IGDA slams Nintendo for Alison Rapp firing

Last week, there was outrage over the firing of former Nintendo Treehouse employee, Alison Rapp. Though Nintendo releases this statement:

“Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo’s corporate culture. Though Ms. Rapp’s termination follows her being the subject of criticism from certain groups via social media several weeks ago, the two are absolutely not related.

Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race or personal beliefs. We wish Ms. Rapp well in her future endeavors.”

Some have pointed some rather... "dirty" things about her prior (which some call harassment) prior.

A week later and it's FAR from over, IGDA executive director Kate Edwards openly slams Nintendo for their actions here:

“While Nintendo’s official statement on the matter of Alison Rapp’s firing strives to distance the company from anything related to the orchestrated online campaign of harassment and defamation that was raging against her, their timing in dealing with the issue is dubious at best. Unfortunately, the company seems oblivious to the consequences of their actions, not realizing the perceived victory it handed to the online hate groups who are now pursuing the dismissal of other women game developers by derision and defamation to their companies. By now, we would expect that all game development and publishing companies would be fully aware of negative social media dynamics and be more discerning of online feedback, as well as more protective of their employees — especially their employees of diverse backgrounds. Many have become proactive and aware but this industry obviously needs to make more progress.”

Oh yikes! I was in a mental debate on whether or not to make a thread on this situation, but I felt the need to. (NOTE to mods: If this needs to be locked, go ahead).

(Otherwise) Thoughts?

I must be out of the loop because i have no clue who this person is

Is this something that should have been posted in System Wars and not in the general gaming board?

I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread created on this sooner, tbh. Considering all the hard-on boners for Nintendo hate around here, I am disappoint. :( Give me reason the shit on Ninty, GS!!

Who's to know? Nintendo is generally tone-deaf to anything that isn't relevant to their own on-goings, so any action they take, no matter how politically incorrect, astonishes me. It's just the way they operate. Hard to say whether the smear campaign against her amounted to any consideration in Nintendo's decision to let her go, but I wouldn't discount it. They are a company that is very aware of their perception and take measures to protect it, so it would not raise my brow at all to know that these organized, basement dwelling misogynists held some sway over their decision.

Gamers are shit, more at 11.

Maybe? To be fair, it's not like you don't see any "GGD" like posts on "SW" before.

A person with a mental disorder who promotes kiddy fiddling in Japan who worked for a company that makes kids games, you can kinda see the conflict of interest there even if it was something done years back.

No major company is going to keep an employee that criticizes laws against pedophilia.

I have never seen anyone so open about their sexual preference. I don't know what to say tbh. I'm wired to think it's wrong, because of many reasons but who am I to judge.

Nintendo can fire who they want when they want. Most jobs are like that, plus she was a PR disaster.

I wonder what was the other job she was doing

I get beardmad every time I read one of these articles.

GamerGate is vile and trash, and Nintendo are a bunch of cowards who should have at least had the decency to speak out in support of their employee, and time their termination of her contract better, given circumstances.

That's the summary of the situation.

I thought that about her too.

But then I learned how to read.

@PraetorianMan: it seems to be more and more a lost art these days.

It just annoys the hell out of me that a lot of these people see this as "Nintendo fires Allison Rapp because she is a woman", and not of the stuff she supported and did outside of Nintendo.

Gamergate is not good thing but Alison's comments on pedophilia were disgusting and no company would want the pr hit by supporting an employee with an absolutely sick view of a very sensitive matter.

Nintendo is in the right at the end of the day.

Yup

Some of the posters in this thread serving as further examples.

Nintendo is like every scummy corporation, they will only look out for themselves. It wouldn't be surprising if they're using "moonlighting" as an excuse to publically terminate her. It's not exactly new for corporations to fire controversial figures in their employment, even if was morally wrong.

wtf is that, am I missing something here, or is it straight up fake?

Of course they will lookout for themselves, who wouldn't? You companies reputation is always on the line! Granted how Nintendo handle this situation is piss poor, but she was already been found out that she supports pedophilia and Nintendo is a company that markets to children in the eyes of parents.

If she really does support pedophilia then she deserves to be fired, especially for a family friendly company like Nintendo.

I've had a lot of time to think about this since this is older news and honestly I just can't be worked up to care enough.

Also, the IGDA has been a complete joke for years. Please don't give that corrupted monster a platform as if they are relevant.

Nintendo, like all corporations, have a reputation to keep. We can always question them regarding how they censor their games and how they handle their business. As a global corporation that provides Video Games as family-friendly entertainment, you're better to have your staff to keep their personal business in the closet regardless of their political and religious beliefs. Idiots that defend Ms. Rapp, forget that Nintendo is a family company whose products target more directly at children more so than adults and having someone working in your company that supports pedophilia will damage their reputation.

Even if it's all slander, they want to be safe than sorry. But in the end, no matter what decision, even if they decide to keep Ms. Rapp longer, they'll still get shitted on for supporting a pro-pedophile.

I wouldn't allow someone like her to work for my company either.

Meh.

This is too heavy for me and i'm too lazy to care.

Hope the good guy wins, whoever he is.

She doesn't support pedophilia. I would ask people in this thread to actually read about the issue before mouthing off on it, but that's probably expecting too much, so I'll refrain.

Doesn't matter, whats done is done! No matter what Nintendo does, they'll always get shitfaced. I'm not sure why would anyone care as it's just business as usual.

http://humansarefree.com/2016/02/nintendo-pr-employee-advocates.html

What's that then?

@JangoWuzHere: To be very clear, I do not think Nintendo would have been wrong in firing her for moonlighting, or for thinking she does not present a good face of the company to the public, or for any other reason- it is their right to terminate employees they feel are not a good fit for their corporate culture.

But that's not what this is about- whether or not Nintendo actually terminated her in the face of GG is now immaterial- the problem is that by never speaking out in her support, and by firing her in the midst of this controversy, without ever publicly having extended any support to her first, they have given GamerGate, a group of vile cyber terrorists and bullies, a symbolic victory, which gives them fuel to target and harass even more people online. The timing was ill conceived, and even if Nintendo did want to terminate Rapp, they either should have issued a statement publicly denouncing GG, or they should have waited for this hubbub to die down. Nintendo's firing of Allison Rapp may not necessarily be wrong on a technicality- literally everything else they did in this situation was.

I'm glad to see so many folks that can look past the "Women are victims" card being played by gaming journalist.

Chris Pranger was fired by Nintendo a day after a Podcast because of this,

"You look at something like even Xenoblade Chronicles," Pranger said. "People love that game, you know, within a certain group. That game is not the type of game that just pulls in enough to justify the costs on that.

"So that's like, we got it in the States by luck, that [Nintendo of Europe] decided, 'Oh, we'll take the fall. We'll localise that.' Okay, 'cause someone is going to have to eat the costs somewhere, because that game is guaranteed to not sell enough to justify how big that game is. You know, hundreds of hours, all voiced. That's a lot of money that goes into that.

"And people are like, 'Why do you guys hate money?' We don't. That's why you literally can't make everything. And people don't like finding out that their fanbase is actually too small to justify the costs of the thing they want."

Yet we go to great lengths to defend Alison Rapp? The things she said on social media were 100000000X worse than what Chris said and it took a mob of folks bitching to Nintendo to make it happen. I don't know much about GamerGate or SJW stances, but it seems as if Alison received special treatment in this case. If it was Chris Pranger defending pedophilia or speaking out in favor of sex offenders he would have been let go within 24 hours. And Chris being let go didn't receive the outrage Alisons did. Why? Because she is a female? But why is there such an outrage over the outcome and a dismissal of her wrongdoing? @charizard1605_ maybe you can help me here?

Pretty sure that's pedophilia support.

A shame moderators have to refrain from moderating the community now.

Don't post stupid shit on social media.

Filthy misogynist.

@SpinoRaptor24: She is quoting from a 48 page thesis paper she wrote. Taking four lines out of context can be used to prove anything. Hell, one could make Sanders out to be a worse Donald Trump than Donald Trump with selective quoting like that.

Let's go get some chicken wings at Hooters!

I was unaware that engaging in discussion = moderating the community.

Exactly, Nintendo has a reputation to keep to Parents and Kids. This person is no one special, but her job is to help sell Nintendo games, but since she couldn't keep her mouth quiet in Social Media, Nintendo has the right to terminate anyone that doesn't fit in their corporate cultures. Also, I remember a decade ago of a woman that did worked at NoA hq, and she had a blog discussing how much she hated working at NoA, but she was terminated when the higher ups found her blog and when she stupidly open up her name and exposed her pictures.

My thoughts...

Dude, it's clear that she's openly defending pedophilia. I mean her tweet clearly says to stop hating on people who like kids.

Take off your white knight goggles already.

@charizard1605: C'mon man, think of the children.

Still don't get the fuss...employees gets fired all the time...why is she so special? I guess if you work for a big company don't post stupid stuff on the net. :P

Not to mention those tweets were recent from December 2015.

@superbuuman:

1. She's in the media

2. She has lady parts

Not what I had said, but I also didn't realize you were going to continue engaging in discussion. The original post seemed like you were going to refrain from further discussion and let misinformation run rampant in the thread, not bothering to take action by either trying to correct information through discussion or by doing the job of a moderator.

Supporting pedophilia?

What are you referring to? The essay she wrote in college? That was not a defense of pedophilia, in fact it was more an enlightenment of the distinctions and cultural disparities between them in how they view the subject than of her own views on it. Idiots that jump immediately to the defense of Nintendo here should do their research prior to making such claims.

It's astonishing that people believe this woman supports pedophilia. Find a HDD full of it on her computer? **** yea, fire her and prosecute her ass to prison in the meantime. But fire her YEARS after what many claim she stood in defense of pedophilia when the smear campaign was at its height against her? Sorry, that is too much of a coincidence and indicative of cowardly concession by this company that has allowed their desire to protect their image to transgress into unjust persecution.

Well if Trump or Sanders were irresponsible enough to post tweets that could cause this sort of misunderstanding I'm sure folks would understand the backlash. And seeing the tweets again, I don't see how these things were even taken out of context. Defending her seems like a stretch. If I posted the things she did I would lose my job as well. I signed a contract saying that my posts on social media are a reflection on my company and that I am responsible for anything I make public. This is why I keep my personal life private on message boards. I reflect my employer. So did Alison. And she made very poor decisions in that regard. Making Nintendo out to be the bad guy is the wrong move here. And saying it's because of Sexism is asinine.