DICKS AHOY
Banned
They're joking. Thorgi's response earlier to somebody pointing out some amusing hypocrisy behind this situation was that people were digging too deep.
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Fabricated Notch/Mojang party escort allegations; Twitter monsters spring into action
- Thread starter Misguided
- Start date
What was her goal, then? What would she have gained by casting him in a negative light without any reason? Indie developers often have close relationships. If she was spouting malicious bullshit, other developers would have come to Notch's defense and told Holly off. But they didn't, because they knew her heart was in the right place and that the issue would be resolved with a level-headed discussion.
Her initial approach didn't seem to be the most diplomatic, but once everyone calmed down, a discussion was had and everyone was better off for it.
faceless007
Member
Saying she acted "extremely irresponsibly and was drastically out of line" "has an annoyingly presumptuous and demanding tone" and "patronizing, smug, unwarranted, and irresponsible" is giving her a free pass. OK.
If you don't think she was attacked, look at the messages sent to her over Twitter during that time. Death threats, sexual harassment, and misogyny galore.
Damn you are really creating your own narrative here.
RobotMafia
Banned
If Arthur Gies is on your side you have to know you fucked up.
Because this right here.
Again - it's silly to assume that Notch's few public comments are the whole truth (because it is always silly to assume this about anything and anyone ever) and it is embarrassing to see posters fall over themselves to condemn one woman's "tone" and allegations - false or not - and wave a pass to the multitude of men that aren't currently on their personal shit list who said similar things in a similar public way. I'm not saying every poster doing this has an agenda but it is obvious that some do.
Again, selective paraphrasing for the win. I was pointing out that the users here misinterpreted a joke she made a weeks ago as a serious statement. And "digging too deep" was me trying to say (poorly, it seems) that I found it humorous you had to search that far back for something you just misinterpreted.
I'm glad that one SimCity review you disagreed with is reason enough for you to discredit his entire opinion.
And you guys aren't?
You totally missed that entire debacle didn't you? It wasn't about the review ( which he didn't even write btw )
DICKS AHOY
Banned
I'm pretty sure I hate just as much if not more gaming figures who are male and handle themselves terribly on twitter than female ones.
There was a similar twitter drama to this one a few months ago about where a white character in Borderlands 2 was a racist caricature of black people, and the guy making the original accusations was acting even more over the top than Holly Green was here. I don't remember feeling like giving him a pass because he happened to have a penis.
We aren't . You are making assumptions and people are pulling your card for lack of facts. Especially since you keep admitting that she went about it the wrong way even in your imaginary narrative.
The SimCity review was only another chapter in the ongoing Gies saga. And it wasn't the review itself that was the major issue, as you'd know if you were familiar with the situation.
Hmm, I just noticed that he is routinely criticized for his twitter statements on GAF, and he's male!
Now I know you're trolling.
Right because there weren't already plenty of reasons before Sim City!
Was it about him insisting that the people claiming it could go offline and didn't work for Maxis had no idea what they were talking about? I agree that he stuck to his guns too long on that issue, but at the time it was a reasonable stance. Most online users like to claim that they could do better or they know the true motivations or functions of a game that they didn't even design. We never would have known for sure if that anonymous Maxis employee hadn't spoken up, and back when that statement was made, said Maxis employee hadn't said anything.
Why?
I'd like to hear the reasons before SimCity, as I wasn't aware he upset people about anything else.
Guess you didn't do your research.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
It takes something like a minute to find that original tweet. Most people weren't taking it as a statement from her that men-for-hire were a-okay while women under the same profession weren't. They were taking it that she obviously wasn't offended about the concept when it concerned a man, yet the vague suggestion that there may have been but ultimately weren't women doing the same thing at this private party was enough to publicly attack someone.
I also find it ironic that you call me out for paraphrasing something immediately after you dismiss people's general distrust of Gies for not liking a SimCity review, which if you'd bothered to read up about the issue, he wasn't even the one to write in the first place.
A hacker discovered and revealed what could be done offline at the end of the day, not just an anonymous source. And why couldn't gies have hunted down said source? Isn't he a journalist? Shouldn't he have been going down and finding out it was really true, when so many people were questioning it? No. He had to attack everyone and their mothers even after the fact, it's disgraceful. Just like here, just side with whomever without analyzing all the facts, gathering real information and not just rumors, and putting together an entire picture of the situation. Or am I expecting to much? Evilore laid it out best earlier.
Baconsammy
Banned
That depends. Is Notch one of those geeks that she claimed was a sexless misogynist?
It was amusing to listen to him rail on the horribly sexist SSM female employee who wrote the questionable trophy title a few weeks ago. I'm still waiting to hear his perspective on why he knows more about sexism than an actual woman in the industry, but whatever I guess. As vicktor said, it's just easier to rail about things on twitter without actually being a journalist and researching stories. This is just another example of him jumping on an publicized incident without looking into the backstory.
EatinOlives
Member
It was never a reasonable stance, because he never knew the logistics of the online infrastructure but simply took the bullshit Maxis PR as gospel and pretended he objectively knew how it worked. He then went on to butt heads with John Walker because Walker's article had a source that directly contradicted what Gies' was pretending to know.
I don't know why you keep supplanting reality with your own and making random conclusions out of it. You did it with this topic and now you're doing it with Gies and SimCity.
Hey now, no need to dig too deep
Just because someone went about something the wrong way doesn't mean their intentions were bad. Even the most noble make mistakes. I think her method was flawed, but she shouldn't be attacked for it. Only a few here have bothered to offer constructive criticism. Why is that?
...and yes, I realize I initially didn't do the same for EviLord. I want to fix that; I think he (or you if you're reading this) probably aren't misogynistic or even narrow-minded. Such assumptions of character would be improper of me, for I don't know you. However, I wish that you had handled this in a nicer fashion without portraying either Arthur Gies or Holly Green as villains, when you also don't have the full facts at play here.
I've been following Arthur Gies on Twitter for over a year, and have kept up to date on Polygon's articles. I assumed that was all I needed to tell when he struck a nerve with the GAF crowd, but apparently that was a mistake.
Whether or not you feel she didn't post for that purpose, ppl in this thread feel she did.
Wickerbasket
Member
Because that would make you as bad as them? Right?
DICKS AHOY
Banned
He's hardly going to talk about taking money people donated to build a gaming PC or welshing on bets with people he made in the first place. I don't think he's the HITLER OF GAME JOURNALISM some people desperately want to make him out to be, but he has a serious issue admitting when he's wrong over something and following through with his own promises.
Again, there's a certain irony going on about how people have a narrow-minded view of a situation and not having the complete picture, all while basing your stance regarding Gies seemingly entirely off his own twitter feed.
When the developer spends lengthy blog posts explaining how a game works, I don't know what else you're supposed to assume, especially since none of the outside crowd truly knew how that game worked when he made that statement. When Randy Pitchford talked about Aliens: Colonial Marines, gave demos, etc., we only had his word to go on, so at the time, it was reasonable for us to assume that the game was the same game he showed off at press conventions.
Such an assumption ended up hurting us in the end, which I believe also happened to Polygon with SimCity. Everyone was caught with their pants down. I don't see any reason to hold grudges.
I guess that's what I'm trying to say with this whole Holly Green thing. She made mistakes, but it feels wrong to demonise her as a crazy feminist when that's only a quarter of the person you're likely seeing.
RobotMafia
Banned
He didn't actually write that sim city review fyi. But his disgusting jerking off of maxis and how they handled the whole thing should be enough for him to lose whatever tiny amount of credibility he had left.
Also, Holly was looking for twitter hits, website hits, whatever by posting these rumors. Not really hard to figure out. She wanted attention and guess what she got it so I guess she wins.
Edit: VERY few people were caught with their pants down in regards to Sim City. Plenty of reviewers, websites saw straight thru the EA bullshit and didn't post reviews until after the REAL servers were up. Polygon doesn't have any integrity so they didn't give a shit.
Woo-Fu
Banned
Nerd world problems, IMHO. Any story that can be created(in this case fabricated) about the current hot topic is good for hits.
The goal? Publicity.
As for other devs not jumping to Notch's defense:
A - he's a big boy and can handle it himself
B - we've got better things to do than get caught up w/Twidiots
C - some of us have been to a nightclub before and know the drill
It's the longer, more nuanced developer conversations off Twitter that matter. Memories are long in this business.
Wickerbasket
Member
People make mistakes all the time, it's how they react to those mistakes that shows who they really are.
Even once Gies was proven wrong on every point he refused to admit fault, instead trying to place the blame on others. I can understand why he felt the need to defend Holly, as they seem to have a lot in common.
OK, I can see what you're getting at. He's bull-headed and doesn't like to admit when he's wrong. Kind of like Phil Fish, eh?
Maybe I'm too forgiving. I think Phil Fish is great, even though he said some dumb things and is bullish about his opinions. I just worry that we see this two-dimensional portrayal of a person and take them for their whole. It's easy to do. I've made that mistake time and time again, but I'm doing my best to break that habit.
EatinOlives
Member
So it was entirely correct of him to rabidly defend Maxis/EA and antagonize those who were skeptical and were starting to show otherwise? It's one thing to believe PR, it's another entirely to take it as 100% truth and go on lengthy Twitter crusades about it against anyone who disagrees with it. To this day he still hasn't admitted his mistake.
So let me ask you this: why do you keep repeating that people should know all the facts before they judge when you're defending someone who made plenty of allegations knowing little himself?
ambientmystic
Member
Seriously though, Mr/Ms. Thorgi, what do you stand to gain from continuing this line of thought?
The facts have been laid out, and the person(s) you're defending are clearly NOT on the side of the angels on this particular issue.
EDIT:- Removed the offending remark.
The facts have been laid out, and the person(s) you're defending are clearly NOT on the side of the angels on this particular issue.
EDIT:- Removed the offending remark.
Baconsammy
Banned
RobotMafia
Banned
Phil Fish isn't supposed to be objective about things. Arthur Gies is. I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand.
She publicly continued to accuse someone of being a liar (and, by extension, a misogynist) in a public setting rather than stepping back to re-assess the questionable information she had. I'm not sure why people should offer her "constructive criticism" when her method of developing a story was attacking someone without first checking her story.
Which is why she moved the discussion to an in-person meeting. The two of them talked in detail, reconciled, and went their separate ways.
I guess that's my point. I feel like everyone is so focused on the Twitter interactions that we're missing the discussion they had in person. And after it's published, we should read it and decide for ourselves. We're making value judgments over a Twitter conversation (and yes, I apologize for assuming Gies' innocence under the same standards).
Please don't do that. Thorgi is entitled to an opinion.
ambientmystic
Member
I apologize for that remark. I'll edit the offending part out.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
I would argue it's far easier to divorce Phil Fish and his personality 'quirks' from his work (especially given Fez was still at least something of a group effort) than Gies from his journalistic work. It doesn't help all of Polygon's writers have something of an addiction to Twitter and tend to comment on any and every mention of their site; it's quickly colored my opinion of not only Gies but Justin and Crescente.
Though I sort of get where you're coming from with wanting people to be aware that every story has two sides, but personally I think most people *do* have that in mind... It'd just be somewhat repetitive to have to always follow up every mention of how someone dislikes Arthur Gies with "But I'm sure from his perspective he feels hard doneby, has a source that suggests otherwise or genuinely feels publishers/developers should be trusted over consumers". I'm sure Holly Green probably stands for a lot of things I also believe. Doesn't change that I feel in this situation I personally think and agree with others she was being opportunist, didn't research her accusation at all and Gies was jumping on a bandwagon.
Baconsammy
Banned
My opinion is constructed based on her past comments and her current actions. What else should I use? Should I trust some random guy on a game forum that tells me she sure is swell if you get to know her?
I want to defend him for taking her side about this issue in particular. It was wrong for him to comment on SimCity when he didn't know the full facts, but we can assume he's familiar with Holly. He follows her, he's likely talked to her in person, worked with her, etc. So I don't see why the SimCity issue discredits his opinion in this issue.
Can we actually assume this? You are doing a lot of assuming. Is there any basis for any of this?