Fan Communication (Gaming)

by EffortlessFury , Saturday, July 07, 2018, 14:28 (2335 days ago) @ Vortech

Shit.

I know Jessica. And she’s part of Bungie history. She was a big part of the I Love Bees ARG as a player (Phaedra). That’s how I met her and she was one of the people I counted as a friend by the end of that ARG. She was just starting out in the world trying to get a job and leave home and needed a computer (she can break them with just a glance. What’s the opposite of a superpower?) so I sent her my Titanium PowerBook (I thought it was a loaner, but apparently she didn’t :) )

I saw the comments and jokes about this story on twitter, but not any of the details of what happened until now. I didn’t know it was her. I follow her on twitter, but have her “muffled” so I need to tap on a message to see the contents. I have always felt bad about it , but really it’s because twitter is not the right medium for her. She writes voluminously and tweets the same way. Measured in inches she would account for 40% of my feed if I didn’t. Plus most of it is about how shitty my race and gender is being and it takes an emotional toll to read that stuff and be lumped in.

I suppose none of this is interesting to anyone except maybe chappy, but I don’t know what else to do with it so I will leave it here.

As to the actual point of the post, this seems different than the old school bungie shoebeatings because it wasn’t on the dev’s forums, or even on a forum dedicated to the game. Twitter is a weird mix of personal platform and social space. I personally know Jessica has always wanted to control the conversation “on” her part of twitter, and I have never thought that could be totally effective, also can see how this is a bit like standing up from the audience to disagree with a presenter. I also see how this is like talking to someone else standing in the same crowd you are standing in. Like I said, twitter is weird.

The contrarian streamer seemed to be respectful in his disagreement in the tweets I can find (but maybe I’m missing parts and history. This isn’t my corner of the internet.). And I certainly don’t think you need to be a woman to have people disagree with you on Twitter.

No matter what, 2 people should not be fired because people disagreed relatively calmly and civil on personal accounts whether Twitter has an implicit invitation to conversation baked into the medium. That’s crazy and a scary level of disrespect for your employees.

Firstly, I don't think Twitter is a personal bubble platform unless you make your Twitter private. The whole point design is around layered bubbles of followers that intertwine and interact. You can stand up on a podium of importance by having a bunch of followers, but at the end of the day everyone has the same access to everyone.

Also, again, not saying firing was the right move, but when your employee lashed out at genuine commentary and wrongfully (that's the important bit) blamed it on his gender...which is a large portion of your player base...and doesn't seem to understand what went wrong?

Yeesh.