Ok, I can only take so much stupid before I gotta speak out, and this ArenaNet story is way past that line. So, my sorta hiatus is over, with a change in format. I’m not retelling the story, I’m just going to link it, then rant.

So:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541318/guild-wars-arenanet-jessica-price-peter-fries-fired-reddit

Everyone here is wrong

The initial tweet that triggered things said “disagree slightly.” Ok, there’s a big damn difference between not understanding because you don’t have the expertise, and disagreeing. Disagreeing implies an informed opinion. Random dude online does not have that.

Does this necessitate any reply? No. Does it deserve to be called out? Maybe, since it was disrespectful. Was it so over the line as to warrant being put on blast? No, that was unprofessional.

AnrenaNet then fired her, and the guy who came to defend her. Was that appropriate and proportional? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I bet you people will decide to not work there because that employer will not stand with their employees. As I said, I think it was unprofessional, so there’s cause to take disciplinary action, but not termination.

Then there’s the “fans.” They now feel that they can demand that ArenaNet do whatever they want, and if they complain enough they’ll get their way. This is the worst of all. Do fans and consumers have rights and do they deserve consideration? Yes and absolutely. Are they in a position, or do they have the knowledge and expertise, to try to dictate the business decisions of the company? Hell no, not in this way. If you don’t like the product, don’t buy it. Or, before that, you can give voice to your concerns and engage the company and their community reps. But to target individuals to get them terminated? The consumers would have no idea what effect that would have on the product. It’s stupid, vindictive, and toxic.

Professionalism

I want to step back a little bit here because there’s another discussion I want to touch on briefly. Should someone be held to professional expectations on her personal twitter account? There’s room for debate there, but she was talking about her profession. The context then carries over, intentionally or not, that you are representing your profession, and by extension your company. When that’s identified then there will be things that come back to you. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be opinionated or that you can’t express yourself, but it helps to present yourself with the maturity of an expert.

The one line that I think broke me was seeing it said, “These are our private social media accounts.” A private social media account is a contradiction in therms. The point is to be public. I hope that this was a slip up and the word was supposed to be “personal,” which would move the line of professional expectation that I have been describing. That would be a valid argument, but one I would disagree with.

And, yes, there’s also the “women in game development” aspect to this too. That’s a real and serious issue that informs some of the choices made here. I don’t want to come across like I’m dismissing that aspect, but I also realize that I can’t really do justice to it within the context of this piece. Instead I choose to focus on the professionalism, community management, and corporate responsibility aspects of these events.

What gets me is that every single step in this sequence of events made things significantly worse. Mostly, ArenaNet’s choice of disciplinary actions is what really poured rocket fuel onto the problem. That’s when things turned from “that’s weird and unfortunate” to “Holy shit!”

Now I’m left with the impression that ArenaNet is not a trustworthy organization. I wouldn’t mind being wrong, but this did not go well for them, and they will possibly be cleaning this up for years.