General thread on Game Development issues/terrible behaviour

[The Jackal]

Terrible. And as much as I try to separate art from artist, I think the Elder Scrolls music may sound tainted from now on.

Guess it's not only the Dragonborn who came.

[Wrathbone]

Looks like it’s prompted a few more horror stories to be told:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/27/2083 ... ions-metoo

Also, Soule has deleted his Twitter account now. The sad thing is that instead of being investigated and dealt with properly by the authorities, this will be (already has been to some extent) handled by the internet lynch mob. The fact that victims can’t go straight to the authorities at the time of the crime in some circumstances, or are ignored sometimes if they do, is not only a huge injustice and a sad reflection on our society, but results in mob law. The careers of Soule and the other accused are certainly over, but they’ll walk free, and they’ll possibly have new victims.

Probably preaching to the converted here, but it deserves repeating: Belieiving claims of victims does not mean guilty until proven innocent. It means enabling the proper course of justice in the first place.

[Sly Boots]

The other two devs who created Night in the Woods announce they have cut all ties with Holowka:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/0 ... legations/

Two of Night In The Woods‘s creators have announced they are “cutting ties with” Alec Holowka, the third co-creator, following allegations of abusive behaviour and sexual assault made against him this week. “We take such allegations seriously as a team,” Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry said in Wednesday’s statement. They have now cancelled one unknown “current project” and are postponing NITW’s planned physical release.

“This week, allegations of past abuse have come to light regarding Alec Holowka, who was coder, composer, and co-designer on Night In The Woods. We take such allegations seriously as a team. As a result and after some agonizing consideration, we are cutting ties with Alec,” the game’s official Twitter account said in a multi-tweet statement.

I took NITW off my Steam wishlist after the allegations, but I'm considering re-adding it after their response, and learning how much of the game is attributable to them. Can one person taint the work of a three-person team, when the other two appear to be decent human beings? His part wasn't minor, even if it wasn't the biggest of the three. Not sure where I stand on that.

[Medicine Man]

Cultist Simulator developer Alexis Kennedy is next up on the shitty human chopping block...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019 ... -behaviour

[Medicine Man]

Holowka dead...



https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ ... lowka-dies

[Sly Boots]

Holy shit

I'm not really sure what to say.

[Mantis]

A good reason that, if someone has sexually assaulted you, going to the police and reporting it so they can do a proper investigation is the first course of action you should take rather than outing it on Twitter and immediately ruining that persons life before any evidence whatsoever can be gathered.

I know that the circumstances of these cases are that victims usually come forward far too late after the fact for any meaningful inquiry to ever be made, but it only takes one false accusation from someone with a grudge and one day we may be seeing the suicides of innocent people. The best awareness and course of action to encourage from the string of allegations coming up in recent years from so many different facets of the entertainment industry should be that victims need to speak out immediately following any future assaults so that criminals can be brought to justice the proper way when there's still a good chance they can be proved guilty.

[Alan]

It’s easy to say that, it’s a much different thing when you are the victim. I mean fuck, look at things like that Irish lass last year. She was 17 and raped by a 30 year old and in court they argued that her lacy thong was akin to consent. We are still cavemen playing at civility.

[Animalmother]

Remind what he did again..

[Raid]

He was accused of rape and using his position to extort women into relationships with him. I'm not aware of it going to trial, but I don't think he's worked in the games industry since.

[Mantis]

As abhorrent as the accusations are, it would be a shame if they turned out to be false and another man's career had been ruined before anything could be conclusively proven. Obviously this is always going to be very tenuous in historical rape cases though.

Either way, I have always been an advocate for disassociating artists from their work so I can still enjoy his OSTs even if it does turn out he is a massive creeper.

[Maturin]

Yep, I'm not passing any judgement on the man one way or the other unless something actually comes of this. His music will remain on my mp3 player (yes I still use a dedicated player!) and will continue to be listened to as regularly as before.

[DjchunKfunK]

I don't really want to de-rail the conversation and if you can disassociate the artist from the art that's fine, but multiple people have come out with accusations against him so it's not a case of one person saying something that could turn out to be false. It's also not as simple as a rape case, the guy has mentally abused women. He isn't going to get prosecuted because historical rape cases are almost impossible to prove in court and the victims often don't want to go through it all again. It was bad enough for the victims in this case when it all came out.

EDIT: I find it disheartening that society is so willing to give a rapist the benefit of the doubt.

[Wrathbone]

I very much agree that victims making accusations should be believed and taken seriously. That's not to say that the person being accused should immediately be condemned, though. This is where I respectfully have a quibble:

I find it disheartening that society is so willing to give a rapist the benefit of the doubt.

We don't know that he's a rapist. We know that he's been accused by multiple victims, and I believe them, and what that means is that I don't think they're lying. I think they have legitimate grieveances that should be pursued through legal means. Believing a victim means giving them the benefit of the doubt - it doesn't mean the accused is definitely guilty.

We need to get better at this at a societal level, because right now it feels like we have victim denial on one hand and cancel culture on the other, and little common sense in between them.

I also firmly believe in separation of art from artist, though I understand those who either can't or won't do that.

[DjchunKfunK]

If multiple people have come forward with legitimate claims to say he abused them then I think there comes a point where the benefit of doubt perhaps no longer applies, just like Weinstein was seen as a rapist before he was convicted and Saville is considered a paedophile despite not being convicted. I get what you are saying but sometimes the degree of evidence on the other side cannot be ignored. On top of that the justice system is massively flawed when it comes to rape making decisions taken on individual cases often completely worthless. Finally there is a massive difference between someone being accused by multiple people of rape and someone being hounded on social media for saying something racists or misogynistic, which is what people are often talking about when referencing cancel culture.