing the learn and change or is she too dogmatic? I don't know the gaming world, but I know the tech world. I just learned from a good friend that that the company he works for let go the head of recruitment because she was attempting to only hire girls (and wouldn't let any men through for a team interview, all in the name of diversity). When you have such a strong position, especially in terms of social justice, how can that not be a huge issue for an employer. I don't know why any employer would want to hire or keep around someone like this. I think they probably should lose their job, but not because a mob came for it. Overall I love the spirit of what you are saying.

CTE

I certainly agree, but I wonder if companies are starting to play safe when people attack fans. You have the NFL and Lucasfilm attacking large fanbases and seeing pretty serious financial losses. Do you see this as a response to curb a trend?

Marc Elfering

Great video, Colin. Keep up the great work.

David Clarke

So much unnecessary drama from everyone

Zack E

Probably. I can't speak to that.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you for your kind words!

Colin Moriarty

Yup, it's happening everywhere. Politics, music, movies, TV, games...

Colin Moriarty

There probably is. My original script had a line that talked about rumors that she was fired from Paizo for similar shit, but as I couldn't find conclusive evidence of that -- and only conjecture -- it seemed unfair to her to include it. So I didn't.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you.

Colin Moriarty

It is very possible that she had been warned in the past about her behavior. A bunch of small missteps eventually have one big end. In this case it was her firing.

Carson Smith

How so?

Colin Moriarty

Great video. I agree w pretty much all your points. Personally, while I disagree w her outlook, I think we have all done shit in a similar over-reaction fashion. I would much rather learn from those mistakes and remain with a livelihood than be fired and possibly learn nothing but bitterness. But, that’s just my take. Keep it up.

I don’t follow the video game media at all. It’s interesting how trends in other media landscapes seem to be the same in the video game media landscape

Dan Kolber

I wonder if there's more to this story given that you laid our Price's history. She may have been on a semi-tight leash and this was the last straw. Doesn't explain the firing of Fries though, which seemed very unwarranted.

Phil Crone

Well said sir

I hear that. I stopped going to IGN and GiantBomb because they are full of so much trash content these days. Not a single unique voice saying anything that comes even close to going against their echo-chambery mentality.

Michael Ferrari

Great video Colin. Im sure i speak for alot of people here when I say this is the only site I come to anymore. Its nice and respectful. Being civil is easy!

Joey Finelli

Mad credit for calling out Waypoint though. I will literally clap when the day comes that they go out of business. I'll clap twice if it ever happens to Polygon.

Michael Ferrari

I'm sorry, Colin. But I have to disagree. It's absolutely absurd that conservatives/republicans have to remain silent, but these SJW nutjobs get to say anything they want. I for one applaud her firing, and hope more studios start doing this. It's absolutely bull**** that things are so one-sided in the industry. Perhaps when people on both sides have to worry about what they say things will become normal again. I would agree with what you're saying if it wasn't so one-sided right now.

Michael Ferrari

I just think people need to be reasonable. I don't care about positivity so much as I care about that.

Colin Moriarty

Colin kicked the hornets nest again? :)

Joey Finelli