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Chris Avellone is Fighting Back (Update: won seven figure lawsuit, formal apology/retraction from accusers)

"Game journalists" like Jason Schreier gleefully reported on the drama because they smelled a big story. Throwing Chris under the bus while at the same time leeching off of his fame for twitter clout:

2VbW8UT.jpg

let's also not forget that Bloomberg ran a story a few years back called "The Big Hack" which was denied by everyone "involved" including their key source.

they've never retracted the story, only making a faint admission earlier this year that parts of it were untrue.
 
The question I have is he didn't wanna file a lawsuit on the women he was actually acquainted with and wanted to let them be heard..but did he file a lawsuit against the chick he claims was on an entirely diff content, he didn't know, and she 100% fabricated them even knowing each other personally? That seems like a slam dunk of a case and would have really bolstered his story involving the other women here. Like why'd that chick get a pass on a lawsuit? Ultimately...why'd anyone get a pass on a lawsuit if they ruined your future livelihood and past legacy? I'm 34 and I've lived in quite a few places around the globe and never met a man or woman who chose to be nice and cordial with people trying to take the shirt off their back and food off their table.
I think Dena's the one in Australia, which might make her different (although I think defamation is easier to prove in Australia?).

Reading Dena's account, though, she actually does echo a lot of the things that the first accuser said, almost word for word, so maybe the "echo"/"parroting" of accusations meant this.
 

Traianvs

Member
If he's innocent, I hope he'll receive all the compensations, help and advice forgiveness he deserves.
Same thing for the women involved if they are in the right.
Whatever is the outcome, he deserves to defend himself, she deserves to be listened and the usual people with torches and pitchforks deserves a nice beating
 

Labadal

Member
If he's innocent, I hope he'll receive all the compensations, help and advice forgiveness he deserves.
Same thing for the women involved if they are in the right.
Whatever is the outcome, he deserves to defend himself, she deserves to be listened and the usual people with torches and pitchforks deserves a nice beating
Oh, they've been heard. Enough to ruin his career, getting him sacked from all the projects he was on, and I doubt he's gotten new offers.
 
Maybe the specifics didn't make it easy. Like, did she even give her real name in the accusation? And would it make sense to go after an obviously mentally unwell person (or more) that posted easily disproven lies just to pile on the original tweet?

It seems more worthy to focus on the people who started the mob rally, rather than the nutjobs that thought it was open season to write false metoo stories of their own.

Or, you know, maybe when the big thing is cleared out, he'll sue too.


Do you work in corporate? Any professional experience? I ask because I do and have for some time now and your name is your name - it’s your key to the door. Just hard to imagine someone with as much as he stands to lose just being quiet about such an accusation when they weren’t on the same part of the planet as the accuser.

Another thing is he frequently tells us Twitter isn’t the place to have this discussion, but then he waits a year and responds via Twitter and a blog he created. Let’s go to court, put them under oath, and let the accusers face the penalty of law if what he’s saying is true.

If he didn’t want to file suit against the women he was actually around? I guess I get that. But the other one just doesn’t compute.

Sounds like you’re trying to create a scenario and provide an excuse he didn’t even offer himself.(the random chick being mentally unfit) So in the middle of reading a stack of separation letters brought on by the type of accusations made by this woman who he said was on an entirely diff continent than him during the night of the supposed encounter and he...decided to do her a favor and not make her say it under oath?

One of the frequent criticisms of women who go on social media blasting someone for X amount of years old sexual assaults/harassment has been "Why didn't she tell the law?"..I guess I'm just asking howcome he didn't tell the law?
 
I think Dena's the one in Australia, which might make her different (although I think defamation is easier to prove in Australia?).

Reading Dena's account, though, she actually does echo a lot of the things that the first accuser said, almost word for word, so maybe the "echo"/"parroting" of accusations meant this.
That makes sense then
 

ShadowNate

Member
Do you work in corporate? Any professional experience? I ask because I do and have for some time now and your name is your name - it’s your key to the door. Just hard to imagine someone with as much as he stands to lose just being quiet about such an accusation when they weren’t on the same part of the planet as the accuser.

Another thing is he frequently tells us Twitter isn’t the place to have this discussion, but then he waits a year and responds via Twitter and a blog he created. Let’s go to court, put them under oath, and let the accusers face the penalty of law if what he’s saying is true.

If he didn’t want to file suit against the women he was actually around? I guess I get that. But the other one just doesn’t compute.

Sounds like you’re trying to create a scenario and provide an excuse he didn’t even offer himself.(the random chick being mentally unfit) So in the middle of reading a stack of separation letters brought on by the type of accusations made by this woman who he said was on an entirely diff continent than him during the night of the supposed encounter and he...decided to do her a favor and not make her say it under oath?

One of the frequent criticisms of women who go on social media blasting someone for X amount of years old sexual assaults/harassment has been "Why didn't she tell the law?"..I guess I'm just asking howcome he didn't tell the law?
I am not trying to create any scenario. Let them go to court. Or not. It's his choice (mostly) -- since I doubt his accusers plan to go with due process.

Avellone has everything to lose by not going to a court. It is unclear to me what his next step is -- he leaves a few thing vague about his strategy to respond to the allegations. Clearly twitter posts and even his extended post on the blog are not it and they cannot be it -- nor does he think they are sufficient.

He does provide some explanation as to why he does this now.

But I am happy he is ok and is speaking out with his version of events (and at the very least clarifying his stance and why / to whom he apologized, how this affected him, why it was wrong to do so then etc), after being attacked and cancelled. I am allowed to be glad he is pushing back.

Also, given that cancel / mob mentality culture is very a real and frightening trend, affecting not only accused people in the industry but driving the industry itself and allowing only the path of immediately cutting ties -- something demonstrated far too many times in such allegations -- I doubt anyone has found the key to make it all go away.

It's not apologizing, it's not engaging, for sure. The legal route seems like the best way to go, but I also think it's not as easy as it sounds to you, me, or any outside the people involved. It's also highly unlikely it will reverse the defamation (if he's innocent) entirely or remedy the damage to himself and his trust with people and so on.
 
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I am not trying to create any scenario. Let them go to court. Or not. It's his choice (mostly) -- since I doubt his accusers plan to go with due process.

Avellone has everything to lose by not going to a court. It is unclear to me what his next step is -- he leaves a few thing vague about his strategy to respond to the allegations. Clearly twitter posts and even his extended post on the blog are not it and they cannot be it -- nor does he think they are sufficient.

He does provide some explanation as to why he does this now.

But I am happy he is ok and is speaking out with his version of events (and at the very least clarifying his stance and why / to whom he apologized, how this affected him, why it was wrong to do so then etc), after being attacked and cancelled. I am allowed to be glad he is pushing back.
No need to tell me what you're allowed to do, you aren't a victim here(lol) and it's not that deep brother. We both have valid statements and valid points, and my comments/questions in the thread were just my speaking out loud about things that made absolutely no sense to me.

I hope they all find peace, the truth comes out, and whomever is deserving of penalty receive everything they deserve.
 

kuncol02

Banned
Do you work in corporate? Any professional experience? I ask because I do and have for some time now and your name is your name - it’s your key to the door. Just hard to imagine someone with as much as he stands to lose just being quiet about such an accusation when they weren’t on the same part of the planet as the accuser.

Another thing is he frequently tells us Twitter isn’t the place to have this discussion, but then he waits a year and responds via Twitter and a blog he created. Let’s go to court, put them under oath, and let the accusers face the penalty of law if what he’s saying is true.

If he didn’t want to file suit against the women he was actually around? I guess I get that. But the other one just doesn’t compute.

Sounds like you’re trying to create a scenario and provide an excuse he didn’t even offer himself.(the random chick being mentally unfit) So in the middle of reading a stack of separation letters brought on by the type of accusations made by this woman who he said was on an entirely diff continent than him during the night of the supposed encounter and he...decided to do her a favor and not make her say it under oath?

One of the frequent criticisms of women who go on social media blasting someone for X amount of years old sexual assaults/harassment has been "Why didn't she tell the law?"..I guess I'm just asking howcome he didn't tell the law?
He is going after every single one of them.
CI06wvm.png
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
What is it about the gaming industry? It seems in a league of its own with stubbornness, ideologically driven, and cowardice.

This is irrespective of Avellone. I have no idea what is true or isn't. And I don't particularly care about this story all that much aside from not wanting an innocent person to be railroaded, whether it's him or these girls.

But I've noticed that in the game industry in particular there is this extreme nature of other aspects of society ratcheted up to 100. In most other fields, if someone was accused of something, of course you'd get the few people who will just virtue signal and believe the whole story immediately without any proof no matter how absurd the story is. Like someone could accuse a famous actor of being a serial killer and killing 10 of this person's friends and you'd have people respond on social media like "omggg that's so horrible, arrest this monster!" but most people in the industry wouldn't respond at all, would wait for the facts, or would stick up for them. Like they did with Chris Pratt.

But the gaming industry, it's a unique beast. It doesn't matter what anyone is accused of, how vague, how unbelievable, the entire industry will not only believe it and do so as publicly and as virtue signal-y as possible, but also try as hard as they can to ruin this person's life.

Why is the game industry so unique in that regard? Is there something that accompanies being a gamer with the desire to act this way? Because most other industries and communities are not as extreme as the gaming community. I mean, when a massive chunk of an industry hates a guy like Colin Moriarty, who's never done a bad thing to anyone, and is about as uncontroversial as it gets, you know there's a problem.

Meanwhile, compared to the sports industry/community where you have a football player DeShaun Watson accused of sexual improprieties and/or assault by like 100 women, and it's been kinda "we'll wait for the facts to come out" by most people. If that was the gaming industry? I couldn't imagine. I just don't get the gaming industry.
 

tsumake

Member
What is it about the gaming industry? It seems in a league of its own with stubbornness, ideologically driven, and cowardice.

This is irrespective of Avellone. I have no idea what is true or isn't. And I don't particularly care about this story all that much aside from not wanting an innocent person to be railroaded, whether it's him or these girls.

But I've noticed that in the game industry in particular there is this extreme nature of other aspects of society ratcheted up to 100. In most other fields, if someone was accused of something, of course you'd get the few people who will just virtue signal and believe the whole story immediately without any proof no matter how absurd the story is. Like someone could accuse a famous actor of being a serial killer and killing 10 of this person's friends and you'd have people respond on social media like "omggg that's so horrible, arrest this monster!" but most people in the industry wouldn't respond at all, would wait for the facts, or would stick up for them. Like they did with Chris Pratt.

But the gaming industry, it's a unique beast. It doesn't matter what anyone is accused of, how vague, how unbelievable, the entire industry will not only believe it and do so as publicly and as virtue signal-y as possible, but also try as hard as they can to ruin this person's life.

Why is the game industry so unique in that regard? Is there something that accompanies being a gamer with the desire to act this way? Because most other industries and communities are not as extreme as the gaming community. I mean, when a massive chunk of an industry hates a guy like Colin Moriarty, who's never done a bad thing to anyone, and is about as uncontroversial as it gets, you know there's a problem.

Meanwhile, compared to the sports industry/community where you have a football player DeShaun Watson accused of sexual improprieties and/or assault by like 100 women, and it's been kinda "we'll wait for the facts to come out" by most people. If that was the gaming industry? I couldn't imagine. I just don't get the gaming industry.

A good place to start is to look at their education.
 


Kind of sleazy behavior sending drunk sexts to someone in a relationship and then apologising the day after, but not proof of anything more than that. And it has nothing to do with these other women who clearly embellished their story and then tried to cover it up.

I think it's obvious this guy was constantly on the prowl and probably had lots of hits and misses. It's also how he got himself into trouble - he got mixed up with one blue-haired pronoun person too many.
 
It takes a long time to build a defense against false accusations, especially since their reason for making the false accusations has a huge impact on whether it was illegal or not. You gotta wait for the right opening for a knock out punch with this kind of thing.
That really doesn't explain why he wouldn't debunk Dena's claims, especially considering he himself said it would've been the easiest to debunk.

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't say anything on a lawyer's advice to build a case against her in court (i.e. let these contradictions come out in court), but he hasn't yet filed a case against her.

He is going after every single one of them.
CI06wvm.png

"Does" shouldn't refer to Christy Dena, whose name is known and was a friend of Avellone's.

"Defendants Does 1 through 100 are sued herein by fictitious names for the reason that their true names are unknown to Avellone. Avellone will seek to leave to amend this complaint to allege the true names and capacities of these Defendants when they have been ascertained."

There's no reason not to name Dena since her identity is known. It would be a lie in court docs to say her name is unknown to Avellone.
 

BigBooper

Member
That really doesn't explain why he wouldn't debunk Dena's claims, especially considering he himself said it would've been the easiest to debunk.

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't say anything on a lawyer's advice to build a case against her in court (i.e. let these contradictions come out in court), but he hasn't yet filed a case against her.



"Does" shouldn't refer to Christy Dena, whose name is known and was a friend of Avellone's.

"Defendants Does 1 through 100 are sued herein by fictitious names for the reason that their true names are unknown to Avellone. Avellone will seek to leave to amend this complaint to allege the true names and capacities of these Defendants when they have been ascertained."

There's no reason not to name Dena since her identity is known. It would be a lie in court docs to say her name is unknown to Avellone.
What jurisdiction were her claims made in and which court would it be filed in?
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
"Does" shouldn't refer to Christy Dena, whose name is known and was a friend of Avellone's.

"Defendants Does 1 through 100 are sued herein by fictitious names for the reason that their true names are unknown to Avellone. Avellone will seek to leave to amend this complaint to allege the true names and capacities of these Defendants when they have been ascertained."

There's no reason not to name Dena since her identity is known. It would be a lie in court docs to say her name is unknown to Avellone.

Basically referring to Twitter fucktards who don't use their real name. Man, some 17 year olds are going to have a very bad day when their parents get a knock on the door for dumb shit they pulled on Twitter.
 

Hunnybun

Member
What is it about the gaming industry? It seems in a league of its own with stubbornness, ideologically driven, and cowardice.

This is irrespective of Avellone. I have no idea what is true or isn't. And I don't particularly care about this story all that much aside from not wanting an innocent person to be railroaded, whether it's him or these girls.

But I've noticed that in the game industry in particular there is this extreme nature of other aspects of society ratcheted up to 100. In most other fields, if someone was accused of something, of course you'd get the few people who will just virtue signal and believe the whole story immediately without any proof no matter how absurd the story is. Like someone could accuse a famous actor of being a serial killer and killing 10 of this person's friends and you'd have people respond on social media like "omggg that's so horrible, arrest this monster!" but most people in the industry wouldn't respond at all, would wait for the facts, or would stick up for them. Like they did with Chris Pratt.

But the gaming industry, it's a unique beast. It doesn't matter what anyone is accused of, how vague, how unbelievable, the entire industry will not only believe it and do so as publicly and as virtue signal-y as possible, but also try as hard as they can to ruin this person's life.

Why is the game industry so unique in that regard? Is there something that accompanies being a gamer with the desire to act this way? Because most other industries and communities are not as extreme as the gaming community. I mean, when a massive chunk of an industry hates a guy like Colin Moriarty, who's never done a bad thing to anyone, and is about as uncontroversial as it gets, you know there's a problem.

Meanwhile, compared to the sports industry/community where you have a football player DeShaun Watson accused of sexual improprieties and/or assault by like 100 women, and it's been kinda "we'll wait for the facts to come out" by most people. If that was the gaming industry? I couldn't imagine. I just don't get the gaming industry.

I've thought about the same thing a lot, but it still feels like a mystery to me tbh.

The most convenient explanation would be that there's some level of autism or the bitterness of being a nerd (and therefore bullied or awkward or whatever) and that drives the excessiveness or toxicity.

But I'm far from convinced it's that simple.

I think it's probably more of a class thing. Games industry people are one of the most relentlessly middle class groups I know of (in UK context that means basically highly educated and professional background).

And in the UK the more squarely you fall in that category, especially if you're very intelligent, then it's become almost a class identity to be very left wing, and specifically, politically correct.

Maybe it's a but of a combination of the two, along with a vicious circle that the more dominant an attitude becomes, the more powerful the peer pressure is on the marginal case.
 
I've never fully understood cancel culture. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? You can basically have your current and future lively hood destroyed, based on nothing but what's said about you on Twitter. It's bewildering.

I'm sure Chris is an asshole to some extent, but the fact that she went on a twitter deletion spree tells me one thing, she's said a bunch of dumb ass stuff that's probably going to be very counter productive to her claims.

Was there any actual police reports ever filed?
 

kiphalfton

Member
Kind of sleazy behavior sending drunk sexts to someone in a relationship and then apologising the day after, but not proof of anything more than that. And it has nothing to do with these other women who clearly embellished their story and then tried to cover it up.

I think it's obvious this guy was constantly on the prowl and probably had lots of hits and misses. It's also how he got himself into trouble - he got mixed up with one blue-haired pronoun person too many.

God help all the horny guys on tinder / online dating apps, who spammed sexual messages to randoms.


I've never fully understood cancel culture. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? You can basically have your current and future lively hood destroyed, based on nothing but what's said about you on Twitter. It's bewildering.

I'm sure Chris is an asshole to some extent, but the fact that she went on a twitter deletion spree tells me one thing, she's said a bunch of dumb ass stuff that's probably going to be very counter productive to her claims.

Was there any actual police reports ever filed?

Going to court is too costly / timely, and drive-by twitter posts have proven effective. Nuf said.
 
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Why does Avellone need to bring receipts to prove his innocence? It should be the other way round no? He should have immediately filed a lawsuit for slander.
Someone may have already said this, but that's actually NOT how defamation works - when someone lies about you, it's not on the person lying to prove they are telling the truth... it's actually on the person wronged to prove it's defamation. Cool, huh?

The worst part (and why so many of these cases are useless to fight) is sometimes you can't prove things with an "absence" of proof: If you can't prove your accuser is lying, then they win. It's totally backwards from what most people expect, and it's really fucked.

It might be even worse in California, you can defame the shit out of anyone there pretty easily, as I understand it - most judges will dismiss those cases out of hand. Hope Avellone rolls a crit.
 
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BigBooper

Member
That's up to Avellone and what legal advice he gets. He can file in the USA (convenient for him) or he can file in Australia (needs to hire an Aussie lawyer so it's more expensive, but the laws are likely more favorable to him on libel cases). Both avenues are open to him.
No doubt, and I have no idea what jurisdiction either. You think it's a reasonable stance to say that someone who lost his career and had to travel to multiple countries to hire lawyers and gather information about accusations with no evidence should have done more in one year's time?
Come On Reaction GIF by GIPHY News
 

Nickolaidas

Member
No doubt, and I have no idea what jurisdiction either. You think it's a reasonable stance to say that someone who lost his career and had to travel to multiple countries to hire lawyers and gather information about accusations with no evidence should have done more in one year's time?
Come On Reaction GIF by GIPHY News
Imagine expending all that time and energy to protect yourself and take legal action just because some nobody wrote something on their twitter.

This world is going insane.
 
No doubt, and I have no idea what jurisdiction either. You think it's a reasonable stance to say that someone who lost his career and had to travel to multiple countries to hire lawyers and gather information about accusations with no evidence should have done more in one year's time?

what? why would he have to go to muliple countries to gather info?
 
That really doesn't explain why he wouldn't debunk Dena's claims, especially considering he himself said it would've been the easiest to debunk.

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't say anything on a lawyer's advice to build a case against her in court (i.e. let these contradictions come out in court), but he hasn't yet filed a case against her.



"Does" shouldn't refer to Christy Dena, whose name is known and was a friend of Avellone's.

"Defendants Does 1 through 100 are sued herein by fictitious names for the reason that their true names are unknown to Avellone. Avellone will seek to leave to amend this complaint to allege the true names and capacities of these Defendants when they have been ascertained."

There's no reason not to name Dena since her identity is known. It would be a lie in court docs to say her name is unknown to Avellone.
That's the part of this that is most confusing to me. Once again he owes her no favors and in the moment she's trying to take everything from him it almost looks like he's doing her a favor. In this corporate world some of us have chosen to maneuver your name is your key to the door. His year long silence because of how nice he says he is and his wanting them to be heard makes him out to be one of the nicest people I've ever seen in the corporate world, because these people will sue the shit out of you for way less.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Unfortunately for the accused, when stuff like this breaks on social media as well, it puts a ridiculous strain on them to engage in the public arena.

Silence is seen as admittance of credibility to the claims, whereas rash, emotionally charged responses just fan the flames.

The best thing to do is remain silent, be thorough in your evidence gathering and then deliver a proper response. That takes time, and in most cases doesn't even erase the stigma that's come and gone. There has to be repercussions/deterrents to doing this. Account closures and platform bans.

We saw this play out with angry Joe the same:



And these people get to keep their stuff like game team manager shit and partner with twitch despite being full of shit? Whole thing is fucked.


Social media has made everyone a tabloid headline writer where they are the editor, photographer and journalist.
 
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BigBooper

Member
Lets Go Come On Man GIF by filmeditor

what? why would he have to go to muliple countries to gather info?
You are bringing up extraneous diverting questions to distract from his defense so far. Your agenda is clear and I'm not interested in digging through the minutiae mud with you, but I will answer this one question because I could have been wrong. He was fired from a Polish company, because of claims someone in California made that involved someone in Australia. You'll pardon me if he didn't physical travel to three countries because of this.

Ta ta
 
You are bringing up extraneous diverting questions to distract from his defense so far. Your agenda is clear and I'm not interested in digging through the minutiae mud with you, but I will answer this one question because I could have been wrong. He was fired from a Polish company, because of claims someone in California made that involved someone in Australia. You'll pardon me if he didn't physical travel to three countries because of this.

Ta ta
He's not suing the company - this has nothing to do with Poland. He's the one in California. It's the Australian who made claims. He can sue the Australian in the USA or Australia as he wishes. No need to travel to any country either way.

You've got the complete wrong end of the stick about what's happening yet you're acting hostile to me... lol
 
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