Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/zoë-quinn-and-multiple-game-writers-come-forward-about-larians-hiring-practices-unpaid-writing-tests-you-have-to-make-playable.1386028/

Obviously, Doops would bat for Zoe Quinn.

[Boredfrom]

maldoni rules 

[filler]

I'd use all 3 of her holes like a bowling ball tbh 

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/gamesindustry-biz-a-decade-on-from-gamergate-how-has-the-games-industry-changed-for-women-interviews-with-many-prominent-women-in-the-industry.1386145/

Doobs fucking up another Zoe Quinn attempt of comeback forced him to make another Gamergate thread.

[malfoyking]

They definitely smell blood in the water at Larian...

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/zoë-quinn-and-multiple-game-writers-come-forward-about-larians-hiring-practices-unpaid-writing-tests-you-have-to-make-playable.1386028/

Obviously, Doops would bat for Zoe Quinn.

I humbly ask the RE mods to remove his thread creation privileges again

[Boredfrom]

They definitely smell blood in the water at Larian...

Rep wise? Definitely. 

Company wise?  

Zoe is a hardcore opportunist and manipulative cunt, she smelled the opportunity to shit talk Larian and become semi relevant again. why the fuck ERA keeps falling for her?

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/gamesindustry-biz-a-decade-on-from-gamergate-how-has-the-games-industry-changed-for-women-interviews-with-many-prominent-women-in-the-industry.1386145/

Doobs fucking up another Zoe Quinn attempt of comeback forced him to make another Gamergate thread.

im seeing a common thread among a lot interviewed, that more women should be in higher-up and leadership positions

that increases their visibility, for one, and can help encourage other women to join the industry

it also could help reduce "bad actors"/"boys club" mentality in group dynamics

there's still a lot of the industry that needs to be a better fit for women in general tho, a lot of practices that discourage them from attempting it as a career, a lack of maternity leave or family planning resources

still a lot of work to do

How is any of that related to gamergate?

[Greatness Gone]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/zoë-quinn-and-multiple-game-writers-come-forward-about-larians-hiring-practices-unpaid-writing-tests-you-have-to-make-playable.1386028/

real talk: these unpaid writing tests are a thing for a LOT of writing jobs in the industry, not just at Larian.

When I applied for a job at BioWare in the mid-2000s, they made me develop an entire NWN2 mod just to LOOK at my application. Blizzard asked me to write a full pitch for an entire questline, including dialogue samples and gameplay ideas.

That's not to say Larian is off the hook for this, but that this kind of shit is surprisingly normalized in the industry as far as job applications for writers are concerned. And it's likely a major contributor to WHY it's so hard for young writers to get an "in" in the industry without extremely strong nepo connections.

PlanetSmasher’s lore >>>>>* 

Mf is so miserable because he’s failed at every single one of his creative pursuits.

[Boredfrom]

The leftist gaming sphere would be a better place if they just admitted that Zoe Quinn was an opportunist cunt and grifter. They wouldn’t even need to pretend accepting GamerGate claims about the wide industry, just that Zoe was a toxic person that genuinely made the scene worst. Not even admitting the hardcore brigading or group manipulation.

[Greatness Gone]

But PlaSma is right. I don’t know how it is now with the rise of AI but every job I’ve ever had (I work in marketing) has had one or more unpaid writing tests attached. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s extremely normal.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/zoë-quinn-and-multiple-game-writers-come-forward-about-larians-hiring-practices-unpaid-writing-tests-you-have-to-make-playable.1386028/

They definitely smell blood in the water at Larian...

So we cancelling Larian?

We should have ages ago for the antiblackness and racism but I never even saw a peep abt that on here. Shocker

edit:

Huh? Can you go into more detail, first I've heard about this one

Wyll consistently getting nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, when his romance remained bugged and every single dialogue option was needlessly mean, meanwhile Astarion gets new kissing animations based on fanart and the women have their "mean" dialogue rewritten due to criticism…? 🤔

[Boredfrom]

im seeing a common thread among a lot interviewed, that more women should be in higher-up and leadership positions

How that will change the industry for the better? If anything, seems that women executives tend to be as dumb as male executives. 

You should demand for executives, regardless of gender, that are not shit talking idiots.

[Greatness Gone]

I think everything wrong with Wyll stems from the fact that Larian changed his charertization mid development to be the goody two shoes normie of the party after realizing all the companions they made were assholes aside from Karlach. They wanted balance I think, but ended up making a bland character without any friction as a result. 

They probably didn’t update him after because they realized they fucked up, so they just left him as is.

[benji]

Mf is so miserable because he’s failed at every single one of his creative pursuits.

I'd be scouring every upcoming game from them to see if any of what I pitched was used. I wouldn't be able to help myself.

A (non-gaming) company totally did this with one of my application projects once and I was fucking furious. Scummy behavior. I spent 15 unpaid hours working on a project for them and they ghosted me and harvested my work.

"You're our top candidate, we just need to interview one more person tomorrow. We'll give you a final answer on Friday morning at 10:30 AM."

Flash forward to that Friday and I heard nothing from them until 3:30PM when I panicked and e-mailed the hiring manager for an update and got a terse "we decided to go with someone else" response within 35 seconds of clicking send.

Shitfuckers. Just the worst kind of company culture. I talked several other people out of applying for jobs with them over the next two years.

No feedback, not even a "thanks for applying" or anything. They completely changed their way of speaking to me the moment they pivoted to someone else - before that, it was verbose e-mails and dialogue and I even had a meeting with their chief marketing officer where we talked about my pitch and my past experience as a writer.

Then that Friday afternoon the only response I got was a single uncapitalized sentence from the hiring manager. It was mindblowingly scummy.

How else would they vett? You could have a portfolio that might not really be original work, or they make you generate original work. For product quality it might be best, maybe not the nicest for the applicants.

Writers should be paid to write. Expecting a person to do dozens of hours of free work just to get their application looked at is a fucking scam.

Especially when companies can - and have - harvest that free writing for their own project and not credit or pay the submitter for their time.

yeah i was a finalist for a game design job at some absolute third rate port studio around 2011, and i had to make them a multi-hour narrative-based Fallout 3 mod. it was a ton of writing, world building, etc. before even getting to the actual construction of the module. and they strung me along for a full -year- before telling me they decided not to hire anyone at all.

Yeah. It's almost impossible for an unproven writer to make it in the industry without being hired for a completely different development job and then being like "oh hey guys did you know I write?" The sheer barrier they've set up to even get seen is almost insurmountable for people who are starving and desperate.

Which is probably part of why so much game writing is terrible - because the industry makes it next to impossible for actual writers to get hired unless they're nepo hires.

Doctors, lawyers and engineers don't get their unpaid work stolen and passed off as the company's the way creatives can. There's a difference between artistic work and trade work.

I had just edited my post about this. If true, that's fucked. Do we know for sure what is what is actually happening? That these "tests" are just actual coding for the games and are fully utilized without credit?

I can't say for sure about Larian but I can say it's 100% happened to ME when I submitted one of these "pre-writing" projects for a job application I then got ghosted on. It's a real thing. And in a world where AI is starting to eat opportunities for writers, it's only getting WORSE, not better.

Lol engineers can absolutely have work stolen.

I would agree it is disgusting if someone were to do work for an interview, not get the job, and have that work stolen for the final product.

Did that actually happen here?

The idea that you shouldn't have to prove your ability to write when applying for a role as a writer has to be one of the most absurd things I've come across on this forum.

There's a difference between having a portfolio and being asked to spend DOZENS of hours of your life on a project you aren't being paid for just to get your application looked at.

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/zoë-quinn-and-multiple-game-writers-come-forward-about-larians-hiring-practices-unpaid-writing-tests-you-have-to-make-playable.1386028/

real talk: these unpaid writing tests are a thing for a LOT of writing jobs in the industry, not just at Larian.

When I applied for a job at BioWare in the mid-2000s, they made me develop an entire NWN2 mod just to LOOK at my application. Blizzard asked me to write a full pitch for an entire questline, including dialogue samples and gameplay ideas.

That's not to say Larian is off the hook for this, but that this kind of shit is surprisingly normalized in the industry as far as job applications for writers are concerned. And it's likely a major contributor to WHY it's so hard for young writers to get an "in" in the industry without extremely strong nepo connections.

PlanetSmasher’s lore >>>>>* 

Mf is so miserable because he’s failed at every single one of his creative pursuits.

I understand thinking that making a whole mod is too much, but asking for a pitch of a questline with some dialogue and gameplay ideas seems like exactly the kind of thing I'd want to know from someone who wants to write quests.

[HaughtyFrank]

I think everything wrong with Wyll stems from the fact that Larian changed his charertization mid development to be the goody two shoes normie of the party after realizing all the companions they made were assholes aside from Karlach. They wanted balance I think, but ended up making a bland character without any friction as a result. 

They probably didn’t update him after because they realized they fucked up, so they just left him as is.

I've noticed that Persephone always simps for the boring normie. In the past she has also been really mad about fan reactions to Mass Effect's Kaidan and Kotor's Carth. Now with Wyll she can cry racism because she of course wants to play every angle.

[filler]

maldoni rules 

top of the page boreform

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/zoë-quinn-and-multiple-game-writers-come-forward-about-larians-hiring-practices-unpaid-writing-tests-you-have-to-make-playable.1386028/

Blizzard asked me to write a full pitch for an entire questline, including dialogue samples and gameplay ideas.

I understand thinking that making a whole mod is too much, but asking for a pitch of a questline with some dialogue and gameplay ideas seems like exactly the kind of thing I'd want to know from someone who wants to write quests.

I'm coincidentally reading Schreier's book on Blizzard at the moment and when they were hiring people for the early days of World of Warcraft they were asked to create five quests until a tester (who got hired) instead did entire questlines. They must have realized that was a much better method to test.

A lot of people in that thread seem to think it's absurd to test any applicant for anything at all. But then there's also posters saying that Zoe Quinn has an "established body of work" in all seriousness.

[Uncle]

I understand thinking that making a whole mod is too much, but asking for a pitch of a questline with some dialogue and gameplay ideas seems like exactly the kind of thing I'd want to know from someone who wants to write quests.

I would even have something specific in mind, I'd be like "dude ok I really liked this quest in the tropical island zone, and I always wondered what happened to them afterward, so I wrote a quest for some theoretical future expansion that continues their adventures"

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/do-you-look-forward-getting-home-from-work.1385476/page-2#post-149027962

Obviously. Only the very privileged, or the deranged enjoy work.

No, I love working. Wish I never had to leave.

[HardcoreRetro]

The leftist gaming sphere would be a better place if they just admitted that Zoe Quinn was an opportunist cunt and grifter. They wouldn’t even need to pretend accepting GamerGate claims about the wide industry, just that Zoe was a toxic person that genuinely made the scene worst. Not even admitting the hardcore brigading or group manipulation.

You didn't mention the part where she drove some guy to suicide. 

Also, where's the Chuck Tingle game?

[Boredfrom]

maldoni rules 

Look at the bolded.

Unless is an Italian joke I didn’t get.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/warner-bros-planning-to-reject-paramount-hostile-takeover-bid-kushners-affinity-withdraws.1385323/page-5#post-149037763

Was he born without eyebrows or doe he shave them on purpose?

                  Bodyshaming

[kaleidoscopium]

#19 best selling of all time now

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

[jooseloose]

It's impressive how Nep turned a thread about AI in a videogame into lambasting someone about African enslavement. Like, how the hell did she mental gymnastic her way into bringing that up?

Any normal member saying the same would be banned for INFLAMMATORY COMPARISON

[benji]

BWoog is the dumbest motherfuckers on ERA

https://www.resetera.com/threads/if-appealing-to-the-center-never-wins-over-centrists-why-the-f-do-democrats-keep-doing-it.1386022/

Mamdani proved you can be far left and win elections so...fucking do that!

Now find an example that's not in a D+60 location where both the candidates are Democrats.  

Because Democrats WANT to be the "party for everyone". It would be an admirable goal if not for the fact that a substantial portion of the country is the human equivalent of the Anti-Life Equation. This results in them winding up being the party for no one.

                      dehumanizing rhetoric?
  

Blader's about the only person in there not spreading conspiracy theories and actually explaining that most of the country isn't far-left. This post was especially

A funny little irony of US politics that I think some people just aren't willing to accept is that Democratic donors are more socially liberal than the average voter. So when people say that the problem with Democrats is that they're too bound to their donors, that might be true, but not in the way you think!

Then there's this idiot:

In the last 35 years, we have had 9 presidential elections. Of those 9, the GOP has won 4 times. Of those 4 wins, they only won the popular vote twice. Without the electoral college we never get W Bush or Trump's first term. Hell, Trump's first term was literally decided by less than 100k people across a handful of states in the Midwest. That's why our elections look the way they do: unless you live in Ohio, Michigan, or Pennsylvania your vote does not count for much.

This is why I keep banging on about how we need to get rid of the electoral college. If that doesn't go, nothing will ever change.

The problem with the EC is that it is biased against people living in cities and gives more of a preference to those living in rural areas. It's why coal mining is such a hot button topic and it's why conservative viewpoints are so normalized. The EC doesn't represent the lived experience of most of the nation and never will. It needs to go.

And this is why our elections go the way they do. It's why W was president and could do two different wars and almost burn down social security. It's why Trump was president and ushered in the return of the Nazis. If we didn't have the electoral college we'd have had Presidents Al Gore and Hilary Clinton instead. And the average GOP candidate would be to the left of Romney.

The fact that the electrical college allows the GOP to become more extremist and remain competitive is a huge part of the reason we find ourselves in this situation. If they had to appeal to the whole nation instead of a handful of people in the Midwest they would not be able to get away with the shit they do on a regular basis.

The electoral college is literally the thing standing in the way of progress on the national level.

The Electoral College is only off because the House hasn't expanded in a century. Eliminating the Electoral College will require a Constitutional Amendment, the House can be expanded by a simple majority. The GOP could do it right now, the Dems could have done it after 2020, etc. The EC isn't biased against cities, the concept of geographical representation is. If you want to prevent some people from getting representation in the House because they live too far away from the biggest population centers of the country, just say so. Then with our national electorate we'll stop giving California and New York any say and everyone will focus on median locations like oh, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. (The reason there's a skew in the EC versus the popular is entirely because the states are winner-take-all. If they split their EC votes based on % in the state it would alter the national result. Any state can do this whenever they want. Which is why none of the big ones do, for example, Dems in California don't want to give 40% of their EC votes to the GOP.)

If B-Dubs theory about this being the source of all problems is correct, then what explains all the other elected Republicans who never compete nationally? (Hint: GOP presidents are to "the left" of/far more "centrist" then the party base and the Congressional membership and have been for all his life. The primaries already perform this role, as well as forcing Democrats to "the right" or "center" as well.)

Also none of these counterfactuals can be supported because it's assuming that nobody changes based on the rules being different even as it's part of an argument to why everything would change. For example, what if absent their EV value Hillary completely ignores the Rust Belt and Trump wins even more there to where he wins the popular vote as happened in 2024?

[jooseloose]

Mf is so miserable because he’s failed at every single one of his creative pursuits.

I'd be scouring every upcoming game from them to see if any of what I pitched was used. I wouldn't be able to help myself.

A (non-gaming) company totally did this with one of my application projects once and I was fucking furious. Scummy behavior. I spent 15 unpaid hours working on a project for them and they ghosted me and harvested my work.

"You're our top candidate, we just need to interview one more person tomorrow. We'll give you a final answer on Friday morning at 10:30 AM."

Flash forward to that Friday and I heard nothing from them until 3:30PM when I panicked and e-mailed the hiring manager for an update and got a terse "we decided to go with someone else" response within 35 seconds of clicking send.

Shitfuckers. Just the worst kind of company culture. I talked several other people out of applying for jobs with them over the next two years.

No feedback, not even a "thanks for applying" or anything. They completely changed their way of speaking to me the moment they pivoted to someone else - before that, it was verbose e-mails and dialogue and I even had a meeting with their chief marketing officer where we talked about my pitch and my past experience as a writer.

Then that Friday afternoon the only response I got was a single uncapitalized sentence from the hiring manager. It was mindblowingly scummy.

How else would they vett? You could have a portfolio that might not really be original work, or they make you generate original work. For product quality it might be best, maybe not the nicest for the applicants.

Writers should be paid to write. Expecting a person to do dozens of hours of free work just to get their application looked at is a fucking scam.

Especially when companies can - and have - harvest that free writing for their own project and not credit or pay the submitter for their time.

yeah i was a finalist for a game design job at some absolute third rate port studio around 2011, and i had to make them a multi-hour narrative-based Fallout 3 mod. it was a ton of writing, world building, etc. before even getting to the actual construction of the module. and they strung me along for a full -year- before telling me they decided not to hire anyone at all.

Yeah. It's almost impossible for an unproven writer to make it in the industry without being hired for a completely different development job and then being like "oh hey guys did you know I write?" The sheer barrier they've set up to even get seen is almost insurmountable for people who are starving and desperate.

Which is probably part of why so much game writing is terrible - because the industry makes it next to impossible for actual writers to get hired unless they're nepo hires.

Doctors, lawyers and engineers don't get their unpaid work stolen and passed off as the company's the way creatives can. There's a difference between artistic work and trade work.

I had just edited my post about this. If true, that's fucked. Do we know for sure what is what is actually happening? That these "tests" are just actual coding for the games and are fully utilized without credit?

I can't say for sure about Larian but I can say it's 100% happened to ME when I submitted one of these "pre-writing" projects for a job application I then got ghosted on. It's a real thing. And in a world where AI is starting to eat opportunities for writers, it's only getting WORSE, not better.

Lol engineers can absolutely have work stolen.

I would agree it is disgusting if someone were to do work for an interview, not get the job, and have that work stolen for the final product.

Did that actually happen here?

The idea that you shouldn't have to prove your ability to write when applying for a role as a writer has to be one of the most absurd things I've come across on this forum.

There's a difference between having a portfolio and being asked to spend DOZENS of hours of your life on a project you aren't being paid for just to get your application looked at.

Beyond the realms of possibility to Planetsmasher that the other people applying for jobs were in fact just better than him and not "nepo hires".

[malfoyking]

#19 best selling of all time now

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

hahahahahahahahaha. i fucking knew it lol.

[Daffy Duck]

They definitely smell blood in the water here, and that Quinn grifter is smelling the dollars