
In late March there was a great deal of debate related to Alison Rapp and Nintendo of America, as the former had her employment terminated; Rapp had been a Product Marketing Specialist in the Treehouse team.
Rapp had been, in the weeks preceding her dismissal, at the centre of online campaigns protesting against her perceived role at Nintendo and some of her publically expressed opinions and writings. The reasons for these campaigns were varied depending on the individuals and groups in question, though it was certainly the case that Rapp was under sustained pressure online and in social media. In tweets following her departure from the company, some of these issues and online campaigns were portrayed by Rapp as key factors.
Nintendo of America issued its own statement, however, in which it asserted that the dismissal related to matters of secondary employment.
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.
Though Nintendo has sought to separate the issues, as per its statement, there has been criticism in some quarters of its decision - some developers have written strongly on the topic, such as Brandon Sheffield of Necrosoft Games. Now International Game Developers Association executive director Kate Edwards has issued a statement - IGDA has 8000 members globally.
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.
It's a highly emotive and complex topic, and the input of the influential IGDA will bring the topic back to the fore. In targeting the timing and public perception of Rapp's dismissal, Edwards is focusing the argument on the nature of the sacking and its reception online, which raises potential issues around how public relations can impact topics such as these.
To briefly go into first person, when reporting on Rapp's dismissal I closed comments, with the feelings and emotions around the debate being - in my opinion - too raw for a constructive debate. I encouraged any readers with feedback to send us an email.
First of all, thank you to everyone that emailed in. I couldn't reply to everyone but I read the emails, both those in support and those against, and the vast majority were fair, civilised and controlled. I appreciated the information some provided, and the opinions on all sides. Closing comments isn't done lightly, as it's considered a cornerstone of our site that they exist. It's interesting to me that a lot of newspapers are selective about which articles have comments sections on their sites, but for communities like this it's expected as standard. That's a good thing, as we can all learn more about issues and each other through debate and conversation.
In any case, as a little time has passed I'm leaving comments open here. Please remain on topic, however, namely on the statement issued by the International Game Developers Association. Any abusive language or replies will be dealt with appropriately.
Thank you for your understanding.
[source venturebeat.com]
Comments 217
All I'll say is Nintendo could have handed the whole matter better so I agree with what IGDA said.
Honestly don't know how I feel about this one. If she violated her contract Nintendo has the right to fire her which it seems she did with that second job. On the other hand this happened so close to the censorship rage against Nintendo it may of been better to at least give her two more weeks or something. I don't know stuff like this is why I don't want to get into business.
Though one does have to wonder if her personal beliefs were at least a part of it since they were pretty strong and not a good face for Nintendo but it says that was not a factor so ugh this whole situation.
Either way I wish her the best of luck.
Uh, in#t this the woman who said pedophilia is OK?
Yeah, I don#t care how this was handled.
I love how other people can tell companies how to handle their employee policies. /s
Disgusting watching people using the Alison Rapp case to attack Nintendo. She will have difficulties to find another representative job because of that.
People need to let this go, she screwed up, she got fired. happens everyday.
Not this again. >_>
My only issue with this is that now every firing case will have to be scrutinized to see if we're not giving a "win" to Internet hate groups.
Seriously, this is complicated. Too complicated for people to stick their nose into.
Don't know enough about the firing but before that I would've liked to see Nintendo come to the defense of Alison who was taking heat for something she wasn't involved in. She doesn't work in localization and had nothing to do with the censorship. She was simply the PR rep for that game. The attacks on her were brutal and sad. Nintendo should've stepped in and done something in my opinion.
@Hitman1102 What this guy said.
What's dubious is Alison getting away with posting lingerie photos from her spare time project on her official Nintendo Twitter for so long.
I'd have fired her too as soon as that came to my attention, had I been her superior.
I think he repent tweets also helped get her fired.
@Xaessya - edited to remove profanity
@ikki5 exactly, if she was fired for cause that's on her.
Alison Rapp was framed.
I don't understand who those who created a blatantly targeted campaign, one that led to a woman getting fired from her job, can sleep at night.
I think the IGDA's statement sums it up well. Online vigilantes are a real-world problem, and big companies are some of the only ones with the power to influence these mobs. They should be taking careful care to diffuse certain situations rather than add fuel to the flame.
I don't know much about Alison's views, and I don't care much to know. There are billions of bigots and 'forward thinking' hipsters in the world. Just cause someone with odd or 'wrong' views shows up on the internet, doesn't mean she deserves the full concentration of the world's hate.
Edit: That's just in regards to the internet hate. After looking at the comments below, I think Nintendo's firing of her is beyond justified, if a little mis-timed.
@Hitman1102 I think you're demanding too much from a company. Stepping into a warzone like this would pretty much become PR disaster. Companies are not supposed to "protect" anyone on the internet.
@Hitman1102
I applaud Nintendo's attitude towards the internet. They never acknowledge trolls or haters by giving them any attention. Alison stepped out of line by using her official Twitter to get into fisticuffs with idiots.
The IGDA is a joke.
Unless Nintendo have a very good reason for disallowing an employee to have second job, then I think, this would not hold up in an unfair dismissal tribunal.
As long as the second job does not conflict with the first. Even MP's in the UK have second and third jobs
It would be helpful if Nintendo explained why they have this rule.
In regards to being fired, some corporations are like that. Wal-Mart is a personal example that didn't make me bitter I might add. Some corporations just have policies against having a second job, so on this "second job" subject, I see myself that had a similar situation in the past.
As far as the other things that's perceived as more personal about Miss Rapp, I don't know... But hopefully all will continue to go well for Miss Rapp as long as she remains committed to her good desires, and good people will still respect her good faith work ethic.
A learning experience and a stepping stone.
What I don't understand is why not close your accounts down for a while or indefinitely. I've seen people to this when coming under fire. It almost seems like they like the attention.
I'm 100% sure Nintendo's legal reason and actual reason are 2 different things in letting her go. We will never know truly why for legal reasons.
@zool
I think it has to do with using her affiliation with Nintendo to gain popularity for her second business.
If she had been waiting tables at a café in the weekends, I doubt very much they would have cared.
However, if they really were just looking for a reason to fire her, they might still have been able to come up with any number of reasons in that scenario.
It's probably a lose lose situation for everyone involved.
@zool There's been no statement directly from Rapp in regards to her second job, but generally, Nintendo -does- allow moonlighting. A lot of the treehouse's translators also do freelance work on the side, and a lot of their VO artists work for other companies when they're not required.
When PR is concerned - worse, PR who mentions your company name directly in the bio of their personal twitter account; the range of jobs you can really take "on the side" shrinks massively - and it's likely Rapp took a second job that Nintendo either explicitly or implicitly forbids their PR staff from taking when they're a "face" of the company.
It is highly suspicious what Nintendo did.
It's pretty cleAr ultra masculine ahte groups got a huge victory here and i sincerely hope NoA does somethong to rectify this
What was the case last year or the one before, about the Nintendo representative that was fired for talking to freely and generally online about internal company policy?
Its still so surprising that 'gamers' feel so threatened by women in the gaming industry. She was simply scapegoated about something that had nothing to do with her (censorship in FE and XCX), and Nintendo of America made the WRONG decision in giving in to the immature hate and outrage. It feels more like they used that 2nd job as an excuse to end the bad PR, but don't they realize they're just encouraging this behavior? The hate groups who had been blackmailing and threatening her got exactly what they wanted. Enjoy the future you're setting up for yourself, NOA...
You think ppl would have made such a big deal about this if Sony or Microsoft did this instead of Nintendo? Doubt it.
She was saying some very controversial stuff, while being employed at a very family friendly company, what did ppl think would happen. Let it go, she was fired, it's nobodies business but hers and Nintendo
I think what has happened here is pretty self evident. Ms Rapp was obviously airing views which Nintendo were concerned about clashing with their family focused brand. They couldn't sack her for that, so they took advantage of a clause in her contract restricting her from having a secondary income, which she did have. It is simple damage control, and a company wisely protecting its image and property from an employee with potentially dangerous or inflammatory opinions.
Can't understand her stance on child pornography though. Until a person is a reasonable age, they are so easily manipulated. Sexualisation can and does have damaging implications for children, particularly if they have been manipulated to perceive such experiences in a certain way. I won't lie, I am glad she no longer works for Nintedo.
@Yorumi @Pod It's hillarious that noone (after countless posts, and with many people who reads both Nintendo's and Rapp's tweets) on NeoGAF for sure can say what her second job is. But 2 individuals on Nintendolife knows the nature of it, and knows that she used her official twitter account for it...?
@Pod Chris Pranger? Yeah, I remember that, a lot of internet fallout over the guy basically leaking stuff that was under NDA. Apparently, Nintendo should have just let all of that slide because he was making "a stand" or some equally dubious justification.
... I'd say something about the cyclical nature of history here, but it goes without saying.
@Pod You mean the man named Chris, I think, working at Treehouse and also appearing at Nintendo's E3 broadcasts.
I don't understand why people have to give a damn about the fault of the employees. She lost the job because she got a second job, get real here.
Actually I would think Adam Orth exit from Microsoft would be a better comparison than Chris Pranger. Point being if you are in PR don't go posting personal stuff on twitter.
Why would the International Game Developers Association chime in on this? She was not even a Dev.
The issue is that we are not privy to full information behind the dismissal, if it is unfair I am sure Miss Rapp's Union would/will win successfully in her favour.
But it all boils down to one thing.
Internet geeks, gamers and Indie coders such as Brandon Sheffield trying to save the girl. That in a way is 'stereotyping' females in the workplace even more. These guys all think they are Knights saving a helpless, beautiful Princess for their own pleasure. Quite shameful.
I'd bet that had Miss Rapp been a plump, middle aged man like Brandon Sheffield there would be NO comments on the issue.
I'll never understand people who post super-controversial stuff like that on social media websites when they know (or should know, at least) that stuff like that is often monitored by the employers they work for. I respect the fact that she has her own viewpoint on certain explosive topics, but is it really smart to post stuff like that when you're working for a company that's trying to maintain a "family friendly" image in the West? Not to mention once you post something on the internet, it's basically out there forever.
I'm not going to comment on the GG side of this, as I don't really feel like there's much to say at this point.
What a surprise, comments are open.
On the topic of the statement issued by the International Game Developers Association, they are full of it.
@Yorumi yeah some of my best friends are black too.
@LexKitteh Please try to keep the conversation about the subject at hand, her gender is not one of them.
I agree with IGDA. They are right to call out Nintendo on this issue because NOA's actions have indeed empowered Rapp's antagonizers and we should not be surprised and indeed expect campaigns of harassment like this to continue in the industry until a company finally says enough and stands by their employee.
Looking at it another way, this affect's a publisher's income. Developers have already pulled out from developing for the WiiU as a result of this termination. Actions like this will affect the company's bottom line and prevent players from experiencing these games on their console, so if it was a game they really wanted to play, they will go elsewhere. Maybe it's the financial aspect that will finally cause companies to stand by their employees in situations like these.
She seems like a cool person. Sad to see her fired.
So, just associate yourself with some sensitive online movement and you shouldn't ever be fired? I need to use this trick...
@Yorumi She's allowed to have different beliefs on what is right or wrong about human sexuality. 80 years ago 13 year olds were getting married. What is and is not acceptible isn't some law dictated on high from God and as long as one isn't participating in hate speech, they aren't wrong for expressing their opinion.
I don't undrstand why people are making a big deal about it. When you work PR, it's public relations. You are there to make the company look good. Attracting hate doesn't make the company look good.
Nintendo isn't there to protect the PR staff, the PR staff is there for their skills in PUBLIC RELATIONS! No matter what anyone feels about this case, she was bad at her job. She didn't relate to the public well! If a PR person makes the company look bad, says controversial things, or brings negative attention, they get fired! Simple.
Second job is likely the way the actually competent lawyers and PR team are handling the situation!
It's not a social justice issue, it's not a gender issue, not an ethical issue. It comes down to a person failing at their job.
@rsanchez1 I do find it funny that the string of articles (on an event that happened last week no less) on this topic most have had the comments closed on most sites. Its almost like they don't want discussion or something
@GoodGoshJosh
Developers left a console no longer in production... sure it's because of this, not a convenient escape...
@aluminafalcon
No, it's because the discussion tends to be sjw nonsense, misogyny, and gamergate battles. It's a messy debacle everytime.
@OrsonZedd
You can have an opinion, but expressing it in a professional setting will usually get you fired. Shoot, wishing someone a merry christmas can land you in some hot water!
People are STILL talking about this? She got fired for doing wrong stuff; things like this happen a lot.
I don't know the whole story, and it seems like a touchy subject, so perhaps I better not go too far into it. But if what Nintendo says is true about the reason of termination, they can't allow someone to continue working there just because they are being harassed online. They need to protect the rules at the company.
@Sinister IGDA is all about easy gains. Don't exactly know what they mean by "diverse" though. That's one of many words that have lost all meaning lately.
@STiger
IGDA? More like... uhh... belongs in the trash?
Also, is it weird that I read the first quote and thought of this person breaking their contract and getting fired because of it, then read the 2nd one saying that they fired her just because she was a girl?
@GamePerson19
Well, the contract breach is an excuse. The girl thing is an accusation. She really lost her PR job for giving nintendo some bad publicity
@Yorumi What's interesting about this is that she was aggressively anti-censorship (like, her whole philosophy was that the US should stay out of Japan's culture with no exceptions), especially lately with XCX and Fire Emblem.
I wonder how much that factored into their decision.
people like to cry sexism because, let's face it, no one wants to lose their job, and it's an easy accusation.
no one can prove they're not sexist, and technically everyone is sexist, EVERYONE. But when you accuse someone of being sexist, they cannot prove they are not sexist. they can claim and try to reason it, but there can never be proof. You can prove someone is sexist. If they claim to be, or make any derogatory statement about opposite sex.
once the claim is laid, everyone will just scrutinize and see if someone the accused does can be seen as sexist. She was fired. Most HR people are women, right? so likely a woman fired her. but a woman can be sexist too I guess, against women.
it's a easy to throw accusation that can pick up traction and work. same with the racism card. Why do people not like obama? what? is it his policies? nope, it's always racism. what if it's a black man criticizing Obama? then he's racist against his own race. it's all just madness... madness that people accept these accusations and it ends all discourse!
The timing could have been better but I don't think many/if any big companies would fire someone over an internet attack unless it negatively impacted her work performance, which then that person would be fired for that and not the attacks. Any company as big as Nintendo probably doesn't care about those online attacks. I don't think this will become the norm for big companies.
Sadly, smaller companies risk a lot more keeping employees that get targeted.
You know it simply could have been the fact that all this stupidity that has happened around her caused Nintendo to finally see the thing that got her fired. The fact is that we really do not know, only she and Nintendo knows.
Once again, "Just because you are offended, doesn't mean that you are right."
What is there to have handled better / differently? Isn't it a bit sexist to force her gender as a factor into a very common, uninteresting corporate matter?
This is an unfortunate situation all around. So here is my take on it.
First of all, the timing of the Alison Rapp's dismissal makes it appear that Nintendo did this in response to the social media firestorm which had worked to get her fired.
Certainly, you can say from an almost five-year old Tweet cited above (Comment #13) that her positions are nothing new — just newly discovered. A sentiment expressed in a college thesis that Japanese cultural norms should not have to conform to Western cultural norms (vis-a-vis underage erotic depictions) turned it to/was made into support for child pornography. (I have neither done research on this or have first-hand knowledge, though the Tweet in Comment #13 makes it appear to be the former).
Still, if she had been doing that for five years and Nintendo monitors social media (which is not as easy as it seems), they may have seen posts like that. (I also don't know whether such post occurred before or after her employment at Nintendo).
But there is some reason to believe that Nintendo probably knew at least something about Alison Rapp's non-traditional/controversial views on this before the recent social media storm. But it was not enough to make her a liability to the company.
However, the photo shoots appear to have been the tipping point. At least that is what Nintendo says. And looking at the shoots, how they were promoted, and what props were used, it is understandable.
What is unknown is how much discipline — if any — Alison Rapp received for her actions before being dismissed. This is a personnel matter and will most likely never become public.
The end statement is that an employee became too much of a liability for a company to remain employed. The company claims it was because of her actions in secondary employment; others think it is because of her controversial views and the firestorm they caused. Certainly, most people here would be subject for discipline up to dismissal from their positions if they did took any of these types of actions while in their current employment.
My end point is that this is a complicated matter for which we don't know all of the facts. It is not the first time someone will be fired — nor will it be the last. Unfortunately, some people and groups are using this situation for free publicity or to move forward their own agendas — without knowing the full story. And none of us know the full story.
(PS — I wonder what the reaction would have been if this occurred at another gaming company. We only know who the is in the Treehouse because Nintendo made them "public." But this could have occurred at Sony or Microsoft or any developer and we would not know it. And if it did and we knew about it, I imagine at least some people would not be as concerned because they like going against Nintendo).
"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"
Internet folks might be jerks, but they're rarely without their [unjust and petty] reasons for doing stupid stuff. Actual race/gender superiority groups notwithstanding.
If the internet hate group's adgenda was to defame women, wouldnt we be seeing a pattern, whether it's those being fired or those of higher power being targeted? Or is this another case of "not enough people" speaking up?
Let's just remember her job was in PR and she instigated a PR disaster. The sensible thing would have been to vanish from social media at the first sign of trouble. Heck the sensible thing would have not been to tell the would she was a Nintendo employee and so openly share such a controversial dissertation that reeked of irony amongst everything else.
What depresses me about this statement is that the IGDA apparently doesn't actually care about Ms Rapp either. They're not really saying that Nintendo shouldn't have fired her, merely that they should have fired her a little later so as to not hand a "perceived victory" to the haters.
So she's a pawn to them as much as to the haters. A scapegoat for the one side, a martyr for the other. Neither side truly cares about the actual people, the actual cases, the actual facts. Just quick ideological victories.
@Yorumi Makes sense. I wasn't sure if Nintendo was that free on that or not. Anyway yeah, I found it interesting because she seemed by no means sjw-ish. I'm sure she thinks women are great, but she wanted literally everything Nintendo took out of the games (which is what got her into that "she loves child porn" trouble, along with that thesis, I guess).
I'm personally glad they finally dealt with her. Any lingerie model/pedophile supporter has no business working for nintendo. Don't even care if the censorship issues were her fault or not, glad to see her go.
it is worth nothing she had her 2nd job under an Alias, that kinda shows she knew whatever it was (a little odd that we don't know what it was) it shouldn't be linked back to Nintendo.
Nintendo's almost complete ignorance of the internet, hate or otherwise in their normal business makes me doubt they'd fire someone because of it. I'm sure more people signed that ridiculous Metroid Federation force petition than complained about her and last I checked that game is still coming out.
Wasn´t her sidejob taking riskee pics? I have seen some and I kinda get why nintendo wouldn´t want her as a rep
@Yorumi @Jazzer94
I was simply expressing agreement with IGDA's statement, the topic of this article. I agree there are many, many factors to this issue, and its difficult to weed out the truth from misinformation/hate and smear campaigns. I do unfortunately believe that her gender is an issue for some of those leading the hate groups. I wish we could move past this as a society but the internet makes it very easy to express hate and get that mob mentality going.
Also, I didn't bring up the subject of her gender, the article did, as it is an article about IGDA's statement, which directly mentions her gender being one of their perceived reasons for the online hate.
Anyway, I don't want to instigate conflict or make anyone pick sides, just wish as a whole this was handled better.
What strikes me as odd is that nintendo didnt investigate her before they even hired her. IMHO somebody who endorses pedophilia shouldnt have anything to do with children at all. People like her should go to therapy.
As far as online hate groups are concerned I dont endorse such group, but lets be honest we live in a small world, our actions will have reactions, if you do something stupid people will pick on it and so will you!!! Doesnt really matter if its a woman or a man
@zool As @Yorumi stated, most employment contracts in the U.S. are Employment-At-Will contracts.
A quick definition from Wikipedia:
"At-will employment is a term used in U.S. labor law for contractual relationships in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning."
Of course there are many other laws that protect certain attributes (age, gender, race, etc.), so most company policies will require some reason so they can avoid lawsuits; however, legally, no reason is necessary.
@Angelo-Noir
so what exactly was her side-job?>
so she had a second job selling raunchy lingerie pictures w/ an amazon wishlist and was highly outspoken on the controversial issues of pedophilia/child pornography. is it really any wonder nintendo would not want someone like this as part of their PR? if anything nintendo look stupid for hiring someone like this in the first place, given the visibility of her views.
who cares who brought it to their attention, the facts remain and nintendo was well within their right to fire her. breach of contract, breach of basic morality if you ask me. paedophilia should be condemned as a deviant mental illness, no excuses.
@HaNks
Exactly|! certain things need to be condemned right away, and its not like just a rumour surrounding her, she wrote a thesis paper on it - I mean what makes a 'normal' person write on something like that and take a positive stance toward it - its just crazy. - where is the world heading to?>
"other women game developers"
Alison Rapp was in marketing, not development...
I don't know a ton about this whole situation, but generally my belief is that these things should be gender-blind (and color-blind). From what little I understand about this situation, the problems people had with Alison were her actions (or alleged actions), not her gender. That's also Nintendo's official stance, though supposedly she was fired for different actions (which might have come to light while investigating the accusations made against her). The real question here is whether Alison would have been fired if she were a he, and I believe the answer is yes (it's not like Nintendo hasn't fired men in recent history, after all). As such, all of this "but she's a woman!" nonsense just seems ridiculous to me.
She's probably the reason Swapnote was taken offline!
@Andrzej777 there's even one person above saying she was framed! unbelievable how disconnected from reality some of these internet white-knights are. such a terrible example to use as someone 'unfairly persecuted by internet hate groups'. context matters - her views and modelling shenanigans are all publically documented. causing a stink about this makes all concerned look ridiculous. and to be quite honest it also makes me wonder what their views on paedophilia are...
If working that second job did violate her contract with Nintendo, then I have no issue with her getting fired. While I'm inclined to believe that her termination had nothing to do with the issues that some online groups had with her, I also support the part of the IGDA's statement that Nintendo's decision may have fueled the hate groups. Yes, Nintendo had the full rights for her termination as she was their employee, but I think it should have been done after some of the online controversy settled down.
What does bother me is the online harassment that she had to endure. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, should have to deal with that sort of harassment based on their gender, age, beliefs, race, and/or views. People need to accept that everyone is different.
She is an advocate for child pornography of all kinds being legalized and also posed in scandalous photos holding a 3DS. I don't understand why firing her is a problem? Maybe she should have kept her personal beliefs off of Twitter
@HaNks
When I hear about that thesis paper I thought I am kicked by a horse - who can a professor even agree on that? I mean, allright, we have got free speech and stuff, but still, we are talking about child pornography here, there is no grey zone here, not a single argument to justify any of it. Glad she was fired
Is this what the call virtue signalling? IGDA has been a joke for a while.
Maybe those people who are standing behind her and attacking nintedo for firing her, share the same views as her - I dont care, hope I will never hear about her again and that nintendo has learnt a lesson as to thoroughly check who they are hiring and put next to children - this one was definitely beyond the limit
I have nothing against women in the gaming industry. In fact, I think the whole idea of women having a stigma to them working in the industry is absurd. However, anyone who promotes child pornography deserves whatever comes to them. No matter how "forward thinking" it might seem to some people. That is disgusting, and she deserved it.
This is ridiculous. End of discussion. She used her company-provided social media platform to advocate "rights for pedophiles"! As far as I'm concerned, they have no rights to advocate! Social justice is a fight for which we cannot relent but if we have to "support" people like this just because of their gender there's no point to it at all.
@sonicmeerkat it's like they don't even care if she was guilty of anything. the whole sexist, misogyny, GG are terrorists narrative comes first, then it's parroted by the various leftist internet media. yet the same people have no problem destroying other people's lives when they disagree with any of their views. oh the irony, what a shambles!
@Andrzej777 Outside of videogames, most people take care of their jobs because they can get fired for really stupid things. IMO this Alison girl did a lot of stupid things. A PR does NOT unleash her wrath on twitter of all places, that is if she wants a job in a similar position.
@HaNks I don't want to talk about all that I just think the IGDA is an out touch organization and I don't agree with their stance on this.
@Dakt when we've stooped so low as to defending paedophile defenders, why the hell not! there seems to be a justification for anything if it's done in the name of 'social justice' or 'progressivness'. virtue signalling indeed, coupled with a good dose of mental illness & projection. the only controversy here is that people are trying to manufacture a controversy at all. i'm surprised they allowed comments this time, lol.
Having her fired is,
best for business
This is why nintendolife shouldn't have allowed comments. A mix of clueless, ignorant, and attacking posts focusing on a victim of harassment. Barely a mention from nintendolife members of the vile and cowardly gamergators that target and harass women in the game industry. No, instead lets focus on the victim. At least we get to see what kind of quality members are on this site. At the very least these comments help push GG agenda, and I am sure many of them are happy to put down women even when they are the target.
I sort of agree in part to Rapp's stance. Criminalizing possession already causes a LOT of problems with expression unrelated to child abuse. (Sexting amongst teenagers for example) It should be treated the same as someone posting a video of them murdering a person, documentation of a crime committed, and a civil issue in that distributing something with a person w/o consent. Along with existing laws that prevent distribution and showing of obscene media (Miller Test).
That would still allow prosecution of child abuse and have the same amount of prevention against real child pornography.
Nintendolife, you are allowing a gamergater agenda to be pushed on your site. You are allowing people to continue to target someone. Take all of these comments down. It is not a good look for you.
I personally think Nintendo fired her not because of trolls or because she was a woman or even for for having a second job. I think they fired her for sucking at PR.
Of course Nintendo will be criticized of misogyny because people love drama. Like with Fire Emblem, I found it funny that Nintendo is being criticized in Japan for being so open-minded, and being criticized in the west for being close-minded over the exact same game.
@PopeReal halp, someone disagrees with me, quickly, censor & ban them or i will attempt to take the high ground and commence shaming! you can't even defend her aside from pointing to evil goobergators and playing the victim card, lol. allowing speech is not pushing an agenda, though the opposite certainly is, get over yourself.
If I had been in charge of marketing a product that performed as poorly as some of Nintendo's recent ones have, I'd expect to be dismissed
There are 2 choices for people who continue to post about her losing her job. One, they are blissfully ignorant and continue to not get what has been going on. Want to continue to not learn and grow as a person? Ok, put your fingers in your ears and go on about someone losing their job. Congrats.
Two, they absolutely know what is going on and continue to push the hateful agenda against women in the gaming industry. You are either gamergator yourself or share the same agenda.
Don't listen to either of these 2 types of people. It doesn't matter whether she was employee of the year or not. Her job performance isn't what matters. What matters is she was targeted and harassed just like many other women in the industry. This is a growing problem and few are standing up or doing anything about it. Just listen to the attack to her character continue to roll in on this very site. People are focusing on the victim either out of pure hate or pure utter ignorance. Nintendolife is allowing this to continue. Embarrassing all around.
@yorumi I read her paper, its mostly about not criminalizing possession. I don't agree with her fully, but I don't think her views should have any impact on her job unless she was expressing them as Nintendo's views.
just in case anyone was wondering what virtue signalling is, take a look above.
@PopeReal From what I've read, I don't see anyone sympathising with the people who harassed her. It's the idea that she was fired because of a violation of her contract instead of the harassment that people want to make clear.
Anyway, if you have an issue with the enabled comments, feel free to contact NintendoLife personally: https://www.nintendolife.com/contact
Also, if Nintendo didn't fire her because of what trolls were doing, wouldn't the trolls still be making Nintendo's decision for them? Should we forever be checking up on what trolls are saying before we are allowed to fire employees for being bad at their job. I've seen how bad the gaming community can be for women (as I have a lot of gaming sisters and people can be downright infuriating), but as Yorumi said; just because she is a victim of bigoted misogyny doesn't absolve her of her being awful at her job.
@PopeReal @Octane I disagree, I think job performance matter a great deal when it comes to keeping your job.
Who cares about her job. That is for her to worry about. You guys continue to allow the focus to be put on her. This industry is going to be so hard to change because people get so uncomfortable to talk about what is going on. You continue to see it here and other places.... "oh harassment is bad I guess but lets go back to talking about this woman and how her job performance was!!!".
It is the most obvious way of putting the victim at the center of the discussion while keeping the GG scum and their agenda in the shadows. Don't fall for it.
@Yorumi: I have read her tweets, and do feel that she could have handled the situation way better than she has (and way more professionally). I am by no means defending her and believe that her sacking was warranted.
I did do some digging on the whole thing when the original article was posted on here. Most groups that I found I wouldn't label as hate groups, but I did find a handful that were little more than that. (I would cite sources, but I looked these up some time ago and don't have the time atm). When I mentioned "hate groups", I didn't mean it as an umbrella term for every group involved.
@HappyMaskedGuy
Wow.... If that's the case in truth then yeah.. self explanatory it is.
@PtM I'm just saying that even if it was a while ago and can still come back to haunt you, I'm surprise Nintendo hired her to begin with when they have a strict family friendly code.
@STiger i`m sorry but is that all you can say?
Translation:
"Yeah, Nintendo gave a statement that it's about contract breakage and not about the other stuff, but let's believe it's about the other stuff!
Because Nintendo's always the bad guy when they fire someone!
It just makes more sense that way!"
This is ridiculous.
I don't really know what the whole fuzz is about, she was/is actively defending CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ... I don't understand why Nintendo hasn't fired such a person on the spot, can someone explain that to me?
Don't take the bait, folks. @PopeReal is just trying to turn this into another unproductive GG v Anti-GG tussle.
@ThomasBW84
No I do not have a strong comment on either side of this discussion, but I wanted to take the time to thank you and the NintendoLife staff for allowing us an opportunity to talk about this but I also want to thank you for closing the comments on that previous article. I too felt that it would have gotten gotten out of control and I wholeheartedly approve of your decision and such.
This follow-up story has given all of us an opportunity to discuss it in a meaningful way and I feel as though it came out the absolute best way for us to discuss.
"International Game Developers Association"
Who?
I'm not being sarcastic here, I've never heard about them before today.
Also, they are basically suggesting Alison Rapp deserved more protection and privileges than the average employee specifically because she is female.
And as I understand it, people were not attacking her on social media because she was female, it was because they were upset at Nintendo's recently poorly done or politically correct focused localizations and blamed her for it, whether it was actually her at fault or not, which I don't know.
In my opinion though, the entirety of Nintendo Treehouse should be fired and completely replaced.
Nintendo Treehouse is diseased. Rotten to the core. There's no saving it, we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes, a new localization, marketing, and product development division will be born. Evolved, but untamed!
Nintendo made the right choice.
…Ew.
It's hysterical that the two developers that took their ball home are prasing Miitomo.
Japanese business culture is notoriously sexist and overly bureaucratic.
It comes from the top down people.
@getyourak - Edited to remove sentence that could be construed as overly generalised and possibly even racialographicalist.
@DarkKirby Yeah, all this Treehouse localization drama is REALLY putting me off of Nintendo of America. I'm still supporting their Wii U and 3DS releases, but I think I'm going to wait a while and monitor what happens with the more Japanese NX games when they come over before buying into that system. I didn't purchase a console just to have a bunch of miserable, sex-negative puritans rip the games that do get localized to shreds with extensive censorship and terrible, meme-filled translations.
No wonder she got fired. She was your typical SJW. In other words, an idiot.
It's always the same "men this", "men that" arguments floating around. Showcase a female character with little clothing and the developers are sexist pigs. "Censor this, censor that" , or rather, "butcher the artist's vision because this one specific thing makes me uncomfortable". What a load of crap.
Not only was she obsessed, but she also didn't know how to remain professional about things. She was way too vocal and out of bounds, and lo and behold, she got canned.
Nintendo ain't having none of it, and just like the awesome company they are, they put an end to it. Good job, ninty.
Though I still wish N.O.A wasn't as flexible as they have been. The Japanese do this better, and the proof is that there's no SJW or feminist bullcrap over there. They understand that there's nothing wrong with female characters being and looking feminine. It's perfectly natural.
Men and women have been and will always be different, and as such, each have different roles in society. The beauty of a heavily traditional culture that manages to balance things with the modern world is that they'll always stick to their roots; whereas we don't, and that's why we're falling apart.
Based Japanese, and based Nintendo of America.
Maybe she should take some advice from fellow former Nintendo employee Chris Pranger on how to take being fired for breaching contracts.
https://twitter.com/TheChrisPranger/status/631852330133028864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Sucks she lost her job, but based on what I read I have almost zero sympathy for her. I actually funny enough felt worse for Mr. Pranger for losing his job.
Just remember kids it is important to look over your contracts and what you can and cannot do while under them.
@PopeReal I completely agree. I was really surprised to see how this discussion turned out.
I'm seeing a lot of comments that say, "Well she was fired for policy violations so that's fair and undebatable, but anyway she deserved to be sacked because she did other things not directly related to her job that I didn't agree with."
You can't have it both ways. As Nintendo stated, this can be viewed strictly as a policy issue. To start a conversation that focuses on her online actions not pertaining to direct reasons for her being fired while simultaneously ignoring the bigotry directed at her makes NO sense. Nintendo's reasons were technical. This is not supposed to be an issue of character. But if you're gonna go there, at least acknowledge the fact that a lot of harassment has been directed at her that reflects negatively on the gaming community that is receiving very little attention. And by not discussing it, we (and arguably Nintendo) are giving tacit approval to such behavior.
@-Crystalline- Hang on, I thought this was the "I want the boob slider and that 13 year old should have a swimsuit" lady? I admit I only skimmed her Twitter, but it REALLY seemed like she was very very anti-censorship of any kind (including anything related to child porn, so yeah). Like, she was definitely putting out awful PR, but not the sjw kind. Unless I missed something?
She broke her contract by moonlighting in a second job, so Nintendo didn't fire her, she fired herself. A contract is terminated if you break it - it's a very simple concept, so I'm not sure why anyone is trying to place the blame for all this on Nintendo.
As for all the hate she was getting - that was totally uncalled for, but as a PR person she should also have read the situation and played it a bit smarter.
Having said that I have a lot of sympathy for her. Loosing your job is rough and is not something anyone should be celebrating.
What this thing is called stop she got the boot it happens everyday.Can we stop this behavior and move on
@ikki5 Moonlighting is often overlooked in companies. It is frowned upon, but is rarely acted upon. It's clear by the timing of this incident that there was more going on behind the scenes and it sends out the message to potential employees that Nintendo will not protect them in regards to matters that are out of their hands. Moreover, it sends the message to #GamerGate and the Neo-Nazi outlets known as the Stormer that smear campaigns work.
While she obviously shouldn't have been moonlighting, it's an excuse farted out by Nintendo to shoo her out of her role as a representative. People may be like "This is just an everyday case" but not with the attention it has been garnering. Taking the word of a company at face value is often naive.
@ikki5 Moonlighting is often overlooked in companies. It is frowned upon, but is rarely acted upon. It's clear by the timing of this incident that there was more going on behind the scenes and it sends out the message to potential employees that Nintendo will not protect them in regards to matters that are out of their hands. Moreover, it sends the message to #GamerGate and the Neo-Nazi outlets known as the Stormer that smear campaigns work.
While she obviously shouldn't have been moonlighting, it's an excuse farted out by Nintendo to shoo her out of her role as a representative. People may be like "This is just an everyday case" but not with the attention it has been garnering. Taking the word of a company at face value is often naive.
@TheDavyStar She worked PR. This means it was her job to make the company look good and be able to cool these flames not fan them and make them worse. She worked for a family friendly company so taking personal views that some could deem controversial to her professional Twitter was a no, no. Nintendo may had fired her for more than what they are letting on, but it was her failure at her job that made things worse for her.
I do wish her the best in the future, but this is not some left v. right, gender v. gender narrative certain outlets what to make it seem. At the end of the day she broke her contract and just like Mr. Pranger was last year was shown the door.
@Yorumi Okay, I get it now. Thanks for clarifying. That makes a lot more sense!
All I will say is that IF Nintendo did fire Rapp based on the amount of flack she was getting from certain groups in the gaming community I am extremely worried. If a group spreading hate and harassment have the power to influence game companies like Nintendo then I am terrified for the future of the gaming industry.
The Treehouse has lost quite a few people this past year it seems.
I really hate these he said/she said scenarios. While I do feel bad that she lost her job, and I don't care to fully understand the circumstances why, I do tend to have less pity for people whose jobs are lost for any reason related to social media.
@antipop621 I agree it is rather unfortunate that she lost her job. I almost compare having a favorite company in games to like a sports team and just like a sports team you have to hope management knows what they are doing is for the best. It seems to me that some of the media backlash may had been what prompted Nintendo to investigate her, but at the end of the day it was her mess up that cost her, her job.
@Angelo-Noir
Exactly!
I wasnt really aware of this woman until she got fired and like I said, her behavior/actions were not just stupid they were beyond the limit, I mean what was she trying to accomplish?
One thing that I really like are the comments on this thread, it really shows that people still believe in the right thing and dont come up with excuses for someone who just did plain wrong. We can all agree that her actions were not just stupid but really to be condemned from a moral point of view etc.
She strangely only has 37 watchers on deviantart. She's pretty hot though! http://mnemosynekurai.deviantart.com/
I guess I would've got fired for modeling on the side too. Lol!
Honestly, I'm quite shocked about the reactions here. Just to get an understanding of what's going on and who she is, I took the time to read her Twitter posts. She represented Nintendo and was at the same time pretty outspoken towards legalization of child molestation and child pornography. Why is anyone still rambling about moonlighting and smear campaigns, this right there gave Nintendo all the right in the world to fire her, this wasn't a one time slip either, she's gone as far as to even defend her position!
It's children we're talking about here FFS.
i dont care about her personal beliefs,somethings i can even agree with but she was to childish and attention seeking to represent nintendo so good ridance.anyway,she looks amazing
>criticizes Rapp for defending japan keeping their own cultural norms
>criticizes Rapp for censoring these things out
yeah GG is such a crap movement
She provoked a lot of gamers in the first place and instigated a situation which led to people digging in to her publicly posted material.
She stated it was okay to moonlight while being employed, this turned out to not be true. Furthermore, she was daftly using her Twitter that's tied to her employer, Nintendo, and posting revealing photos on it. And there is never a 'right' time to be fired.
I didn't see this much outrage when that other guy got fired. I wonder why?
@Mario-Man-Child
Yeah I dug further and read some of that stuff. She seemed to be a loose cannon. Her thesis was pretty shocking. Is she even a mother yet? Because if she was, I think she would feel different about everything she wrote. If I was Nintendo, I would have canned her. Kids read and follow stuff like this just because its tied to Nintendo. If I was a kid during this internet age, I might have ran into it. I used to discect Nintendo Powers and other game magazines pretty thoroughly as I was growing up, because its what I loved. If I found out you worked at Nintendo, you would've been like a rockstar to me. If you're lucky enough to work for somebody like Nintendo, I really think you should have some class and professionality in everything you do. It should be one of those things you treasure and play close to your chest. I guess an employee could express a political or religious view and it may not seem in key with a company's policies, and it could be something common thats going on in America. But the child abuse thing (not saying what is actually is on Nlife)? Really? Did she not learn anything in college? Much less high school? Its called ethics. I only imagine that she was called into the office, screamed at, and had her desk belongings very quickly dumped and slung into a cardboard box.
Social media bites another person on the ass!
@VR32F1END Thank you, finally.
Heres a statement to everybody out there. My friend used to work for a company that did a great deal of the graphic art for NASCAR. His boss was very demanding and strict. He would say, "You're a professional. You don't have a personal life."
@Yorumi
I think this is why Im afraid to cash in my GI Bill. I guess I better dig really deep.
@Yorumi I can vouch for this. My Biology courses taught me how life works, but my Sociology professor taught me how Republicans are the cause of all the worlds problems.
Though my War and Society professor had me read both foreign and domestic text books (I actually took that class for fun believe it or not).
@-Crystalline-
Welcome to 1950. Seriously smh.
Ah, the Nintendo Life community's creepy GamerGate undertones strike again. In today's news, this marketing woman ruined Fire Emblem, loved child porn all over Twitter, and got "indoctrinated" at the "radical alligator camps" known as colleges. Because none of that sounds remotely crazy, right?
I was sad to see this topic get shut down in the forums when GG entered the discussion, because they're at the core of said discussion. The thing is, there's all kinds of room to agree or disagree about whether or not Ms. Rapp was doing her job well or if her moonlighting job violated her agreement with Nintendo. I don't think many rational people would be as passionate about the issue as we've seen had this been the entirety of the issue.
But it wasn't the case — these factors are a part of the issue; harassment is at the core. And that's why what the IGDA (love 'em or dismiss 'em) points out here is important: This person was the subject of life-altering harassment from a hate group that continues to poison the video game community. And for that hate group, this is a major victory. It sets a dangerous precedent and sends a message that hate works — by now, GG has moved on to their next victim.
As for what Nintendo "should have" done, that's open for debate, and it's an insanely tricky question. Whether they put themselves in that position or not, Nintendo got wrapped up in the actions of a malignant group. I don't feel as though silence on the issue of a hate-fueled smear campaign — a depressingly recurring theme for women in this industry — was the right choice.
So, yes, I agree with the IGDA's statement. Glad to see Nintendo get called out here.
@STiger Wasn't that troll Tim Langdell a part of the IGDA before they kicked him out?
I'm just going to say that if this was a man who was fired, IGDA wouldn't have stepped up to defend him as he wouldn't be a "diverse" member of the game development community. Somebody is trying to take a real world issue and use it for their soapbox, and that is wrong, and I will therefore not take IGDA's comment seriously. The phrase "especially more diverse members" should be read as offensive to both "diverse" people and "non-diverse" people a like. It says that "diverse" people need help and "non-diverse" people are bland and unimportant.
https://twitter.com/alisonrapp/status/690264632066355200
(I love dragging this tweet out).
For someone who is educated on life, she certainly didn't understand that the things you say and do can get you fired, even if it's done outside work and especially if it's on the internet for all to see.
@shaneoh, yeah, a pretentious tweet should definitely get you fired from your job and targeted by a hate group. Good call.
@Yorumi, I'm a regular forum poster and years-long reader of the site. I prefer not to post in the comments, but the forum discussion on this issue was unfortunately closed.
@VelvetElvis
If you'd actually take time to absorb what I said then you'd realise that I wasn't saying that post should have got her fired, rather that I was commenting on the irony that someone who is so "educated" on life was fired for breaching her contract.
However, as you didn't absorb it, you've got a second post to get you to the point.
@shaneoh, easy there, hoss. No need to get heated.
As I said in my original post and elsewhere, I'm not concerned with her views. I'm not concerned with her breach of contract; we know very little about what happened on that front, and it very well may be that Nintendo had every reason to fire her, either for reasons of breach of contract or for public relations actions that the company didn't feel reflected them properly. That's a whole other can of worms (and an interesting one, as PR people are becoming much more front-facing as "people" nowadays).
My concern mirrors the one mentioned by the IGDA; I don't think it's a good thing for the future of the industry for such a major player to pretend that there's not a very real problem with harassment in the community when one of their own is wrapped up in it. The way the situation was handled, I think, has the potential to propagate the cycle.
How can ANYONE defend Alison Rapp's beliefs? She bad-mouthed Nintendo and their censorship rules, supports pedophiles (BIG red flag right there), supports child porn, has a second job when she wasn't supposed to have another, and models inappropriately wth NINTENDO products! She deserved to be fired.
@Yorumi Well I've read all your posts - not much I agree w/ but that's neither here nor there - and since we've always gotten along in the past, even when we don't agree (I'm impressed you wrote all of these posts w/o once getting out of line, that's a lot of willpower, even w/ the one guy you are mostly arguing with) I just wanted to address this:
"I'm not saying it didn't happen, maybe it really did, but unless it was escalating to the level of credible threats, just turn off twitter"
Obviously "credible threat" is open to interpretation, and what a man may view as a credible threat isn't what a woman may view as a credible threat*. But she was being targeted by a known white supremacist neo-Nazi group.
"You could also read about it at the Daily Stormer, a Neo-Nazi and white supremacist website describing Rapp as “the next logical step in the liberal march...toward wherever these women and Jews think it’s marching toward,” the result of “the impact of Jews and feminism on our society.”"
http://kotaku.com/the-ugly-new-front-in-the-neverending-video-game-cultur-1762942381
And they were going after her.
"The top comment on the story contains the phone numbers and email addresses for a number of top executives at Nintendo. The comment was left by Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, the infamous jailed hacker who once proudly announced he was a “long-time critic of Judaism, black culture, immigration to Western nations, and the media’s constant stream of anti-white propaganda.” Auernheimer encouraged people to contact Nintendo with a very specific tone."
So I don't think it's as simple as "turning off twitter" when a well organized hate group is using their own website calling you out by name and coming after you. I don't know if it's true or not but she did say she contacted the police.
"“Over the last few wks [weeks], I’ve had to talk safety measures w/my family - including talks w/police to warn them of possible suspicious activity,” she said. "
http://kotaku.com/nintendo-employee-terminated-after-smear-campaign-over-1768100368
Now I'm an old New York Italian guy, family first and we take care of our own, but if a white supremacist group started coming after me b/c I married a Jew, well I'm probably calling the police too.
You can say what you want about her, her ideology, and her firing, but this wasn't just some minor tit-for-tat on Twitter, the woman was under verbal attack by a skinhead organization and possibly even feared for her life. She may have just been too proud to "let the terrorists win". And maybe that cost her? Who knows. I just wanted to fill you in on some of that stuff in case you missed it.
(*Some other time you and I should discuss that female reporter filing a "simple battery" charge against Trump's campaign manager for grabbing her arm. I bet 100-1 no man ever files that "battery" charge, he'd be laughed out of court. The double standard is a REAL thing. And someday I'll tell you about my female Rabbi being fired for crying after the group that wanted her gone called her up and cursed at her.)
Why are we bringing this issue back up again? I thought we were done with this.
I'm not the only one who's noticed that her picture on Twitter shows her wearing a shirt that depicts Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon lifting up her skirt, right?
Did she print her own shirt or what, because I've certainly never seen it before.
@Ralizah It's getting worse with Alison with every passing minute isn't it? Good thing the creator of Sailor Moon didn't see that or Alison would be in even BIGGER trouble.
@VelvetElvis
Not getting heated, just correcting you.
@Yorumi Yeah, Kotaku probably wasn't the best choice, but it seemed like a better choice than the actual hate group website as I'm not giving them the exposure. And to be honest I didn't even check it to verify it b/c I don't want my internet provider wondering why I'm viewing them. But that's what came up the other day on Google when the "comments closed" article was up and I was trying to figure out what was going on. There is a lot to this and it seems like nobody has the full picture, it's just too big and too divisive of a topic, people just pick a side and their done.
Looks at Alison Rapp's Twitter page
Sees photo of her (or someone who looks like her, maybe that's not her) posing nude for Playboy
Hmmmmm, I wonder why Nintendo fired her.... Oh gee, this is a really difficult one, let me think... Maybe it's because... She's posting questionable material on her social media account, when she's supposed to be a professional businesswoman!? Did I get it right???
Lesson of the century: Don't use even your personal social media account for anything other than business if you're a professional. Make an anonymous account for personal stuff.
The IGDA and Brandon Sheffield are usually pretty on point, and I know that because I was once a junior member of IGDA, and read many of Sheffield's editorials on the now defunct Game Developer magazine over the years. You people who are automatically discounting them as "random nobodies" ought to do your research. That said, I think that in this situation, they've been a little TOO distracted by the torrent of petty arguments to see the real problem here.
Ms. Rapp is the only one responsible for her own firing. It has nothing to do with what she's said, and everything to do with what she's shown off. And of course, having that kind of second job was obviously going to get her fired from a place like Nintendo...
@Ralizah She's also posted doujinshi stuff on her personal Twitter page, so that's par for the course in her case. Age of consent is 18 nationally in Japan, but 14 in some local areas of Japan, hence the origin of the shirt print.
I love the people who are suddenly offended by nude photos. Most of you just closed a porn window in your browser.
@TheDavyStar You should take a look at the controversial pictures that possibly sparked this who thing. Like lingerie photos with Nintendo products as a Nintendo PR? Right, she deserved to be fired.
@VelvetElvis the moment Nintendo defended Rapp, it would have been attacked by the Wayne Foundation over allegations of Rapp's support for lowering the age of consent and for her support for decriminalizing the possession of child pornography. Nintendo would have been crucified in the media and the thousands of men and women employed at Nintendo would had their jobs at risk.
In fact, not only do I understand why Nintendo stayed silent l, rather I commend them for doing so.
@PopeReal Pffft, I don't care. She can walk around naked, if she wants. (And she apparently does already, at least half-naked.) The point is doing that stuff, getting a second job based on it, and showing it all off, is obviously going to get one fired from a professional business job, and especially such a visible one.
@ikki5 The funny thing is, if she had used an anonymous account, and anonymized her appearance for those pics, she probably could have managed to fly under the radar. She probably wouldn't have gotten fired for being a secret sexy stealth PR...
Edit: oops, triple post...
OMG lingerie photos. I love how when you guys have to attack someone, all your beliefs change. What a show this is.
I hope none of your sisters or female friends ever get into the gaming community because they are probably going to be treated like dirt and put under a microscope if they ever dare say anything to offend the gamergaters and their ilk.
And to all of you still digging through her twitter, please offer up all of your social media info and complete job history. I guarantee if you give scum bags like GG some time (who will spend however long it takes) they can dig up something from your past or even present to get your fired.
Ok enjoy the discussion that nintendolife allowed to be taken over by gamergaters and people who care more about gaming than actually paying attention or caring about the downward direction of the industry.
Hopefully in time things will start to turn around.
The moral of the story here is that people need to be careful about what they post on social media. It may come back and bite you in your professional career and you only have yourself to blame.
Can anyone please educate me how her firing had anything to do with GamerGate or hate groups? Those are important issues, but to me, they seem to be completely unrelated to why she got fired. I don't think her personal sense of morals or beliefs had anything to do with it either.
@PopeReal What digging? It took all of 30 seconds to scroll down to her April 1 Twitter post of her (or someone who looks like her) posing nude for Playboy magazine, and there's probably more of the same sort of stuff further down. No need to dig, the answer is right there.
Edit: On closer look, maybe that's not her. Point still stands, though.
@PlywoodStick See post 181 for some of the GG stuff. And seriously, you can't be that much of a hypocrite 2 posts in a row, first asking for somebody asking to point to you in the right direction, then mocking somebody else for not doing their own reasearch. That's just too ridiculous. I'm always happy to point to links for people, but you shouldn't mock other people.
@PlywoodStick My guess is that some guys saw that tweet about her making the "Super Spoopy" trailer for Fatal Frame and made the leap that the person that claims to have made the trailer and has made tweets about polyamory and why misandry isn't real in the past must be behind the ridiculous circumstances behind the costume changes. Wouldn't surprise me because of course GG would be stupid enough to target the one person AGAINST censorship while posting screencaps of the NISA guy that worked on Fates and laughing about how he's probably a cuckold on /v/.
@Andrzej777 You know... we need to go back in time to when we didn´t know who worked on games. During the NES era we didn´t know and games were pretty nice.
Also, I think NL pushing this narrative only shows us that media wants another Incident related to Gates... And not precisely Baldur´s´
@Andrzej777 You know... we need to go back in time to when we didn´t know who worked on games. During the NES era we didn´t know and games were pretty nice.
Also, I think NL pushing this narrative only shows us that media wants another Incident related to Gates... And not precisely Baldur´s´
@rjejr Thanks for that! (Although I'm not confident in Kotaku articles...)
Sorry if what I said came across that way, I didn't intend that. I just meant that people should ask, "Who is the IGDA? Who is Brandon Sheffield?" before coming to a conclusion on their statements. If you meant the PopeReal comment, well... I wouldn't call briefly looking at her Twitter an example of research, it's just something that's literally staring at anyone who easily comes across it.
@BRAINFOX Interesting... still sounds strange to me, though. I'm having trouble grasping that stuff.
Having never heard of Alison Rapp before this, I decided to do some research and actually read the majority of the essay she wrote, which I would hazard to guess all but a tiny fraction of her detractors have not bothered to do.
The essay does not make the argument that child pornography is acceptable, it makes the argument that Japan is a sovereign nation which has the right to determine its own laws and enforcements regarding the censorship of child pornography, and that the actions of other nations such as the US and the UK to shame or bully Japan into conforming are not helping address the real problems of child abuse and exploitation which are supposedly at the heart of such actions.
She also makes the quite apt point that both the US and the UK claim to highly value free speech but don't seem to have a problem with criminalizing anyone who is in possession of even a hand-drawn cartoon depicting under-aged sex.
All censorship is censorship. If you allow all forms of free expression, you have to include the things that you hate the most. The moment you start picking and choosing what expression is allowed and what isn't, you no longer support free speech.
I am impressed that, given the level of hostility people have at even discussing the topic (a fact she mentions at the beginning of her essay), she nonetheless had the nerve to write and submit this paper for public review. It shows a strong commitment to her beliefs and a willingness to stand by them even against harsh criticism — the same kind of values that people belonging to online feminist communities should be championing in the women they claim to support.
A final thought, since this is a forum on a news site for video games — the essay also points out the repeated claims supporters of censorship laws have made that viewing child pornography naturally leads to committing acts of child abuse, as if there's no question that it's impossible for a rational person to see something without immediately wanting to mimic it. The grand irony is of course that the media has made the exact same claims regarding the violence in video games. So, maybe chew on that before you line up to keep throwing stones Alison's way, hmm?
@rjejr So... people were targeting her for censorship, just by association, because she worked for the Treehouse... Even though she's in Marketing, which has nothing to do with localization? And then she responded to those targeting her, which led to the situation getting out of control?
Yeah, I guess it might have been negligent for Nintendo to not rein her in and place a stop sign down before the situation escalated, but I still don't see how it's related to why she got fired...
@Angelo-Noir Too bad Beamdog screwed up their Baldur's Gate EE expansion.
@WaxxyOne study after study after study shows that possession of child pornography drives the making of child pornography. Decriminalizing child pornography would only serve to put real life children in danger of serious sexual abuse.
Here are a link to the university of New Hampshire website that has sources and papers on this subject:
http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/internet-crimes/papers.html
@PlywoodStick Accorde to Rapp's Twitter, Nintendo sat her down after she was hired and told her to stop with her quirky child pornography thing on her Twitter account. She continued any way.
@WaxxyOne I'm guessing you've never heard of the case of PaulAndAmy, a mentally deranged Amy Rose fanfic/furry obsessor who eventually went on to become a pedophile and is now imprisoned?
You're right that it's insane to automatically claim that close proximity equals association... However, when you combine certain behaviors along with that close proximity, what you have is a potential recipe for disaster.
@empsolo Interesting, so Nintendo knew that was going on, and she knew what she had to do for her professional integrity, but her behavior didn't change. That pretty much sums up the reason right there. It's amazing she somehow didn't make that connection.
Lots of thoughts to be had on this.
First things first, merits of IDGA's inserting themselves aside, they're simply wrong on a factual level. If, as claimed, an employee is singled out for harassment by a "hate group," there's a no-win situation. If the employee is fired, for any reason, a group that's built around irrational hatred will claim victory, no matter when, how, or why. That's the thing about irrational hate groups.
On to the subject of whether they should have gotten involved, I'd say no. At best, it's a silly gesture and an incoherent statement. At worst, it's a cynical self-promotion that also serves to legitimize the people they're fighting against. If you're important (as they believe themselves to be), and you jump in to a situation that barely concerns you, to lecture one party about how their actions serve to "legitimize" a hate group, then your intervention further serves to legitimize them - "We're so important and relevant that these big important people at IDGA consider us an active threat to their way of life!"
Then we get to the core incident at hand. I'll admit that I haven't quite followed the chain of events from "FE localization is terrible!" to "Let's get the pedo fired!" Frankly, I don't care all that much.
From what I understand, Ms. Rapp is trying to argue a valid, if somewhat touchy and unsavory concern, with two key prongs: (1) attempts to quash child pornography have ratcheted to an untenable degree, such that erotic drawings of flat-chested women are, in some regions, considered "child pornography" (2) criminalization of mere possession of child pornography caries with it many negative unintended consequences (including, for example, following a shortened URL could lead you to a web page with child pornography, which is now "in your possession," making you a felon). Such a position requires a light touch, a sympathetic audience, and nuance. Unfortunately, this is the internet.
As I understand, most of the hate toward her comes from those accusations. However, on Nintendo's side, it sounds like she had her own problems. To wit: (1) she doesn't seem to realize what it means to be a PR rep for a major company. Rule number 1 for PR reps is that you scrupulously avoid ANYTHING that might reflect poorly on the company you're representing. No one can argue that she did so. (Failure to perform key duties in a satisfactory manner) (2) I read somewhere in this whole mess that her supervisors had counseled her on the content of her social media postings, but she didn't tone them down or otherwise self-censor (Failure to address deficiencies in performance in a timely manner following notification) (3) The Big One, cited by Nintendo themselves - a side job that did not fall within the bounds of approved moonlighting (Violation of company Standards of Conduct). What we've got here is a problem employee, external issues aside. PR is a big deal, and very demanding - if you can't put your best foot forward, all day, every day, you really have no business being anywhere near PR.
@Angelo-Noir You get a like for simply referencing one of my all-time favorite RPGs and doing it in a clever and sarcastic way. Thumbs up.
xD and IGDA wonders why nobody takes them seriously
@ProfAllister I can attest to this. Even though it is not PR I did do technical support for a major electronics manufacturer and we were considered one of the best teams in the world. We had to always even if we disagreed with the client (the manufacturer) have to put it in a positive light and provide the best service possible and never, ever provoke or badmouth the customer/client while near recording devices either in the office or outside of it. This included social media and we had to be squeaky clean as well because we never knew when our client would be checking in on us.
@PlywoodStick I wonder what doujinshi the print came from?
I'm not really offended by it, but it's quite an... um, audacious piece of clothing. And I say this as someone who feels no shame whatsoever displaying sexy art in his home.
...this is becoming like that Survivor show...who will get kicked out of the Treehouse next week?
hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave (um, um, um)
Just gonna leave my simple two cents here. No one probably cares, but it's worth a shot.
So, as we've seen, Ms. Rapp is indeed a supporter of child pornography. That alone is enough to make me okay with the fact that she was fired. She also had a second job, which is a violation of Nintendo's internal policy. So you decided to take a second job, despite knowing that if Nintendo finds out that you have a second job (which they did), you would get fired. Brilliant. Just brilliant. I would like to give Ms. Rapp a round of applause for being a sane and smart human being.
Just a question, why did allisson rapp get so much hate on gamergate in the first place?
@SH007ME lol i would watch that
@NotAUsernameHere
This whole thing is ridiculous. I feel like if Nintendo is going to create a corporate ethos that restricts secondary jobs (in any capacity), then they should be prepared to provide a living wage that allows you to get health insurance, car insurance and any sort of modern amenities while still living comfortably, or provide them themselves.
@Angelo-Noir
These times are over! no getting back!
Allison actually wasnt a developer, she was in marketing.
Actually I dont really care about who makes games or who represents a company as long as I have fun playing games -
@97alexk Because they thought she had something to do with the localization and censoring of Xenoblade and Fire Emblem. She's a Public Representative and had nothing to do with it, when in fact she's the complete opposite and was one of the loudest ones yelling against censoring them. But she insulted some of them in the argument and GG went digging through her social media records. What they found was lingerie photos and her arguments on child sexual agency on her twitter account that was linked to the official Nintendo account. And if we're to believe some of GG commenters then she also did racier photos with Nintendo products and moonlighted as a camgirl.
@BornInNorway81 @tudsworth @Yorumi
Yes, Chris, thank you.
Sad case, as I don't think he considered at the time whether he was breaking any non-disclosure agreements. He was explained the reason for his being fired though, and he accepted that it was his own fault.
Which brings me to the next thing, @jariw, because really I don't know much else than the others, I have my information on third hand but from a person I trust. I must admit I take very little interest in the day-to-day business of the Treehouse or anyone working there, so I could easily be misjudging the situation.
The cases are relevant because of the outcome from the person being fired. We have to see whether Alison herself finds reason in what happened.
@EverythingAmiibo
"Online vigilantes are a real-world problem"
The dumbest thing I read this month so far.
IGDA makes a good point. If your employee is the subject of a hate campaign by a racist group plaguing the industry such as GG then silence is not a neutral stance. GG has now won.
I suppose GG will now have moved on to their next victim. Perhaps someone who posted something they might regret on social media? Or voiced a politically controversial position? Or who once watched a porn video on their company's PC? GG will find out and fan a mob against you.
Not a good day for the industry and IGDA is right to call this out.
@kantaroo It's more complicated than that though. If Nintendo threw themselves in the fight, they would be put in a bad light. Whoever these people were, trolls of whatever you call them, I think it's in Nintendo's interest to not give them any attention. I also think that the person in question here shouldn't have given them any attention. As a PR person it's most important that you don't get yourself in trouble. I respect that she had her own opinion and I don't care whether that was controversial or not, she shouldn't have got herself involved in it. Not because she doesn't have to right to, but because it was her job not to do so.
Good job, Nintendo. Ain't gonna miss ya, Alison.
@PlywoodStick Well nobody knows for sure why she was fired outside of Nintendo. Maybe she was sleeping with Reggie then she stopped so he canned her. Maybe she failed a drug test. Maybe she showed up late to work too many times. Maybe she sucked at her job. Maybe Nintendo got sick of all the phone calls from skin heads demanding she be fired. Maybe all the skinheads told Nintendo about her past and second job - that they had no idea about otherwise - so Nintendo fired her for one of those things, or both.
But we don't know, could be related, might not be related. I'm not going to skinhead websites to find out what was going on, but I'm guessing it was there if Kotaku gave it that much coverage.
And if skinheads are going after you, you probably aren't all bad. Too bad to work at Nintendo maybe, but not all bad.
Ever hear of Rosa Parks? She's famous for being arrested and then being fired from her job. Most people probably don't know why she was arrested, or that she lost her job. (People overseas may not know her name.) But people talk about her. A lot. And it's not b/c she was arrested, or not b/c she was fired from her job for being arrested. Not saying Rapp is Parks, not by a long shot, but there seem to be similarities to the situation, it's not about what she did to get fired, or that she got fired, it's about all the other stuff going on. This one may not go away for awhile.
Ya know, before the entire thing went down, I didn't even know who this person was. And honestly, while it must suck for her to be out of a job (and I hope she will find a new job soon if she hasn't already), I still can't seem to care about things like this. Nintendo's timing did seem kinda suspect, though.
In any case, that's all I'll say on the matter, as I am nowhere near informed enough to say much else or defend a standpoint.
Breaking signed agreements while moonlighting in a questionable job tends to get you fired. I wouldnt say Nintendo's timing is "dubious", what she was doing while working for them...that's pretty dubious
We don't discuss politics here.
~Waluigi
@PlywoodStick Just like Parks, there were others before Rapp. Zoe Quinn seems to be "patient zero" for lack of a better term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/zoe-quinn-gamergate-charges_us_56bc1d13e4b0b40245c56102
If you didn't like Kotaku I can only imagine how you feel about Hufpo, probably the same as most sane people, sorry about that.
I don't suppose the Washington Post is really any better for you than Hufpo but I liked the article title.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/02/17/in-the-battle-of-internet-mobs-vs-the-law-the-internet-mobs-have-won/
Not sure why Rapp is getting all this coverage now. Maybe being "second" makes it more of a conspiracy? Like RICO laws were created for going after the mob. Maybe b/c Quinn was targeted by her ex-boyfriend made that the isolated incident of a psychopath with a personal grudge where as now it's viewed as becoming a movement that affects others? There were others - Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu.
I honestly don't know if anybody from "Gamergate" was involved w/ Rapp, but the situations seem similar enough that maybe Rapp is more of a copycat case?
@Yorumo Just in case you are still interested in some back story. Which I'm willing to admit may be only marginally related. Or very related. Or not related at all.
@Utena-mobile Good point. However, it was still against company policy. Her second job was an erotic photo shoot, no less, and I'm pretty sure that was the kicker there. Nintendo nowadays tries to keep a family friendly image, for the most part. If they did catch wind that one of their higher ups was okay with child pornography, that already should've raised a lot of red flags. However, the fact that she not only violated company policy, she also did an erotic photo shoot, which involves rather lewd things, and generally not something that's family friendly...yeah, I feel like that was the kicker. Regardless of why she was fired, I'm still glad she is gone.
Going to be very careful when saying this.
NOA probably fired her due to her questionable material on her social media. She was still a Nintendo employee, and needed to be careful when posting that stuff considering she was part of the company. Obviously she didn't, which is why she lost her job, not because she was a woman.
Nintendo of America was in the right for firing her. Using your social media for stuff like nude pics, or supporting child pornography while working for a company is very dumb. Having a second job also seems to be in the wrong so...
Nintendo is not feeding into Gamergate as the IDGA is claiming. She got fired for posting stuff like Playboy content, admiting she supports child pornography, and having a second job. Nintendo isn't in the wrong.
@PlywoodStick One incident does not prove causality. In order to show that people who view child pornography are influenced to abuse children, you have to prove the case that the action leads directly to the crime in a majority of cases. Nobody has proven that in any scientific sense, just like no one has proven (despite trying) that playing violent video games leads directly to committing violent crimes.
@empsolo Do you have any actual evidence to back up your claims or are you just blowing smoke? This took me 5 minutes to find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse#Views_on_reducing_criminal_sexual_intent
Also, since neither of you responded to the actual intent of my post, I'll state it again for the record: Alison's essay does not argue that child pornography is acceptable, it argues that Japan is a sovereign nation with the right to create and enforce its own laws the way it sees fit, and that western nations should stop pressuring Japan to conform to western standards.
@WaxxyOne dude her tweets argue that possession of pornography involving minors should be decriminalized.
@empsolo That may be true. I don't follow Twitter and as I said before I'd never heard of her before this article. I read some comments and looked up info on her and saw that a lot of the criticism that has been aimed her way is from the essay she wrote, which is why my post focused on it.
Nevertheless, let's examine that line of reasoning. Assuming you're correct and she had tweeted that she believes it should not be a crime to possess child pornography, then so what is your point? That it's ok she was harassed and fired because she shared an unpopular opinion? The First Amendment is supposed to protect against that very thing. Supporting free speech is easy when everyone's in agreement. The real test of a society's value of free speech is how hard they fight to protect people who dare to disagree with the mass consensus.
Also don't confuse the difference between someone advocating for less strict laws and someone breaking those laws. Questioning the fairness of our legal system is an important right granted to every citizen and should not automatically imply that the questioner is some kind of criminal or deviant.
@WaxxyOne Except Nintendo sat her down and said that as the PR face of the company in the United States, she needed to cease tweeting her controversial statements on child pornography. The thing is that she didnt, according to her own Twitter feed.
Nintendo had rightfully put her on double secret probation for her behavior and had her axed at the nearest convenient excuse. And I applaud Nintendo for doing. Especially if Nintendo had defended her, Nintendo would have been smeared in the media for defending a person who advocates the possession of child pornography.
@empsolo So the short answer is yes, you do believe it's ok for a company to fire one of their employees for expressing an unpopular opinion. In my view, that makes you an enemy of free speech who condones using fear and intimidation tactics to silence views you don't agree with. Given that's the case, your opinion really didn't matter to me at this point.
@WaxxyOne freedom of speech only protects you against government retaliation in the public square. It does not protect you against consequences of saying stupid stuff privately or on the dime of a private company. Much like how it's not censorship for Nintendo to do what it wants with the translation for fire emblem fates.
So it seems another update to the story is in order, Rapp's second job was being a call girl. I had my doubts, but the evidence and timelines are pretty convincing.
so about that second job.........................................
Actually, it's all about student loans.
ROFLMAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOO
@zool Helpful to who? That's been a thing for a while. If she wanted to have another job she should've just quit Nintendo.
btw theres is significant spin about the second job - the idea that it's only a possibility or the evidence is dodgy. however the evidence she was working as the escort 'maria mint' is absolutely conclusive. important fact.
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