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[Danny Dudekisser]

Catching up on some of the comments, one of the dumbest arguments I'm seeing is, "shouldn't victims have a platform? Zoe was right to do this!" No. No, she wasn't. I get it - the courts aren't always able to mete out justice, and that's unfortunate. But y'know what? The penalties for committing sexual assault are fucking severe - not just the immediate penalty the court issues, but the fact that shit will follow you for the rest of your fucking life. It probably should be difficult.

Here's the thing, though, kiddos. Let's say you don't like that. You know why you can't tell the world about it on Twitter with the aim of inciting an angry mob? For the same reason that if someone steals your DVD boxset of Friends, you can't go their house and murder their whole family for revenge. This nonsense that Zoe and ResetEra engage in is a dangerous path. You're not Judge Dredd -- Hell, you're not even Liam Neeson. You don't get to administer justice as you see fit for a very good fucking reason. And let's not pretend like Zoe didn't realize there could be some sort of serious consequence, given that the only occupation she's held for the last half decade is whipping her motley crew of troglodytes into a frenzy. She knew. ResetEra knew. Hopefully, everyone else wakes the fuck up.

 

[GreyHorace]

Wow. So I'm part of the Alt-Right now? Cool. Cause I'd rather be Alt-Right than part of the Hypocritical Left.

Also, I think that written response by that dev of NITW is awful. He's trying to absolve himself of any blame by claiming the deceased was troubled and needed help. The fact that he's throwing Alec under the bus is beyond shitty. Fact of the matter is his troubles should have been kept private but wasn't because of Quinn and her little stunt. Fuck her and fuck this guy for trying to deflect.

 

[Shantae]

Catching up on some of the comments, one of the dumbest arguments I'm seeing is, "shouldn't victims have a platform? Zoe was right to do this!" No. No, she wasn't. I get it - the courts aren't always able to mete out justice, and that's unfortunate. But y'know what? The penalties for committing sexual assault are fucking severe - not just the immediate penalty the court issues, but the fact that shit will follow you for the rest of your fucking life. It probably should be difficult.

Here's the thing, though, kiddos. Let's say you don't like that. You know why you can't tell the world about it on Twitter with the aim of inciting an angry mob? For the same reason that if someone steals your DVD boxset of Friends, you can't go their house and murder their whole family for revenge. This nonsense that Zoe and ResetEra engage in is a dangerous path. You're not Judge Dredd -- Hell, you're not even Liam Neeson. You don't get to administer justice as you see fit for a very good fucking reason. And let's not pretend like Zoe didn't realize there could be some sort of serious consequence, given that the only occupation she's held for the last half decade is whipping her motley crew of troglodytes into a frenzy. She knew. ResetEra knew. Hopefully, everyone else wakes the fuck up.

Another problem with just revealing this kind of thing on twitter, let's say for sake of argument that Zoe's claim was 100% true, and I dunno, maybe she wanted to press charges against him? In our current justice system, people are judged innocent or guilty by a jury of their peers. Well great way to fuck up that whole system is poisoning the whole jury pool, and making it impossible for him to get a fair trial. Guilty or not, in our justice system, everyone is supposed to be entitled to a fair trial, and this twitter mod mentality denies people of that, because it paints him as guilty regardless of what may come out in court. It's yet another one of our systems of government which is going through the shitter because of current trends and behaviors.

 

[llien]

If someone maliciously posts misleading information with a view to harming someone, then it is a crime.

Nope, you are simply not being consistent with the approach.
Anything is a crime ONLY if demonstrated so, beyond reasonable doubt, in court.

One would need to prove what she stated is a lie, and I doubt one could ever do that in "she said, he said" cases.

The only cure to that is to stop with the jumping the gun madness.

 

[Hudo]

I've rarely seen this story about Zoe Quinn's behavior brought up before. She basically harassed this crowdfunding effort by some trying to make bullying online more difficult. Always seemed like she never wanted a good solution for online bullying to be found, because it would prove that she's full of shit.

Man, that's depressing as fuck that even supposedly "reputable" journalistic outfits are riding on the hate train as well... That's just sad.

 

[Gamernyc78]

If thy are monitoring I hope they see this message "Suck a big fat %ick you losers. Hivemind that holds no accountability for your actions. Because of ppl like you ppl are even afraid to open their mouths and stand up bcus this society is being dominated by weak, sensitive, pussies that all band together when a comment is made not in conformity"

Again suck a fat %ick you fucking twinky loser. Rape, assault, discrimination none of tht should be accepted but neither should cyber bullying and condemning ppl just bcus a person with a pussy made an accusation. You are no better or woke than none of us.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

He made a comment that isnt very rich now.
I dont believe he is happy about it tho, others there surely are, dont think PT is all that bad.
But I said that because I hope that he get some selfreflection and think twice when he assumes and post stuff like that.

I've talked to him. He definitely regrets how the comment came off. I've known him for about 10 years and while we haven't always been on the same page, I know he's a good guy. He's just taking a break from the internet right now.

 

[Nickolaidas]

To be fair on ERA, when some posters there wrote posts which amounted to 'Served him right' and 'committed suicide to win', there were quite a few ERA posters who questioned their reasoning, ethics and sanity.

That said, the fact that some of these assholes weren't permabanned on the spot speaks volumes on the mods there.

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

Someone should monitor REEEEE, how many suicides have they contributed to now?

 

[Helios]

Cool. Do we get to wear badges?

just armbands.

 

[kungfuian]

I'm all for free speech and support the right of women to call out scum bags, but in a time when any attention seeking mentally ill moron can climb onto their virtual soap box and damage someone elses' lives you have to have more oversight. Social media platforms should have rules where posts of a clear legal nature (accusations of rape, threats of violence, slander, clear cases of bullying and inciting violence, etc) are better regulated.

There was a case a few years back, can't fully remember the details, where online bullying lead to a teen taking her life. The judge found the online bully responsible for her death and she was convicted. I can't speak to this case in particular, but there is legal president, and what seems to be enough suspicion of false accusation, that Ms. Quinn may end up in some legal trouble or at least under investigation.

 

[JORMBO]

Isn’t ArenaNet the company that makes guild wars? Why are they monitoring NeoGAF?

 

[Ivory Blood]

Isn’t ArenaNet the company that makes guild wars? Why are they monitoring NeoGAF?

Yep, they are also the ones who had that unhinged lady working for them go off at a guy for asking a simple question. They quickly fired her, but maybe there is something more going on there. I'm not sure "We" is ArenaNet, though.

 

[Stefan.North]

Woah, I'm being monitorred, first time in my lifetime

 

[Wimbledon]

To be fair on ERA, when some posters there wrote posts which amounted to 'Served him right' and 'committed suicide to win', there were quite a few ERA posters who questioned their reasoning, ethics and sanity.

I hope they do reflect on the things they wrote. Because for some reason it just seems like everything an anything opposite of what they hold as truth is an extreme with them.

It's either 0 or 100 with them, no middle. At least going by some of the post that are screen grabbed here in this thread.

I'm not going to say were perfect but at least this place we can have a discussion , which usually go from 0 to like 20. lol

I'm seeing sensible comments being permabanned on there forum. Asking normal questions that any rational person would/should be asking when talking about allegations.

 

[Rien]

I've talked to him. He definitely regrets how the comment came off. I've known him for about 10 years and while we haven't always been on the same page, I know he's a good guy. He's just taking a break from the internet right now.

Doing what a lot should do (me included).
Log off for a while. It’s suffocating at times the internet.
Yeah definetly dont think he’s he bad guy.
He could never guessed this outcome but next time I’m sure he’ll be more thinkful.

 

[Nickolaidas]

*KSHHT* Target was eliminated *KSSHT* Be weary of reprisals and await further orders. *KSSHT*

 

[GrayChild]

Isn’t ArenaNet the company that makes guild wars? Why are they monitoring NeoGAF?

I don't think she speaks on their behalf, especially considering they were the ones who sacked Jessica Price. "We" are the professional victims in this case.

P.S. Hi, Jen! Hi GAF-lurking NPC dudes monitoring this thread.

 

[Punished Miku]

Ironically they have to monitor here because REEE locked their thread so no one can talk about it lol.

 

[xpresstuning]

this wasnt posted yet as it was visible only to kickstarter backers. I wish more developers were as open about such topics as they were. Comments there like "you have blood on your hands" in such a situation are unacceptable. most are comments of support



Hey all. This update is going to be very difficult. Thanks for your understanding in advance. If you're in need of content warnings- there's going to be mentions of sexual abuse, abuse in general, suicide, etc

This week allegations of abuse came to light against Alec Holowka, coder/composer/co-designer of NITW. Since then several other people have stepped forward, detailing issues of varying levels of severity that stretch right up to today. As a result, we won't be working with Alec anymore. Let's talk about that. And please do read through all the way before commenting.

There's a decent amount about every life, relationship, and project that anyone who isn't involved directly will never know about. As you can imagine there's tons of things about NITW development that never made it to the internet in a post somewhere. Just like your life, or job, or family, or the things you work on. We've had a complicated relationship with Alec, one that was at times extremely difficult, but we have always cared about him, and we did some pretty great work together if I do say so myself. Sometime in the future we'll probably have to go into detail about that difficult history. I don't know if I can bring myself to do it now. But I'll just ask you to keep that in mind.

I'll keep this all brief (edit- i just finished writing and i did not keep it brief but it could have easily been 3 times as long). It will surely fail to answer every question you might have. Bear with me.

When we met Alec in 2013 he was a different guy than he is now. We jumped into this kickstarter only knowing each other for a couple brief months. We didn't expect it to change our lives and bind us into a team for half a decade. Despite us being very different people, Alec and I have always gotten along. And I really respect his work and his can-do spirit. He's just up for making things, figuring out problems, suggesting cool ways to accomplish something. And his music is great too, which is something a whole lot of people would agree on. And beyond that he was very open to Bethany and I taking lead on narrative, characters, world, art, writing, etc. For that we're grateful and we have some really fond memories of working with him.

But about a year or so into the project we began realizing that Alec was a bit unstable, often lashing out at people he lived with. We heard through him and some others that he had some pretty volatile dating relationships. Nothing that said /abuse/, just hey there's a lot of drama here. During the next couple of years Alec's instability would lead to his leaving the indie house space in Vancouver he'd been a part of for years and heading to Winnipeg. We took the brunt of this as well. Things got very bad with both him and NITW development and we were honestly making worst case scenario plans by the end of 2015. The story of how NITW was saved late that year gets very personal for me and is all too close still. I'll tell it someday, maybe soon. I don't tend to talk about my own trauma shit often. But it was then I started having very bad no-joke-actual-medical-issue panic attacks daily, which happened on and off until mid 2017, and with one exception haven't returned. Until the past week.

But beginning in this bad time for Alec in 2015 (and he's publicly talked about this, we're not dropping confidential info) he went through a good month or so of intense therapy and diagnosis. He emerged from that, honestly putting in the work, putting a lot of that past self behind him, staying up on therapy and meds. We were so proud of him. And relieved. By 2016 he was basically a new person, and we really got to be friends then I think, and we finished up NITW. Since then we've kept in touch, saying hey when we're in the same place once a year or so, and recently we've been working weekly on that backer game, which we were all very excited about (more on that later). We were just relieved what with how rocky things had started that we'd all made it out of this with a game we could be proud of, and also that Alec was doing well.

In the past couple of years he got his own game studio thing going with various great people, making games that from what I've seen look very cool. He's been really interested in making good shit with good people. I was honestly just so happy and proud of the guy. I still am, for the ways in which he actually did change, and for the work he's made.

This all came crashing down recently, culminating in this week.

I'm not going to root through everything in there and give a line by line analysis, but I'll say that enough of the allegations are extremely plausible and just about all of it we've corroborated with other sources. I'm not going to list those out here, this isn't a trial, and we don't /owe/ the internet a comprehensive accounting of why so many people who have known Alec for years have looked at the accusations and believed them.

Seriously, what you see on twitter isn't representative of real life. It's just what makes it into posts. When people who have years-long real life experience with the guy, people who knew him in different situations, locations, ages, and contexts, all say the same thing, you can assume there's more to this than you'd know from outside the situation, taking it in 280 characters at a time.

Whatever happened years ago, this week a contractor working for Alec, whom we know and trust, has come forward with her own experiences with Alec. Others have talked about how Alec's conduct towards women was something whispered around at game events. A woman I've known for a while got in touch with us this week talking about how she's been told many times not to be alone in a room with him. Men have gotten in touch about working with Alec and the things that happened to them there. There are other things, things from people we trust, things you'll probably never hear about. But honestly just being a really shitty boss, as detailed by Albertine, is probably enough for us to separate from him alone. To say nothing of the far more serious allegations out there. Multiple people are afraid to run into the guy at different conferences. We were with him at some of those conferences. Now knowing that people were afraid to approach us and say hello eats at me.

The things that Alec did during the bad times were worse than we knew, and he's still being abusive in other ways to those around him. We didn't know. We feel like idiots. We feel betrayed. We're sad and angry. We put in the work with him during those really bad times. It's hard to talk about, and everyone really wants us to talk about it. They want detailed accountings of every aspect. Some people want to know exactly what we knew and when so they can figure out who around him is most complicit. Some people want us to give them hard evidence, as if such a thing was even possible, or as if it would appropriate to give them in the first place. Some people randomly doubt all of this because nobody had Alec arrested, which shows a weird understanding of the reality of human relationships and abuse that I can only assume comes from experience of the world via online chatter and a list of how things should work. The idea that there's a foolproof system in place that can stop this, can riddle it out, can tell us exactly who is and isn't guilty, a system which can set all this right. But it doesn't work like that in real life. Some of the demand for more info stems from the idea that if something is put out in public then any interested party is owed as much information as they want to work out their own stance and to judge ours. But at least for us the only reason we're working this out in public is because we have to. It was out there, and we've had to respond to it. Like we have to tell you now. And it's been like stabbing myself in the stomach every day to have to type words like this. To sum up- this isn't some "guilty til proven innocent" or "social media mob" thing for us. There's years of real life context to this, involving lots of people who aren't even online or public about this, and the fact that some folks just found out about it this week doesn't mean it began there. It's just when it became public.

If I sound grouchy about that aspect of things, it's because all week I've felt awful about this and I've had more than enough people yelling at me that we've flippantly decided to ditch Alec, simply because they're clueless about the larger situation here and unable to accept that their vantage point on the thing is extremely limited. It wasn't just a callout post that made this happen. More people than us are destroyed about this situation this week. It isn't some "sjws vs gamers" war thing for us, no matter how many people online might make it that for themselves. We weren't duped by some grifter and then went on to suddenly dump a long-time collaborator. We aren't trying to prove a point or appease a mob or show we're great. Whenever someone has praised me for Taking A Stand or whatever this week I just feel gross. None of this feels good. There isn't one good thing about this. I don't feel brave or honest. I just feel horrible. A real life friend and coworker did some really bad shit, years ago and now, and all of us in the blast radius are just heartbroken. We've got a right to be angry, to make decisions, and to grieve.

That's the nature of the beast - Twitter and social media as a whole brings out the worst in people, because individuals often forget that in that tightly knit infrastructure you're interacting with strangers with which you have absolutely no personal knowledge of. There's far too much emotional investment that there needs to be, and this excessive investment is extraordinarily bad if you're going with a presumed idea. It's a very, very complex issue to be honest, and i think one of the solutions would be a vast overhaul of the Terms of Usage that these Social platforms adhere by.

From what i can understand, Alec Holowka acknowledged the burden of his malevolence manifested through his mental illness and understood the responsibility he must face - he sought proper, professional help through therapy to better himself as a human being. That's not to be taken lightly at all, regardless of how much malevolence was still left. That's the only thing i want to comment regarding Alec Holowka.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Calling GAF alt-right is akin to calling Donald Trump a Far-left extremist.

You would have to be mentally stunted to even think that.

 

[Hissing Sid]

Hey Jennifer....

Monitor this.

 

[Chromata]

I've rarely seen this story about Zoe Quinn's behavior brought up before. She basically harassed this crowdfunding effort by some trying to make bullying online more difficult. Always seemed like she never wanted a good solution for online bullying to be found, because it would prove that she's full of shit.

Wow that's some really eye opening stuff.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

That was after she said he shut her in home not allowing her run away.
That is definition of hard rape. And she said it only as an example of what she had to deal with.
She naturally implied by that she was raped also via "normal" means.

And i can't give you anything since she nuked her account on twitter.

She clearly accused him of hard rape.

WTF is hard rape? Is there a soft rape?

 

[Gamernyc78]

Wow that's some really eye opening stuff.

That's crazy smh trying control shit. BTW shorty in the interview is a cutie

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

news

news

www.gamasutra.com

Nothing new.

However, every single outlet I've read this reported in has used the term "has died".

This person didn't die of natural causes. They were not suffering from a degenerative terminal illness.
They committed suicide.

In what appears to be yet another coordinated effort on the part of the games media, they are making efforts to downplay facts that don't fit the narrative, but amplify evidence-free accusations that do.

There is no part of this that doesn't stink to high hell.

Burn it all down. All of it.

 

[DragoonKain]

Holy crap, so last night as a totally random choice, I decided to listen to Sam Harris’ podcast an older episode that had Caitlin Flanagan on it, and they talk about this very subject. I couldn’t believe how coincidental it was they talk about sexual harassment at the workplace and how logic would tell you that it would be insanely insanely rare for a woman to lie about being sexually assaulted but if you talk to people who work in the justice system, it’s actually the opposite. They also talked about something I mentioned in one of the threads on here the last few days in that at universities, women are being brainwashed by woke types into thinking very innocuous things like “casual hookups” are sexual assault.

For example, if a girl and a guy have sex and the girl totally gives full consent, but while they’re having sex she kind of isn’t really all that into it and she isn’t gettjng much out of it, if one day she’s feeling sorry for herself and mentions she had a date with a guy but she didn’t really enjoy herself, people may try to convince her she was raped.

Now of course rape happens all the time and women are legitimately hurt and when that happens they need all the countless support they could possibly have, all the therapy, and the rapist needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But I really hope a person didn’t kill themselves because of some bullshit interpretation of the word “rape.” Because that IS NOT a term you want to start altering. It’s fucking dangerous to do so. There are things that are clearly rape and things that are not, and if we get into this territory where like everything today is racism and everyone today is a Nazi to people, if we start bringing that mindset into sexual assault then we are headed down a super dangerous path where lots of innocent people will be hurt.

Here is the episode btw if you care to listen. It’s so crazy how it touches on these exact issues, it’s from about a month or so ago too.

Sam Harris | #165 - Journey into Wokeness

Sam Harris speaks with Caitlin Flanagan about her work as a writer.

samharris.org

 

[Musky_Cheese]

They're monitoring what NeoGAF says y'all!!!

Welp, that sucks for them because they have no power here or outside of the site for that matter.

Just stick to what you do best. Convincing people that Twitter is the best way to report rape while suggesting that its everyone else that doesn't take rape seriously.

 

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Yep, they are also the ones who had that unhinged lady working for them go off at a guy for asking a simple question. They quickly fired her, but maybe there is something more going on there. I'm not sure "We" is ArenaNet, though.

Considering they just had a big theater announcement where they revealed they haven't actually finished anything the players wanted then maybe Jen should monitor that game she works on or why that game is losing its playerbase. Seems more pertinent than NeoGAF.

 

[ExpandKong]

Hi Jennifer! I wish you well in your quest to protect those who utilize digital lynch mobs to drive mentally ill people to suicide.

 

[hariseldon]

The last line articulates a thought I've been having today. At what point does it become punching down when someone with a huge and vicious social media following takes aim at someone without that power?

 

[angelic]

WTF is hard rape? Is there a soft rape?

When it's Zoe Quinn so you cant get an erection.

 

[Velius]

Hey Jennifer....

Monitor this.

I don't even know who that bitch is and she has me blocked.
Christ man I have like less than 30 followers on Twitter. I'm a nobody, but she's so fucking butthurt she probably saw a random tweet of mine and just got too triggered to handle it.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

She deleted her Twitter?! (@unburntwitch) is gone.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

Xaero Gravity you are my hero

 

[Cybrwzrd]

Hi Jennifer, after looking at your twitter drivel, you seem to think you are the victim here.

The only victims left are Alec's family and friends, cause Alec is dead. But please feel free to put that blue check to good use to make this all about you.

 

[Terenty]

They were even trying to figure out how to not pay him royalties from new sales.

Fucking imbeciles. He apologized and went on therapy, she herself said it in her fucking letter. Unbelievable

 

[DeepEnigma]

To be fair on ERA, when some posters there wrote posts which amounted to 'Served him right' and 'committed suicide to win', there were quite a few ERA posters who questioned their reasoning, ethics and sanity.

That said, the fact that some of these assholes weren't permabanned on the spot speaks volumes on the mods there.

Those voices of reason were the ones permed.

The site is shaped in such a way to radicalize people, and if you display logic and have a strong mind, you are pruned.

 

[Snakey125]

What the fuck did Neo do to piss in her cereal?

 

[Terenty]

And of course this ugly bitch is she/her, who would have thought

 

[Punished Miku]

news

news

www.gamasutra.com

Even in his obituary they use the whole 2nd half to make it all about advocating for Zoe. What a joke.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I don't even know who that bitch is and she has me blocked.
Christ man I have like less than 30 followers on Twitter. I'm a nobody, but she's so fucking butthurt she probably saw a random tweet of mine and just got too triggered to handle it.

They use a script bot that auto blocks people if you happen to be following something that they have, “on the list”.

Creating their echo chambers

It’s no wonder they are so radicalized.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

Some of that is unnecessary. I don't agree with Jennifer's assesment of NeoGAF, but some of these posts aren't helping our case lol

 

[kiunchbb]

this wasnt posted yet as it was visible only to kickstarter backers. I wish more developers were as open about such topics as they were. Comments there like "you have blood on your hands" in such a situation are unacceptable. most are comments of support



Hey all. This update is going to be very difficult. Thanks for your understanding in advance. If you're in need of content warnings- there's going to be mentions of sexual abuse, abuse in general, suicide, etc

This week allegations of abuse came to light against Alec Holowka, coder/composer/co-designer of NITW. Since then several other people have stepped forward, detailing issues of varying levels of severity that stretch right up to today. As a result, we won't be working with Alec anymore. Let's talk about that. And please do read through all the way before commenting.

"He was a horrible person so he probably did it"

It didn't changed the fact that they terminated a professional relationship, fueled a social media witch-hunt, contributed to Alec's mental break down and suicide with just an accusation and zero evidence to back it up.

If someone is going to falsely accuse someone of being a rapist/abuser, of course they would point finger at someone with mental problem.

If someone ever reported me for a crime I did, I would be crash too; but imagine being falsely accused, and no one around you believed you because of your mental problem history. Last but not least, the person that accused you had a huge cultist social media following that evidently ignore facts and blindly believe "victim".

 

[Nickolaidas]

Some of that is unnecessary. I don't agree with Jennifer's assesment of NeoGAF, but some of these posts aren't helping our case lol

There's no place or forum which is short on assholes.

ERA has assholes in its group. GAF has assholes in its group. The White House has assholes in its group. Even Jesus had assholes in his group.

 

[Ogbert]

Isn’t ArenaNet the company that makes guild wars? Why are they monitoring NeoGAF?

I think it's because that loony Jessica Price used to work there. She called all her customers dickeheads which, astonishingly, her employers took umbrage with.

The usual twerps went into meltdown.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

There's no place or forum which is short on assholes.

ERA has assholes in its group. GAF has assholes in its group. The White House has assholes in its group. Even Jesus had assholes in his group.

And some have MiyazakiHatesKojima

*Shudder*

 

[Ogbert]

Anything is a crime ONLY if demonstrated so, beyond reasonable doubt, in court.

Couldn't agree more.

It's why I want to see these cases in court.

 

[amnesia]

Hey Jennifer....

Monitor this.

They should focus on that other forum full of male feminists and pedos (plus other flavors of degenerates).

 

[Komatsu]

Is GAF seriously considered “alt-right”?