A short while ago, someone emailed me, requesting a comic about the “Jennifer Hepler Incident.” Yet again, a woman had become the target of vicious cyberbullying, which is unfortunately becoming a norm within the gaming community ghettoes of the Internet (and elsewhere online, actually). Don’t like what someone has done or said? You’re totally within your rights to substitute constructive criticism and a calmly delivered argument with personal attacks.
E.g. “Do the world a favour. Go and kill yourself, you fat, ugly whore!”
I have another comic lined up that deals explicitly with the topic of cyberbullying. This week’s strip though focuses solely on the Hepler controversy.
In short, Jennifer Hepler, a BioWare-employed writer (who contributed to Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II) became the hated embodiment of “everything that is wrong with gaming today.” This reaction occurred when someone dug up an old interview where Hepler remarked that, among other things, she wishes there was an option to skip fight scenes in games. In other words, say goodbye to frustrating boss fights simply by pressing the Skip Combat button.
Irate gamers, safely hidden behind the veil of Internet anonymity, responded with fire, acid and poison…
Coincidentally, around the same time as the firestorm struck, I got my hands on Dragon Age II. I’m not a fan of traditional RPGs – give me the hack & slash action-RPG dynamic of Diablo II, Titan Quest and World of WarCraft any day – but I decided to give the game a go.
I played Dragon Age II for all of an hour (including character customization) before putting down the controller. I haven’t bothered to load the game since. There was just nothing engrossing or exceptional about Dragon Age II… with the exception of its gratuitousness. I could imagine the characters wanting to skip combat – but for a reason that’s very different from difficulty.
You know, if you did 5 seconds of research, you would have discovered that it was actually Hepler herself who started the whole “cyberbulling” garbage by claiming everyone who didn’t like her abysmal writing was simply “jealous because I have a vagina AND a job in the video games industry”. Then and ONLY THEN did the attacks on her Twitter account start.
If anything, she was the instigator. Bioware and EA, after all, claimed they wanted Call of Duty’s audience. Well, it seems like they got it.
I like how if people insult Gaben because he’s fat it’s funny, but if people call Hamburger Hepler fat it’s evidence of a misogynist crack across the face of gamer culture.
“Don’t like what someone has done or said? You’re totally within your rights to substitute constructive criticism and a calmly delivered argument with personal attacks.”
People DID offer constructive criticism and calmly delivered arguments. It happened all the time on the Bioware forums. What ended up happening was they were accused of trolling and being from 4chan if they didn’t like every single aspect of every Bioware game ever made.
I like your point about DA:II not being very good, though.
completely fucking stupid
go ahead and keep on playing kinect adventures and elmo’s 123 and other shit
understand that hamburger helper herself basically wants to write movies and (shitty) novels.She wants to remove gameplay from video games altogether
what a fucking cunt,go ahead and try to defend that stance.
while you’re at it,strip away the game mechanics from D2,WoW, and Titans Quest.
Oh wait,you’re probably a lorefag as well. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a compelling story,but if you’re going to incorporate it into a VIDEO GAME,make sure you enjoy playing it first dipshit.
Becausr everyone knows women can’t play a mans game. Really, I’ve read through your comics, and you reinforce the stereotype more often than you challenge it. I am dissapoint. Especially simce you then go on to laud Diablo, with it’s oh so deep and compelling storyline, definitely not a hack ‘n slash at all.
Sigh, Derp rage, this whole subject is retarded. Nothing wrong with hacing the option to skip, but they already have easy mode you know. A lot of work goes into designing the gameplay, balancing it out etc. and you get experience because you earn it. You are a saviour because you saved.someome. You, with the avatar, share these victories because you worked for them. You would be taking the part of the game away, it would no longer be a game, but an interactive movie. There’s already a whole genre for that. But you don’t deserve to play the saviour if you don’t save anybody.
Thank god the girls I know who game actually care enough to achieve, instead of wanting a ‘pink’ option of skipping the combat, without giving a fuck about gender bias inherent in your assumption.
Tl;dr fuck you and your post-feminism arrogance.
completely fucking stupid
go ahead and keep on playing kinect adventures and elmo’s 123 and other shit
understand that hamburger helper herself basically wants to write movies and (shitty) novels.She wants to remove gameplay from video games altogether
what a fucking cunt,go ahead and try to defend that stance.
while you’re at it,strip away the game mechanics from D2,WoW, and Titans Quest.
Oh wait,you’re probably a lorefag as well. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a compelling story,but if you’re going to incorporate it into a VIDEO GAME,make sure you enjoy playing it first dipshit.