misrepresent what he even did at Blizzard to appear like an authority
Isn’t that par for the course for streamers/youtubers though? I’ve seen people claim to be “indie game devs” when they’ve never actually released a game, or if they did, it made so few sales as to be little more than a hobby.
After some very quick research about him, it seems his dad helped him get a job as a QA at Blizzard, and then he worked his way up to doing something cybersecurity related. That doesn’t scream “nepo baby” to me, that’s just a dad being awesome helping their kid get their foot in the door, and my dad would do the same for me if I expressed any interest in his career. If he was given a project lead role or something right out of school, then I’d agree w/ your assessment, but a QA a not a very glamorous job, he’s probably testing some boring component of their stack. Likewise, cybersecurity also isn’t very glamorous, he probably ran pen-tests or something on their servers (maybe not even game servers), it’s a decent job, but not something that would give him any authority since he’s not making important gaming-related decisions.
That said, having worked with important people probably gives him some valuable insight, and I’d like to see him expound on why he thinks things are problematic. All I saw in the videos I watched is some hand-waving and inaccurate statements (i.e. studios would need to release code or some nonsense), which tells me he didn’t actually read the petition. I didn’t watch the full thing, but apparently he read the FAQ where Ross explains what the petition is not about, and he probably just skimmed that. I think that’s unfortunate, since he actually has industry experience and might have something valuable to add to the conversation.
narcissistic bully
Again, I haven’t watched much of his content, but I did watch what I think was a relevant part of the original VOD. Here’s how I saw the WoW thing (I have never played WoW, so I’m probably missing something):
- they’re all working their way to the boss together
- they start getting wrecked, so some (all?) decide to bail
- he casts some spell to help his team get out, using up the rest of his mana
- his teammate is about to die and asks for help
- he keeps running, as was the plan
- he gets roasted for not helping out, and explains that we has out of mana and couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to
That sounds pretty reasonable. Maybe he could’ve said it better (seemed to be playing the “cool and collected streamer” role), but I think his actual actions were reasonable.
But maybe there’s something he could have done. I don’t know WoW well enough to know what options he would have had, but from my perspective, returning to help would’ve just meant he’d die too. And my understanding is that in this game mode, that represents a lot of investment, since the character would be deleted upon death, so it makes sense to be careful. I hear they worked it out after the stream, so his team apparently didn’t think his behavior was all that bad.
And then I look at the reaction. I see several articles slamming him for his behavior in that VOD, and a lot of the backlash citing that as justification for hating him. That seems way over the top, so I think the only rational takeaway is that other streamers are making a big deal out of very little, and people are latching onto it w/o actually looking at the facts and taking what they read for granted.
That’s why I hesitate to jump on the bandwagon. Maybe he’s as bad as everyone says, but I haven’t seen enough actual evidence of that. Each time someone has provided some evidence, I looked at it and didn’t see anything damning, just normal streamer behavior. I think people are making a big deal about it because they strongly disagree w/ his take on something else (say, SKG) and are digging for dirt.
So yeah, that’s my take.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 2 days ago
No.
That would in fact make those people indie game devs. Thats not a high bar to meet. Pirate likes to word it as if he was a game dev in the industry, and often leaves the context of him just working in QA out. As for the cybersecurity role, his role dealt mostly with the human aspect of the business. Compliance, awareness training, etc. the most active things he did were social engineering phone calls. Yet he has explicitly calls himself “a hacker”.
You’re missing a step here. 3.5. He chooses not to use the items he has that would have restored his mana. Which changes number 5 a bit as a consequence.
Well you have done a pretty good job of focusing on just two of the things he’s been in hot water over, and avoiding all the other evidence that’s out there you haven’t seen. So yeah I wouldn’t want you to jump on a bandwagon without any evidence, but at the same time you’ve explained that you haven’t seen most of the evidence. So I’m not sure what the point of you weighing in here against the people who have seen all the evidence, from a perspective that hasn’t seen the evidence.
There are hours and hours of video, photo, and written accounts of other events so I’m not just going to recap it all here for you, but it’s all out there for you to find.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
That does change things a bit.
I’ve never played WoW and generally avoid MMOs, so I don’t know how everything works. I just assumed mana items are a time effect thing, so he would’ve needed to plan ahead. If they were already bailing, there’s no reason to use them on the way out.
Well yeah, I can’t know what I don’t know.
Those were the best examples provided to me, and they didn’t seem as bad as people made them out to be. I just have to assume the rest is more of the same.
I’m happy to look at more though. But honestly, I don’t know what you’d gain from that, I already don’t watch his content and support SKG. I guess I might repost some links for others to check out if they’re also confused by the backlash.
Someone else mentioned that here (today?), and that’s certainly enough for me to not want to watch his streams. I already avoid a lot of the popular streamers for being disrespectful to random opponents, and doing that to someone on your team is absolutely unacceptable.
I still don’t think that warrants the response he got, from calls for resignation to swatting.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I don’t think he’s been swatted. In fact, a lot of the “backlash” that Pirate has complained about has also been debunked. In the contrary, since the backlash started he’s been calling for his fans to brigade and mass report anyone who criticizes him, live on stream.
As for the resignation, generally companies don’t like to have people who are ongoing, unapologetic public menaces to be the faces of their company. Any consequences Pirate faces are all of his own doing. If you’re going to be a public figure, you have to understand that you’re going to be held accountable for your behavior by somebody.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I saw some “review bombing” on his game Heartbound. Long term reviews are 62% (mixed, 3000 reviews), and recent reviews are 8% (600+). When I checked a couple weeks ago when the whole thing was fresh, I swear the overall was positive.
To me, that’s review bombing. The game had been out for ~7 years, and nearly 25% of the total reviews are “recent” (many since the end of June).
So my take here is that he was worried that reaction would spread to the other studio, which I guess never materialized.
That’s really lame. Games should be allowed to use free expression, barring blatant slander.
I disagree, but I don’t know much about him. I don’t think anyone deserves to be publicly lambasted unless they truly are a public menace like Trump. Tell people to avoid his content, sure, but his work at a game studio should absolutely be unrelated, provided he’s not given a platform for his unpopular views.