ByWatterson
Member
Yeah, there should be some additional stories. Harassers rarely stop at one victim.
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An important statement from Naughty Dog
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
Yeah, there should be some additional stories. Harassers rarely stop at one victim.
You can't release a statement on why someone is terminated, especially with California labor laws.
Sad Affleck
Member
I am a lawyer too. I've seen enough of these cases to be well aware of how the covering up system works.
Self_Destructive
Member
Any chance of EVER getting a job in the industry again. The ire of tons of Naughty Dog and Sony fans for attacking one of the most respected and loved developers in the biz.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but just less likely that he's making it up.
Random Human
They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
.
I don't think you can disclose this, and if you could, I'm not sure the employee would want this disclosed.
Nobody has ever lied about sexual harassment? Multiple people haven't lined up behind a sexual harassment lie ever? Wow, way to spit on the (modern) history of people of color.
People are fucked up. We don't know one way or another about this case but there is 100% going to be an instance where someone looks at the recent unchecked enthusiasm of people wanting to side with victims no matter what and they'll try to use it for the benefit/detriment of themselves/others. People are fucked up.
The "innocent until proven guilty" stance is one thing, but the "anyone accused is a piece of shit that needs to be exiled immediately" is just as ridiculous. There's room for nuance. Unless you feel that the consequences (loss of friends, family, job, freedom or life) of falsely accused victims are a small price to pay.
Wait... some people really expected ND or Sony to say that was true ? I want to live in your world for sure.
The big thing here is ND talking for Sony as well and deny the entire thing, not even a "We're investigating into this", if proven wrong, it could be a huge blow for both of them
The big thing here is ND talking for Sony as well and deny the entire thing, not even a "We're investigating into this", if proven wrong, it could be a huge blow for both of them
But what if that'st he truth? If they have no record like they claim. Then they just don't have it. And their statement is truthful.
That's the extent of their investigation. They aren't going to call the guy.
It's doubtful that they offered him the money and explicitly said that this was to keep quiet about the allegations. More likely that they made this offer for some other reason and he drew his conclusion which might be correct or not.
Typical PR response. Unfortunately I worked in so many places in my life, to not be naive enough to believe there is 1 single company in the entire world where sexual harassment hasn't happened, so I always tend to believe the victim. I hope David Ballard has some kind of proof of something related to this being discussed which would constitute a paper trail that Sony/ND denies knowing. If he can't prove it, he's going to have a tough time in the industry. It always happen which is shameful.
However people need to stop relating the firing with the sexual harassement. His tweets clearly say he had a mental breakdown because of the harassment, and this is very likely what triggered his firing, then when he felt he had nothing to lose, he reported the harassement and HR decided to make him a offer to silence him. That's what I got from the tweets at least.
Check post history. Fucking console wars even on topics like this. It never fucking fails what a disgrace.
However people need to stop relating the firing with the sexual harassement. His tweets clearly say he had a mental breakdown because of the harassment, and this is very likely what triggered his firing, then when he felt he had nothing to lose, he reported the harassement and HR decided to make him a offer to silence him. That's what I got from the tweets at least.
Check post history. Fucking console wars even on topics like this. It never fucking fails what a disgrace.
Assuming the allegations are true and someone from Sony HR offered him 20k.
Who has presumably known about this?
I'm not trying to construct any wild theories here, just trying to understand how stuff like that could possibly be handled in companies as big as Sony.
Are we hypothetically talking head of HR level or higher?
Who has presumably known about this?
I'm not trying to construct any wild theories here, just trying to understand how stuff like that could possibly be handled in companies as big as Sony.
Are we hypothetically talking head of HR level or higher?
Sony could actually be investigating the matter but not mentioning it in a public way because they want to reduce liability or accountability that would come out of such a statement. When you say you're launching an investigation that puts you on a timeline for any person reading the statement.
The statement is piss-poor in general on the optics front so don't take this as me apologizing for it or anything.
But the statement was in response specifically to his compliant.
Im sure they are investigating thoroughly right now (Unless there really is a massive cover-up)
Your implications are trash.
rochellepaws
Member
There's no way to know as the evidence likely doesn't exist but I'm inclined to believe the employee in this situation and his refusal to accept the 20k (likely framed as a redundancy package) showed his conviction towards his mistreatment. He has very little to gain making such a claim towards an individual who doesn't even work at the company in question anymore while Naughty Dog have everything to lose in their reputation from it becoming apparent they fostered such an environment of abuse towards employees and protection towards those at the top.
We've seen these type of occurrences in other industries over and over and they all get initially denied at a corporate level until others start coming forward to corroborate the claim. It would be very interesting to hear what other ex-ND employees thought of the accused's character and the sort of environment within the company.
We've seen these type of occurrences in other industries over and over and they all get initially denied at a corporate level until others start coming forward to corroborate the claim. It would be very interesting to hear what other ex-ND employees thought of the accused's character and the sort of environment within the company.
FlutterPuffs
Member
That was what I was wondering about this all day as well.
They should have stated that they're launching an investigation to the whole thing that goes beyond "so anyone here know anything about this? No? Alright, back to tighten the graphics on level 3!". I mean, I think it does warrant an investigation. I'm one of those people who don't believe the few people who must have been complicit in this (if true) implicates the whole studio, but the studio as a whole needs to show now that they mean business in taking things like this seriously.
TRUE ORDER
Member
He should have some kind of proof, hopefully.
Didn't expect such a fast reply to the issue though.
Didn't expect such a fast reply to the issue though.
Yeah I dont think some people understand what is being said here.
It frustrates me how eager people are to pull the trigger where there is no evidence from either party. Wouldnt it be better to wait and see the proof before releasing the hounds? If Dave had made complaints, there would be records on his end. Likewise, ND will have a record somewhere.
A better response wouldve involved saying they take these allegations very seriously, will be investigating the matter, etc. This flat denial with nothing else gives the impression they just want it to go away. And the speedy/unusual timeline for looking into it (less than 24 hours, over a weekend) reinforces that. A better response would be more sensitive to the alleged victim and the subject rather than the purely defensive stance theyve taken. And probably come on Monday.
Hopefully though it spurs more victims to come forward with their stories. Sexual harassment tends to be a cultural issue within corporations and its unlikely these two former ND employees are alone if what they say is true.
FlutterPuffs
Member
That could have just been severance pay for being made redundant.
A full investigation based on what?
The whole point of them not finding anything on record means they have literally nothing to go off. They can't be seen to be contacting the victim because this is something that could become a criminal investigation, and there's a good chance that any other employees involved have moved on to other things.
Any investigation they could do themselves would be far from thorough at this point.
Even if they did, I don't think they would have framed it as SEXUAL HARASSMENT DENIAL PACKAGE $20,000
McMoneyman
Member
Considering the seriousness of the allegations against Naughty Dog/Sony. They probably feel it's something that needs to be adressed immediately, which it does... regardless of how much PR mumbo jumbo the statement had.
100% no, it is not an admission at all...and if the $20k was part of a severance package due to being laid off, they couldn't even talk about it if they wanted to. They can't disclose information like that about an employee
GHG
Gold Member
It doesn't work like this at any company unfortunately.
If you didn't report something in the correct way through the correct channels at the time you were employee then you are shit out of luck. Companies won't waste resources retrospectively investigating incidents that essentially amount to he said/she said (because he doesn't have any evidence).
If he had evidence then they would be forced to investigate it, but until he can offer something up then this will continue to be their stance.
Welcome to the dark cold corporate world.
If an informal offer was made over the phone as the victim's story seems to say then there wouldn't be evidence. Nothing was signed or put to paper in the first place.
One thing I'm not fully grasping here, is why hasn't he gone back to ND and told them the situation. I mean it's all over the internet now. He's got his word and that's it by the sounds of things. Would it not be worth it raising this issue again internally and then say well I've got no other option to speak out.
I mean name the person then. It sounds like it's happened before, it might be rampant. He's obviously not bothered about naming ND so name the individual too.
I mean name the person then. It sounds like it's happened before, it might be rampant. He's obviously not bothered about naming ND so name the individual too.
Well then that phone call would be documented at the very least
You do. But I think the only possible good response is to say we are reaching out to Mr. Ballard and investigating further.
Because this is probably going to blow up in their face when he names whoever it is and starts to give more details.
Sad Affleck
Member
Did you see any evidence in the Weinstein case? What kind of evidence do you expect someone to get for such a case?
ND probably doesnt want to hear it
Naming the individual opens the victim up for being sued for defamation at the personal level by the accused.
CrichtonKicks
Member
I don't think people understand how severance packages work. It's usually framed as X weeks of pay type of thing.
$20,000 lump sum sounds like a potentially big payout but, assuming that he was decently paid for the industry, it was probably more like 2.5 months pay which isn't extravagant in the slightest.
A journalist investigating this would help. The common thread to most Weinstein accusations is that the various reporters talked to others who corroborated that the accusers told them of the situation at the time.
$20,000 lump sum sounds like a potentially big payout but, assuming that he was decently paid for the industry, it was probably more like 2.5 months pay which isn't extravagant in the slightest.
A journalist investigating this would help. The common thread to most Weinstein accusations is that the various reporters talked to others who corroborated that the accusers told them of the situation at the time.
GHG
Gold Member
There's a weird phenomenon with a lot of sexual harassment cases whereby the victim will be reluctant to name and shame the aggressor because they don't want to be responsible for ruining that other persons career/life.
It's also the reason why victims don't press charges in a lot of cases.
Self_Destructive
Member
Actually... looking over David's twitter posts about this, he clearly states that after he told them about the harassment they 'ended the call'. Surely there would be some type of evidence of this call, wouldn't there?
this does nothing but prove that you dont understand how this type of situation works...there is absolutely no way in hell a corporation is going to reach out to an accuser like that...the legal ramifications of doing so would be IMMENSE...
esmith08734
Member
I guess this just got messier. It's really hard to get proof unless this guy was recording conversations or archiving emails or whatever.
I definitely believe the guy. I mean, why would he make this up? I think the only way this generates steam is if multiple people come out and back this guy's claim up. It looks like a name of the person in question will be released.
I definitely believe the guy. I mean, why would he make this up? I think the only way this generates steam is if multiple people come out and back this guy's claim up. It looks like a name of the person in question will be released.
NO! they are not going to contact him. For many reasons. That could be viewed as harassment itself. This isn't a criminal investigation. No company would do that.
Sorry. Its 2017. Twitter accusations are hard evidence.
Complistic
Member
Better have some evidence lol.
Sadly most people just want blood if these threads are any indication.