It's a worthwhile point. Gaming culture as a whole, especially among the elitist sorts, has prided itself on its rhetorical nastiness. "Trash talk" is a way of life. How many people have been told to submit to abuse or leave gaming? "If you can't take the heat..." etc.
Gaming YouTube, even the decent folks among them, has a 'house style' of shouty dudes spewing vitriol and violent sexual imagery as a matter of course. Hell, one of my favourite gaming streamers is of that style. It's endemic to this world.
And now, suddenly, the self-appointed gatekeepers of who gets to be a real gamer are having heart palpitations over "rando asshat"? Give me a break, honestly.
That's all this is about. Hypocrisy. The wind was blowing in the right direction for an off-colour tweet from Jessica Price to ignite a forest fire. In a community that prides itself on a "fuck your feelings" mentality, they've magically rediscovered their capacity for offence.
In reality, a vocal and hyperactive minority were looking for a reason to take her down from day one because outspoken women who don't coddle them *do* indeed scare them. All their internet tough guy posturing masks that deep-seated terror.
And that's the thing. Men who are rude and opinionated are venerated, even celebrated for their "take no shit" attitude. Women who do so are pilloried; we're expected to be nice, pliable, endlessly available helpmates. Surrogate mothers, would-be girlfriends.
There's a broader dimension to this beyond sexism, of course, where this sect will attack anyone, regardless of gender, who doesn't toe their line. They dox and swat male devs who they blame for adverse changes to their beloved games.
But the bar women have to clear in order to inspire the same outrage is always lower. And the punishments must be commensurately greater. The number of people braying for blood, for the ruination of Price's life beyond her firing, is horrifying.
Even if one agrees that her tweet to the streamer was a misfire in poor taste, there's no justifying what happened after. And it is merely a reminder that women aren't allowed to make mistakes. One slip-up, one *perceived* slip-up, and it's to the stocks with us.
I'd add that firing of Peter Fries sends another, chilling message. If you're a male game dev and you stand up for your female colleagues, you will not be safe. In an industry where true allyship is hard to come by, this is another blow.
It was infuriating to see some of the mob say that Price "deserved" to be fired while Fries should be spared, not wanting to accept that their omnidirectional rage condemned them *both*. If Price is an evil pariah, then any defence of her is equally evil; those are *their* terms.
I also have no patience for ex post facto justifications. I don't care what you found digging through their tweets, looking for reasons to justify the rage you *already* felt. Had you found nothing, you'd have still pressed for these firings.
Either way, Arena Net deserves all the condemnation it's receiving now. This was an appalling way to handle an easily resolved conflict. They've now let the genie out of the bottle once again to haunt us all, emboldening a kakistocracy of outraged consumer kings.
This whole situation with @ArenaNet is summarised by a guy with a "throw Communists from helicopters" joke in his handle (a popular alt-right and Nazi meme) pleading for civility from feminists.
