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Zoe Quinn #meToo / Alec Holowka suicide -- Update: Article questions ZQ's account of events (link in OP)
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H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
Reading this thread is cringe AF you guys.
First so many pages is everyone dog piling about how she is lying.. then the dude commits suicide, which would at least imply there is some truth to the allegation. Now you guys are dogpiling about how she is still fucked up for bringing it up?!
Looks pretty desperately trashy to me. You guys are saying entirely awful shit based on conjecture.
I have a good friend who was good friends with Alec. They were not surprised by this and aren’t jumping on Zoe for calling him out like you all are. Unless everyone talking shit is close to them and/or knows the facts ( which you all can’t be clued in on that level ), this all comes off as a totally fucking incel cringe fest.
Still love you all! But calm down k
1. Hardly a dogpile. People are presenting evidence of her history, a history largely ignored by the mainstream press. People are going to get pissed at that and vent about it.
2. Read my earlier post. I've had to deal with an internet hate mob claiming I'd done things I hadn't. I honestly could have committed suicide, and the size of the mob was vastly smaller than that generated by a modern Twitter crusdade. Your ideology must REALLY be clouding your judgement if you really believe this.
3. You have a friend of a friend who was friends with Alec. That they're not furious that she killed him says more about them than about him. That you glory in it says a lot about you.
Finally, fuck off.
DunDunDunpachi
Banned
Uh oohhhhhh! Even by mentioning NeoGAF she is "normalizing" and "providing a platform for" an alt-right site like NeoGAF! Reeeeeee
Shmunter
Member
Precisely. It’s literal de-evolution.
It’s sad to watch the worst of humanity for those of us that are slightly above it. Would be easier to be part of the herd, ignorance is bliss.
Shantae
Banned
Why does everyone who has a difference of opinion automatically mean they're alt-right? I am so tired of this shit! Hey Jennifer, if you're reading this, I AM NOT FUCKING ALT-RIGHT. I fucking hate Trump, and have voted democrat for every election I've participated in, so kiss my ass.
These people are fucking insane, and it drives me crazy that no amount of common sense seems to get through to them.
trikster40
Member
Ugh. This situation has been weighing on me more than usual. I wouldn’t know Alec from Adam, but this entire situation spiraled out of control so fast.
If your life has ever been changed due to a loved one’s suicide, you know how monumental this is for Alec’s family. That moment when they heard the news is frozen in time for them. They will never forget, never understand, and never have that hole that just opened in their hearts and souls healed.
My dad committed suicide when I was 3. He was 31. That was 40 years ago. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what my life would be like today if I still had my dad. When I turned 32, I thought “I’ve been on this earth longer than my dad.” When my daughter was born, I missed him. When my son was born, I missed him. Did he look at me and my siblings with the same love that I look at my kids? Do I share some of his I traits? Did he feel like me? I will go to my grave still wondering How much of me is like my father.
My fathers parents blamed my mother for his death. They disowned my family, wouldn’t even talk to us. They were hurt and lashed out.
My mother never recovered. She couldn’t even date again. To this day, she still cries on his birthday, their anniversary, and the date of his death. My sister is scarred. She was 7 so she knew what was going on. She never forgave our grandparents, didn’t even go to their funeral some 25 years later.
My brother and I reconciled with them, and glad we did. They saw their son in us, and we had a very loving relationship to the day they died.
My point is to just remember that there is real hurt and sorrow going on in people’s lives at this moment. The kind that won’t ever go away. Be kind, keep them in your thoughts and/or prayers.
I’ve stayed away from the other site knowing what kind of comments would be posted. From some of the screen caps posted here, they were spot on what I expected. Toxic, uninformed, and vile. Let’s be better than them. Throwing blame on any party, whether deserved or not and regardless of your personal opinion of certain people, will not help the situation. Better to not mention other parties at all than to go down a hate-filled path.
That being said, they really need to start regulating social media better. Twitter needs to put a stop to these tweets of accusations and hatred and give them to authorities to deal with. Let the police show up on the accusers doorstep and take statements, etc.
The world would be a better place without Twitter.
If your life has ever been changed due to a loved one’s suicide, you know how monumental this is for Alec’s family. That moment when they heard the news is frozen in time for them. They will never forget, never understand, and never have that hole that just opened in their hearts and souls healed.
My dad committed suicide when I was 3. He was 31. That was 40 years ago. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what my life would be like today if I still had my dad. When I turned 32, I thought “I’ve been on this earth longer than my dad.” When my daughter was born, I missed him. When my son was born, I missed him. Did he look at me and my siblings with the same love that I look at my kids? Do I share some of his I traits? Did he feel like me? I will go to my grave still wondering How much of me is like my father.
My fathers parents blamed my mother for his death. They disowned my family, wouldn’t even talk to us. They were hurt and lashed out.
My mother never recovered. She couldn’t even date again. To this day, she still cries on his birthday, their anniversary, and the date of his death. My sister is scarred. She was 7 so she knew what was going on. She never forgave our grandparents, didn’t even go to their funeral some 25 years later.
My brother and I reconciled with them, and glad we did. They saw their son in us, and we had a very loving relationship to the day they died.
My point is to just remember that there is real hurt and sorrow going on in people’s lives at this moment. The kind that won’t ever go away. Be kind, keep them in your thoughts and/or prayers.
I’ve stayed away from the other site knowing what kind of comments would be posted. From some of the screen caps posted here, they were spot on what I expected. Toxic, uninformed, and vile. Let’s be better than them. Throwing blame on any party, whether deserved or not and regardless of your personal opinion of certain people, will not help the situation. Better to not mention other parties at all than to go down a hate-filled path.
That being said, they really need to start regulating social media better. Twitter needs to put a stop to these tweets of accusations and hatred and give them to authorities to deal with. Let the police show up on the accusers doorstep and take statements, etc.
The world would be a better place without Twitter.
petran79
Banned
this wasnt posted yet as it was visible only to kickstarter backers. I wish more developers were as open about such topics as they were. Comments there like "you have blood on your hands" in such a situation are unacceptable. most are comments of support
Hey all. This update is going to be very difficult. Thanks for your understanding in advance. If you're in need of content warnings- there's going to be mentions of sexual abuse, abuse in general, suicide, etc
This week allegations of abuse came to light against Alec Holowka, coder/composer/co-designer of NITW. Since then several other people have stepped forward, detailing issues of varying levels of severity that stretch right up to today. As a result, we won't be working with Alec anymore. Let's talk about that. And please do read through all the way before commenting.
There's a decent amount about every life, relationship, and project that anyone who isn't involved directly will never know about. As you can imagine there's tons of things about NITW development that never made it to the internet in a post somewhere. Just like your life, or job, or family, or the things you work on. We've had a complicated relationship with Alec, one that was at times extremely difficult, but we have always cared about him, and we did some pretty great work together if I do say so myself. Sometime in the future we'll probably have to go into detail about that difficult history. I don't know if I can bring myself to do it now. But I'll just ask you to keep that in mind.
I'll keep this all brief (edit- i just finished writing and i did not keep it brief but it could have easily been 3 times as long). It will surely fail to answer every question you might have. Bear with me.
When we met Alec in 2013 he was a different guy than he is now. We jumped into this kickstarter only knowing each other for a couple brief months. We didn't expect it to change our lives and bind us into a team for half a decade. Despite us being very different people, Alec and I have always gotten along. And I really respect his work and his can-do spirit. He's just up for making things, figuring out problems, suggesting cool ways to accomplish something. And his music is great too, which is something a whole lot of people would agree on. And beyond that he was very open to Bethany and I taking lead on narrative, characters, world, art, writing, etc. For that we're grateful and we have some really fond memories of working with him.
But about a year or so into the project we began realizing that Alec was a bit unstable, often lashing out at people he lived with. We heard through him and some others that he had some pretty volatile dating relationships. Nothing that said /abuse/, just hey there's a lot of drama here. During the next couple of years Alec's instability would lead to his leaving the indie house space in Vancouver he'd been a part of for years and heading to Winnipeg. We took the brunt of this as well. Things got very bad with both him and NITW development and we were honestly making worst case scenario plans by the end of 2015. The story of how NITW was saved late that year gets very personal for me and is all too close still. I'll tell it someday, maybe soon. I don't tend to talk about my own trauma shit often. But it was then I started having very bad no-joke-actual-medical-issue panic attacks daily, which happened on and off until mid 2017, and with one exception haven't returned. Until the past week.
But beginning in this bad time for Alec in 2015 (and he's publicly talked about this, we're not dropping confidential info) he went through a good month or so of intense therapy and diagnosis. He emerged from that, honestly putting in the work, putting a lot of that past self behind him, staying up on therapy and meds. We were so proud of him. And relieved. By 2016 he was basically a new person, and we really got to be friends then I think, and we finished up NITW. Since then we've kept in touch, saying hey when we're in the same place once a year or so, and recently we've been working weekly on that backer game, which we were all very excited about (more on that later). We were just relieved what with how rocky things had started that we'd all made it out of this with a game we could be proud of, and also that Alec was doing well.
In the past couple of years he got his own game studio thing going with various great people, making games that from what I've seen look very cool. He's been really interested in making good shit with good people. I was honestly just so happy and proud of the guy. I still am, for the ways in which he actually did change, and for the work he's made.
This all came crashing down recently, culminating in this week.
I'm not going to root through everything in there and give a line by line analysis, but I'll say that enough of the allegations are extremely plausible and just about all of it we've corroborated with other sources. I'm not going to list those out here, this isn't a trial, and we don't /owe/ the internet a comprehensive accounting of why so many people who have known Alec for years have looked at the accusations and believed them.
Seriously, what you see on twitter isn't representative of real life. It's just what makes it into posts. When people who have years-long real life experience with the guy, people who knew him in different situations, locations, ages, and contexts, all say the same thing, you can assume there's more to this than you'd know from outside the situation, taking it in 280 characters at a time.
Whatever happened years ago, this week a contractor working for Alec, whom we know and trust, has come forward with her own experiences with Alec. Others have talked about how Alec's conduct towards women was something whispered around at game events. A woman I've known for a while got in touch with us this week talking about how she's been told many times not to be alone in a room with him. Men have gotten in touch about working with Alec and the things that happened to them there. There are other things, things from people we trust, things you'll probably never hear about. But honestly just being a really shitty boss, as detailed by Albertine, is probably enough for us to separate from him alone. To say nothing of the far more serious allegations out there. Multiple people are afraid to run into the guy at different conferences. We were with him at some of those conferences. Now knowing that people were afraid to approach us and say hello eats at me.
The things that Alec did during the bad times were worse than we knew, and he's still being abusive in other ways to those around him. We didn't know. We feel like idiots. We feel betrayed. We're sad and angry. We put in the work with him during those really bad times. It's hard to talk about, and everyone really wants us to talk about it. They want detailed accountings of every aspect. Some people want to know exactly what we knew and when so they can figure out who around him is most complicit. Some people want us to give them hard evidence, as if such a thing was even possible, or as if it would appropriate to give them in the first place. Some people randomly doubt all of this because nobody had Alec arrested, which shows a weird understanding of the reality of human relationships and abuse that I can only assume comes from experience of the world via online chatter and a list of how things should work. The idea that there's a foolproof system in place that can stop this, can riddle it out, can tell us exactly who is and isn't guilty, a system which can set all this right. But it doesn't work like that in real life. Some of the demand for more info stems from the idea that if something is put out in public then any interested party is owed as much information as they want to work out their own stance and to judge ours. But at least for us the only reason we're working this out in public is because we have to. It was out there, and we've had to respond to it. Like we have to tell you now. And it's been like stabbing myself in the stomach every day to have to type words like this. To sum up- this isn't some "guilty til proven innocent" or "social media mob" thing for us. There's years of real life context to this, involving lots of people who aren't even online or public about this, and the fact that some folks just found out about it this week doesn't mean it began there. It's just when it became public.
If I sound grouchy about that aspect of things, it's because all week I've felt awful about this and I've had more than enough people yelling at me that we've flippantly decided to ditch Alec, simply because they're clueless about the larger situation here and unable to accept that their vantage point on the thing is extremely limited. It wasn't just a callout post that made this happen. More people than us are destroyed about this situation this week. It isn't some "sjws vs gamers" war thing for us, no matter how many people online might make it that for themselves. We weren't duped by some grifter and then went on to suddenly dump a long-time collaborator. We aren't trying to prove a point or appease a mob or show we're great. Whenever someone has praised me for Taking A Stand or whatever this week I just feel gross. None of this feels good. There isn't one good thing about this. I don't feel brave or honest. I just feel horrible. A real life friend and coworker did some really bad shit, years ago and now, and all of us in the blast radius are just heartbroken. We've got a right to be angry, to make decisions, and to grieve.
But that's the rest of the internet. Just about all of you we've been in touch with this week have been wonderful. And for that I can only say I'm beyond grateful. We've needed it.
So here are some questions and answers:
Did you fire Alec?
No. Infinite Fall isn't a company, it's a name we adopted for our team. There's no salary to cut. There's no Infinite Fall bank account, no Infinite Fall HQ. Our merch operation is already something that just Bethany and myself do, aside from sales of the soundtrack digitally and on vinyl. It's more like a band broke up or something.
Did you not-fire him over baseless allegations?
No, it was a combination of a lot of things from several parties and our experiences going back years. It sucked. You just saw some of it on twitter, or on here. I hope I've been clear enough about that.
Don't you know (whichever accuser) is a LIAR?
Well I guess you'll be happy to know this is more complex than any one person's accusation. At this point it's a much larger thing. It sucks. I hate this.
Does Alec get money from the game?
Yes, from game sales and soundtrack sales. That's all we can say for now. We'll update you when and if thing change. But we're not like unilaterally cutting off Alec's revenue share or something.
How can you work on NITW things just by yourselves?
If you want to get all legalese about it, I have since the start owned the NITW IP. Our work with Alec was for the game. When people email us wanting to buy the rights to a movie or tv show (which has happened!) it's Bethany and I that say no. When Tom Delonge's business partner gets in touch wanting to make NITW merch for Hot Topic (which totally happened!) it's Bethany and I who say no but still tell the story whenever we get a chance.
What did you each do on the game?
We've gotten this question a lot this week, which I understand. Alec was coder, composer, and co-designer. I co-wrote the story with Bethany, who was also our researcher. Her hometown experiences in rural Central PA were a big part of the story, along with mine in the 20 years I've lived in Western PA along the Rt 22 corridor from Altoona right on to Pittsburgh. From that stuff sprung a lot of the world of Possum Springs. Additionally, I did art, character design, area design, wrote just about all of the dialogue, and co-designed the game with Alec. I can't code though so all credit Alec for making this monster of a thing work. Em Halberstadt was sound designer. Jon Manning worked on our dialogue tool Yarn Spinner and did some other crucial work since. I am probably forgetting some people. It's been a long day.
Can you remove Alec's work from the game?
No! And we wouldn't if we could. Alec did amazing work, and we made something cool together. Whatever he did outside of the game, his work is his. We feel pretty strongly about that.
Can I get a refund due to all of this shit?
No, it's been 6 years, game's been out for 2.5 of those years.
What about the last backer rewards??
I'm finishing the book, it's cool. It's square! There's talk of a print version later? Really thinking about doing that, which would be exciting during any other week. Because of cutting ties with Alec we can't deliver the short backer game we were working on. This kills me. We were actually working with Albertine on that one too. Wren from our new studio as well, we were scheduled to get into concept work this week. Everyone is pretty depressed about that. That being said, we do have an epilogue in us, which is what the game was turning out to be. There's an excellent chance that will see the light of day in a different form.
Why can't you just get someone else to do Alec's part on the backer game?
Because it's Alec's too. Our design work together is basic to what these games are. And his music. We can't just hire some random person to fill that role. Nor do we want to.
What form will the epilogue take instead?
I don't know. We have some rad ideas. Like the book, they'd probably be exciting to me right now if not for this week. It'll be exciting again. Soon.
Are updates still going to happen?
Sure! At least until a lot of what's going on gets figured out and put to bed. What with that book and epilogue... thing... there's more to talk about.
How should I feel about Night In The Woods?
We can't tell you how to feel about it. Or about any of this. Night In The Woods's story, characters, ideas, and world came from a very personal place for Bethany and I, and a lot of what's in the game is pulled pretty directly from our lives, from ourselves, and from the people we know. And this has connected with thousands and thousands of people. That's a good thing. That's one of the best things, to be honest. And you helped that happen. You can be happy about that. I'm happy about that. What you experience when you experience art is yours. Nothing can take that away. It's not owned by us. You may not care about any of this, and that's fine. This may have ruined the whole thing for you. You may be able to separate out the elements that other people worked on and still feel a connection to those. Whatever it is, that's valid. The game still means the world to us. It was a personal thing we never thought anyone would care about, and yet they did. I'm sad that one of our collaborators turned out to be so abusive, but life isn't always what you want it to be. I'm still very proud of what we made, and I hope it continues to connect with people for a long time to come.
How did Alec do all of these things to multiple people over several years and it never went public?
Well, most things that happen in the world don't get written about on the internet. So there's that. But also the nature of abuse is often such that each person feels like they're the only ones receiving the abuse at any given time, and when the abuse stops happening to them they can easily believe it stopped altogether, because most people aren't sitting around comparing abuse notes. And often when multiple people ARE being abused in some fashion, there are extenuating circumstances keeping the abuser from being held accountable- finances, a job, a living situation, fear of retaliation or personal loss, etc. And abuse can often just catch people off guard or wear people down to the point where they don't fight back in the ways that a Logical Outside Party might see as common sense. This is why there are abuse counselors and people who specialize in this, because this shit is complicated in 1000 terrible ways and most abuse never gets made public in any setting. Often the abused will just feel ashamed. Or alone. Or helpless. Or straight up terrified and at risk. And a lot of times the abused will still really care about the abuser. Another thing that happens with a lot of abusers is they, consciously or not, farm out responsibility for their actions to someone else. So for example if an abuser threatens to kill themselves and places the responsibility for stopping that on someone else, a lot of people will do anything to help the abuser. It becomes your responsibility to fix the situation, your fault if it all goes wrong.
I have spent much of the past week fighting the urge that I am somehow, somehow, responsible for all of this.
Beyond that, often people will know about the abuse and cover for the abuser, for a variety of reasons both understandable and downright evil. Whole networks of abusers cover each other's asses. Sometimes people profit off of the abuse of others. There are any number of reasons why so much awful shit that people do to other people isn't visible until maybe someday it boils over and you suddenly find out that you and a dozen other people talk about the same person at therapy.
Are you depressed?
I am very depressed right now.
What happens now?
Things are still happening with this whole godawful situation. Regardless, Bethany and I will continue working on our NITW things. I'll be back here with updates as things happen. Mostly right now we're just really torn up. We're angry, we're sad, we're worried about basically all parties involved, we mostly just need a nap.
I'll be checking the comments here for the next few days but try to remember we're pretty rattled and raw right now.
Thank you for understanding, and for your support over the years. I'm going to be a dork and ask for your support now.
thanks.
<3,
-scott
PS- i feel like i should have ended this with some rousing call to combat abuse and stand up for the abused and give some really tips on all that but... geez... i just can't right now. we'll get there.
Hey all. This update is going to be very difficult. Thanks for your understanding in advance. If you're in need of content warnings- there's going to be mentions of sexual abuse, abuse in general, suicide, etc
This week allegations of abuse came to light against Alec Holowka, coder/composer/co-designer of NITW. Since then several other people have stepped forward, detailing issues of varying levels of severity that stretch right up to today. As a result, we won't be working with Alec anymore. Let's talk about that. And please do read through all the way before commenting.
There's a decent amount about every life, relationship, and project that anyone who isn't involved directly will never know about. As you can imagine there's tons of things about NITW development that never made it to the internet in a post somewhere. Just like your life, or job, or family, or the things you work on. We've had a complicated relationship with Alec, one that was at times extremely difficult, but we have always cared about him, and we did some pretty great work together if I do say so myself. Sometime in the future we'll probably have to go into detail about that difficult history. I don't know if I can bring myself to do it now. But I'll just ask you to keep that in mind.
I'll keep this all brief (edit- i just finished writing and i did not keep it brief but it could have easily been 3 times as long). It will surely fail to answer every question you might have. Bear with me.
When we met Alec in 2013 he was a different guy than he is now. We jumped into this kickstarter only knowing each other for a couple brief months. We didn't expect it to change our lives and bind us into a team for half a decade. Despite us being very different people, Alec and I have always gotten along. And I really respect his work and his can-do spirit. He's just up for making things, figuring out problems, suggesting cool ways to accomplish something. And his music is great too, which is something a whole lot of people would agree on. And beyond that he was very open to Bethany and I taking lead on narrative, characters, world, art, writing, etc. For that we're grateful and we have some really fond memories of working with him.
But about a year or so into the project we began realizing that Alec was a bit unstable, often lashing out at people he lived with. We heard through him and some others that he had some pretty volatile dating relationships. Nothing that said /abuse/, just hey there's a lot of drama here. During the next couple of years Alec's instability would lead to his leaving the indie house space in Vancouver he'd been a part of for years and heading to Winnipeg. We took the brunt of this as well. Things got very bad with both him and NITW development and we were honestly making worst case scenario plans by the end of 2015. The story of how NITW was saved late that year gets very personal for me and is all too close still. I'll tell it someday, maybe soon. I don't tend to talk about my own trauma shit often. But it was then I started having very bad no-joke-actual-medical-issue panic attacks daily, which happened on and off until mid 2017, and with one exception haven't returned. Until the past week.
But beginning in this bad time for Alec in 2015 (and he's publicly talked about this, we're not dropping confidential info) he went through a good month or so of intense therapy and diagnosis. He emerged from that, honestly putting in the work, putting a lot of that past self behind him, staying up on therapy and meds. We were so proud of him. And relieved. By 2016 he was basically a new person, and we really got to be friends then I think, and we finished up NITW. Since then we've kept in touch, saying hey when we're in the same place once a year or so, and recently we've been working weekly on that backer game, which we were all very excited about (more on that later). We were just relieved what with how rocky things had started that we'd all made it out of this with a game we could be proud of, and also that Alec was doing well.
In the past couple of years he got his own game studio thing going with various great people, making games that from what I've seen look very cool. He's been really interested in making good shit with good people. I was honestly just so happy and proud of the guy. I still am, for the ways in which he actually did change, and for the work he's made.
This all came crashing down recently, culminating in this week.
I'm not going to root through everything in there and give a line by line analysis, but I'll say that enough of the allegations are extremely plausible and just about all of it we've corroborated with other sources. I'm not going to list those out here, this isn't a trial, and we don't /owe/ the internet a comprehensive accounting of why so many people who have known Alec for years have looked at the accusations and believed them.
Seriously, what you see on twitter isn't representative of real life. It's just what makes it into posts. When people who have years-long real life experience with the guy, people who knew him in different situations, locations, ages, and contexts, all say the same thing, you can assume there's more to this than you'd know from outside the situation, taking it in 280 characters at a time.
Whatever happened years ago, this week a contractor working for Alec, whom we know and trust, has come forward with her own experiences with Alec. Others have talked about how Alec's conduct towards women was something whispered around at game events. A woman I've known for a while got in touch with us this week talking about how she's been told many times not to be alone in a room with him. Men have gotten in touch about working with Alec and the things that happened to them there. There are other things, things from people we trust, things you'll probably never hear about. But honestly just being a really shitty boss, as detailed by Albertine, is probably enough for us to separate from him alone. To say nothing of the far more serious allegations out there. Multiple people are afraid to run into the guy at different conferences. We were with him at some of those conferences. Now knowing that people were afraid to approach us and say hello eats at me.
The things that Alec did during the bad times were worse than we knew, and he's still being abusive in other ways to those around him. We didn't know. We feel like idiots. We feel betrayed. We're sad and angry. We put in the work with him during those really bad times. It's hard to talk about, and everyone really wants us to talk about it. They want detailed accountings of every aspect. Some people want to know exactly what we knew and when so they can figure out who around him is most complicit. Some people want us to give them hard evidence, as if such a thing was even possible, or as if it would appropriate to give them in the first place. Some people randomly doubt all of this because nobody had Alec arrested, which shows a weird understanding of the reality of human relationships and abuse that I can only assume comes from experience of the world via online chatter and a list of how things should work. The idea that there's a foolproof system in place that can stop this, can riddle it out, can tell us exactly who is and isn't guilty, a system which can set all this right. But it doesn't work like that in real life. Some of the demand for more info stems from the idea that if something is put out in public then any interested party is owed as much information as they want to work out their own stance and to judge ours. But at least for us the only reason we're working this out in public is because we have to. It was out there, and we've had to respond to it. Like we have to tell you now. And it's been like stabbing myself in the stomach every day to have to type words like this. To sum up- this isn't some "guilty til proven innocent" or "social media mob" thing for us. There's years of real life context to this, involving lots of people who aren't even online or public about this, and the fact that some folks just found out about it this week doesn't mean it began there. It's just when it became public.
If I sound grouchy about that aspect of things, it's because all week I've felt awful about this and I've had more than enough people yelling at me that we've flippantly decided to ditch Alec, simply because they're clueless about the larger situation here and unable to accept that their vantage point on the thing is extremely limited. It wasn't just a callout post that made this happen. More people than us are destroyed about this situation this week. It isn't some "sjws vs gamers" war thing for us, no matter how many people online might make it that for themselves. We weren't duped by some grifter and then went on to suddenly dump a long-time collaborator. We aren't trying to prove a point or appease a mob or show we're great. Whenever someone has praised me for Taking A Stand or whatever this week I just feel gross. None of this feels good. There isn't one good thing about this. I don't feel brave or honest. I just feel horrible. A real life friend and coworker did some really bad shit, years ago and now, and all of us in the blast radius are just heartbroken. We've got a right to be angry, to make decisions, and to grieve.
But that's the rest of the internet. Just about all of you we've been in touch with this week have been wonderful. And for that I can only say I'm beyond grateful. We've needed it.
So here are some questions and answers:
Did you fire Alec?
No. Infinite Fall isn't a company, it's a name we adopted for our team. There's no salary to cut. There's no Infinite Fall bank account, no Infinite Fall HQ. Our merch operation is already something that just Bethany and myself do, aside from sales of the soundtrack digitally and on vinyl. It's more like a band broke up or something.
Did you not-fire him over baseless allegations?
No, it was a combination of a lot of things from several parties and our experiences going back years. It sucked. You just saw some of it on twitter, or on here. I hope I've been clear enough about that.
Don't you know (whichever accuser) is a LIAR?
Well I guess you'll be happy to know this is more complex than any one person's accusation. At this point it's a much larger thing. It sucks. I hate this.
Does Alec get money from the game?
Yes, from game sales and soundtrack sales. That's all we can say for now. We'll update you when and if thing change. But we're not like unilaterally cutting off Alec's revenue share or something.
How can you work on NITW things just by yourselves?
If you want to get all legalese about it, I have since the start owned the NITW IP. Our work with Alec was for the game. When people email us wanting to buy the rights to a movie or tv show (which has happened!) it's Bethany and I that say no. When Tom Delonge's business partner gets in touch wanting to make NITW merch for Hot Topic (which totally happened!) it's Bethany and I who say no but still tell the story whenever we get a chance.
What did you each do on the game?
We've gotten this question a lot this week, which I understand. Alec was coder, composer, and co-designer. I co-wrote the story with Bethany, who was also our researcher. Her hometown experiences in rural Central PA were a big part of the story, along with mine in the 20 years I've lived in Western PA along the Rt 22 corridor from Altoona right on to Pittsburgh. From that stuff sprung a lot of the world of Possum Springs. Additionally, I did art, character design, area design, wrote just about all of the dialogue, and co-designed the game with Alec. I can't code though so all credit Alec for making this monster of a thing work. Em Halberstadt was sound designer. Jon Manning worked on our dialogue tool Yarn Spinner and did some other crucial work since. I am probably forgetting some people. It's been a long day.
Can you remove Alec's work from the game?
No! And we wouldn't if we could. Alec did amazing work, and we made something cool together. Whatever he did outside of the game, his work is his. We feel pretty strongly about that.
Can I get a refund due to all of this shit?
No, it's been 6 years, game's been out for 2.5 of those years.
What about the last backer rewards??
I'm finishing the book, it's cool. It's square! There's talk of a print version later? Really thinking about doing that, which would be exciting during any other week. Because of cutting ties with Alec we can't deliver the short backer game we were working on. This kills me. We were actually working with Albertine on that one too. Wren from our new studio as well, we were scheduled to get into concept work this week. Everyone is pretty depressed about that. That being said, we do have an epilogue in us, which is what the game was turning out to be. There's an excellent chance that will see the light of day in a different form.
Why can't you just get someone else to do Alec's part on the backer game?
Because it's Alec's too. Our design work together is basic to what these games are. And his music. We can't just hire some random person to fill that role. Nor do we want to.
What form will the epilogue take instead?
I don't know. We have some rad ideas. Like the book, they'd probably be exciting to me right now if not for this week. It'll be exciting again. Soon.
Are updates still going to happen?
Sure! At least until a lot of what's going on gets figured out and put to bed. What with that book and epilogue... thing... there's more to talk about.
How should I feel about Night In The Woods?
We can't tell you how to feel about it. Or about any of this. Night In The Woods's story, characters, ideas, and world came from a very personal place for Bethany and I, and a lot of what's in the game is pulled pretty directly from our lives, from ourselves, and from the people we know. And this has connected with thousands and thousands of people. That's a good thing. That's one of the best things, to be honest. And you helped that happen. You can be happy about that. I'm happy about that. What you experience when you experience art is yours. Nothing can take that away. It's not owned by us. You may not care about any of this, and that's fine. This may have ruined the whole thing for you. You may be able to separate out the elements that other people worked on and still feel a connection to those. Whatever it is, that's valid. The game still means the world to us. It was a personal thing we never thought anyone would care about, and yet they did. I'm sad that one of our collaborators turned out to be so abusive, but life isn't always what you want it to be. I'm still very proud of what we made, and I hope it continues to connect with people for a long time to come.
How did Alec do all of these things to multiple people over several years and it never went public?
Well, most things that happen in the world don't get written about on the internet. So there's that. But also the nature of abuse is often such that each person feels like they're the only ones receiving the abuse at any given time, and when the abuse stops happening to them they can easily believe it stopped altogether, because most people aren't sitting around comparing abuse notes. And often when multiple people ARE being abused in some fashion, there are extenuating circumstances keeping the abuser from being held accountable- finances, a job, a living situation, fear of retaliation or personal loss, etc. And abuse can often just catch people off guard or wear people down to the point where they don't fight back in the ways that a Logical Outside Party might see as common sense. This is why there are abuse counselors and people who specialize in this, because this shit is complicated in 1000 terrible ways and most abuse never gets made public in any setting. Often the abused will just feel ashamed. Or alone. Or helpless. Or straight up terrified and at risk. And a lot of times the abused will still really care about the abuser. Another thing that happens with a lot of abusers is they, consciously or not, farm out responsibility for their actions to someone else. So for example if an abuser threatens to kill themselves and places the responsibility for stopping that on someone else, a lot of people will do anything to help the abuser. It becomes your responsibility to fix the situation, your fault if it all goes wrong.
I have spent much of the past week fighting the urge that I am somehow, somehow, responsible for all of this.
Beyond that, often people will know about the abuse and cover for the abuser, for a variety of reasons both understandable and downright evil. Whole networks of abusers cover each other's asses. Sometimes people profit off of the abuse of others. There are any number of reasons why so much awful shit that people do to other people isn't visible until maybe someday it boils over and you suddenly find out that you and a dozen other people talk about the same person at therapy.
Are you depressed?
I am very depressed right now.
What happens now?
Things are still happening with this whole godawful situation. Regardless, Bethany and I will continue working on our NITW things. I'll be back here with updates as things happen. Mostly right now we're just really torn up. We're angry, we're sad, we're worried about basically all parties involved, we mostly just need a nap.
I'll be checking the comments here for the next few days but try to remember we're pretty rattled and raw right now.
Thank you for understanding, and for your support over the years. I'm going to be a dork and ask for your support now.
thanks.
<3,
-scott
PS- i feel like i should have ended this with some rousing call to combat abuse and stand up for the abused and give some really tips on all that but... geez... i just can't right now. we'll get there.
llien
Member
How corroboration works.
Real world story.
A woman is struggling to fix her car.
A dude passing by tries to help.
She goes to police claiming he groped her (breasts and crotch) and then stalked her.
Police examines CCTV cameras, and figures she was lying (about a bloody stranger she had never seen in her life)
Magistrate Walsh lashed out at Gray for "consistent lying", and said in court: “The offender had the opportunity to limit the damage from false allegations on numerous occasions.
“She did not take the opportunity to limit damage.”
www.mirror.co.uk
But, hold on, before the news that it was all false accusations, two more accusers come out of nowhere, figuring that dude stalked them too:
7news.com.au
Want to talk about chances of two others "navigating" Gomeshi Trial style?
On March 24, 2016, the judge delivered the verdict. Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice William Horkins stated that the inconsistency and "outright deception" of the witness' testimony had irreparably weakened the prosecution's case.[56] "Each complainant," he wrote, "demonstrated, to some degree, a willingness to ignore their oath to tell the truth on more than one occasion." Referring to a witness' excuse that she was merely trying to "navigate" the proceeding, Horkins replied "'Navigating' this sort of proceeding is really quite simple: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."[57]
Real world story.
A woman is struggling to fix her car.
A dude passing by tries to help.
She goes to police claiming he groped her (breasts and crotch) and then stalked her.
Police examines CCTV cameras, and figures she was lying (about a bloody stranger she had never seen in her life)
Magistrate Walsh lashed out at Gray for "consistent lying", and said in court: “The offender had the opportunity to limit the damage from false allegations on numerous occasions.
“She did not take the opportunity to limit damage.”
Woman who falsely accused Good Samaritan of sexual assault is jailed
Caitlyn Gray, 20, will face five months in prison for falsely accusing Kevin Basic - costing him his job and marriage
www.mirror.co.uk
But, hold on, before the news that it was all false accusations, two more accusers come out of nowhere, figuring that dude stalked them too:
Good Samaritan dad falsely accused of sexual assault hit with stalking charges
It's been revealed Kenan Basic, falsely accused of sexual assault by a woman he'd helped with car trouble, is facing stalking charges.
7news.com.au
Want to talk about chances of two others "navigating" Gomeshi Trial style?
On March 24, 2016, the judge delivered the verdict. Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice William Horkins stated that the inconsistency and "outright deception" of the witness' testimony had irreparably weakened the prosecution's case.[56] "Each complainant," he wrote, "demonstrated, to some degree, a willingness to ignore their oath to tell the truth on more than one occasion." Referring to a witness' excuse that she was merely trying to "navigate" the proceeding, Horkins replied "'Navigating' this sort of proceeding is really quite simple: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."[57]
cormack12
Gold Member
Man took his own life after fake rape claim left him in 'living hell'
Ross Bullock was tragically found dead after telling his parents he 'hit rock bottom'.
metro.co.uk
Former figure skater's family blamed suicide on false accusation
Former figure skating champion John Coughlin committed suicide on Jan. 18, one day after he had been suspended for sexual misconduct allegations.
eu.usatoday.com
Girl’s false claim led to suicide
Shortly before he died, Michael Isherwood left a handwritten note for his sister: “Mud sticks. No coming back from these allegations.”Isherwood, 51, an inspecting engineer at Vauxhall on Merseyside
www.thetimes.co.uk
Musician declares ‘innocence’ by killing himself after #MeToo accusation
In suicide note posted on Twitter, Armando Vega Gil said that he wished to spare his son from ‘suffering the effects of this false accusation against me’.
www.scmp.com
Man Killed In Attack After Girl Claims Sexual Assault That Never Happened
Michael Fife died on April 27, four days after he was attacked by a 17-year-old boy at a bus stop.
defensemaven.io
Nine priests have died by suicide after false claims of abuse, says cleric who was also wrongly accused
NINE priests who were wrongly accused of abuse have died by suicide, a cleric who was the subject of false accusations has claimed.
www.irishnews.com
This Man Contemplated Suicide After He Was Falsely Accused Of Sexual Harassment
A caller from Horsham has opened up about how a false accusation of sexual harassment almost led him to suicide.
www.lbc.co.uk
Policeman was on verge of suicide as woman he's dating makes rape claim
The officer met Samantha Murray-Evans on an Internet dating site and everything seemed fine for the first weeks until she made the "callous" claims, which almost caused him to take his own life
www.mirror.co.uk
I mean it's not like false allegations ever ruined someone's life that was innoccent right? Logic of a 12 year old.
Imagine you have the entire internet to comb alt-right websites, the entire index of the dark web and you name drop 4chan, neogaf and kiwifarms to make it sound like you have your finger on the pulse. And just realised she is the pound shop version of Jessica Price. Can't build up women without swiping at men
Jennifer I do hope you scurtinise neogaf. Very closely. I also hope you apply the same level of scrutiny to the website tat has actually got people fired, doxxed people, and almost certainly caused harassment campaigns to drive people to absolute despair. I suspect you won't but prove me wrong.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Standing up personally to your harasser/bullly/rapist is brave.
Challenging your harasser/bully/rapist through the (imperfect) legal system is brave.
Tweeting, in order to set the internet mob against your harasser/bully/rapist is not brave. Especially when its done years after the alleged offences took place and the current political zeitgeist is to believe accusations at face value.
Challenging your harasser/bully/rapist through the (imperfect) legal system is brave.
Tweeting, in order to set the internet mob against your harasser/bully/rapist is not brave. Especially when its done years after the alleged offences took place and the current political zeitgeist is to believe accusations at face value.
dolabla
Member
They're literally incapable of handling difference of opinion. It's a cult.
decisions
Member
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
What you said makes no sense as an answer to what I wrote and I already explained that several times in this thread. I know what presumption of innocence is and am in favour of it, but presumption of [his] innocence cannot inform a judgment on her behaviour.
Hero Of Gallowmere
Member
Somebody call their parents and inform them that they have failed.
Failed to raise a decent human being.
How the fuck do they function in the real world?
Do they just shit themselves when they see a 6.8 tall dude coming their way?
Or do they start crying every time they hear a bad word?
What a waste of fucking air these assholes are.
FranXico
Member
Retaliation over the pedocord scandal, no doubt.
Shmunter
Member
Stop, I’m not going to be able to sleep this shit riles me up soHow corroboration works.
Real world story.
A woman is struggling to fix her car.
A dude passing by tries to help.
She goes to police claiming he groped her (breasts and crotch) and then stalked her.
Police examines CCTV cameras, and figures she was lying (about a bloody stranger she had never seen in her life)
Magistrate Walsh lashed out at Gray for "consistent lying", and said in court: “The offender had the opportunity to limit the damage from false allegations on numerous occasions.
“She did not take the opportunity to limit damage.”
Woman who falsely accused Good Samaritan of sexual assault is jailed
Caitlyn Gray, 20, will face five months in prison for falsely accusing Kevin Basic - costing him his job and marriage
But, hold on, before the news that it was all false accusations, two more accusers come out of nowhere, figuring that dude stalked them too:
Good Samaritan dad falsely accused of sexual assault hit with stalking charges
It's been revealed Kenan Basic, falsely accused of sexual assault by a woman he'd helped with car trouble, is facing stalking charges.
Want to talk about chances of two others "navigating" Gomeshi Trial style?
On March 24, 2016, the judge delivered the verdict. Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice William Horkins stated that the inconsistency and "outright deception" of the witness' testimony had irreparably weakened the prosecution's case.[56] "Each complainant," he wrote, "demonstrated, to some degree, a willingness to ignore their oath to tell the truth on more than one occasion." Referring to a witness' excuse that she was merely trying to "navigate" the proceeding, Horkins replied "'Navigating' this sort of proceeding is really quite simple: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."[57]
mocolostrocolos
Member
This is basically how modern internet-raised progressive minds tend to behave.
Everything that is not my way of thinking is the enemy, and if I can identify all my antagonist with one group, wether it makes sense or not, is irrelevant.
infinitys_7th
Member
Hudo
Member
How can we be alt-right (what does that even fucking mean?) if we hate everthing and everyone equally (at least I do)?
It's just another appalling aspect of this stuff that's clear to people who know what they are looking at. You see that hilarious "point of personal privilege" video and it's a good laugh but then you see it in a more serious context like this and it's troubling.
Even though her brother has just died she still has to bend the knee to the cult before she is allowed to share the news or even express how she feels about it.
I would guess that she needs to do this to appease the "movement" because if she just comes out with the unfiltered truth then they will ask her "what about the survivors".
Even in a moment like that she has to make sure she appeases the mob first before she goes into any detail about the incident.
RPGCrazied
Member
Same! To be compared to alt right is pathetic. I'm also anti Trump and will never support the guy. But I also can do my research and tell what is bad news. They bascially killed this guy. He could've been helped, just like Etika.
Helios
Member
Unknown Soldier
Member
Today's reminder that movie critics don't call themselves "journalists". We are long past the time when video game critics started calling themselves critics instead of journalists. As Frank West once noted: "I've covered wars, you know." That's what real journalists do, not write about video games on the Internet.
Shantae
Banned
It's sad that that is what it keeps coming to, and it's part of why our democracy has been failing lately. It's funny, these people think they're liberal, and they like to call their enemies the alt-right, but they act like republicans more then anything themselves. Whenever people keep trying to show that Trump is a sexist, lying piece of shit, who is most likely a traitor in bed with Russia, republican politicians don't listen to any common sense, and never seem to back down on their support of him. Sad that the only republican who seemed to have any common sense, John McCain, had to go and pass away, but because no one will listen to facts, and do the right thing, we're stuck with this scumbag in office.
Just like the game industry seems to be stuck with Zoe Quinn, there doesn't seem to be any way to win against her, when no one will listen to reason.
Democracy only works when there's give and take, people need to be open to listen to one another, and work together. The game industry is tearing itself apart just like the country is.
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infinitys_7th
Member
Jennifer, if you are reading this, I want you to know I am very glad you put your pronouns in your profile. I was very close to calling you a he.
Reyben
Member
She's embarrassing, but that Brian Heagney sounds a lot like an npc following a very limited script.
Holammer
Member
Paracelsus
Member
FranXico
Member
Rien
Jelly Belly
Truth right here. Hope that poster will never suffer depression in his life. In fact, I dont wish that shit to anyone. It’s a killer.
Gamernyc78
Banned
no, you underestimate the power of pussy
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This is one of the core problems in the community right now.
It's not just that they want to sweep certain bad behavior under the rug but anyone who even looks like they might expose it has to be filed under "terrible, irredeemable, person".
They don't see a difference of opinion or a more measured approach or a thoughtful disagreement. It's either "you agree with me" or "you are a far right racist etc".
Would there even be any "alt-right" guidelines on how to feel about a situation like this? I thought they are mostly about race and genetics and white nationalist stuff? I would have thought that the Alt-Right would be ALL ABOUT protecting white women like ZQ?
I often wonder about these Twitter weirdos who have like 30+ thousand followers and yet never seem to get above 100 likes and 20 comments on their Tweets. How do you know that you aren't just shouting into the void?
This person has 47.4k tweets with 119k likes. That's a little over 2.5 likes per tweet. From an audience of 33.2 thousand.
That's like standing up in front of an entire stadium to make a statement and 2 people clap while everyone else is silent.
"We" are monitoring alt-right sites. Who the hell is "we"?
Is KiwiFarms even alt-right? I thought they were just an "anything goes" site for doxxing and gossiping about internet celebrities?
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llien
Member
(parody account, these days, one needs to point that out)
ROMhack
Member
It's heartbreaking to say but I expect this will be the biggest eye opener for his sister. I don't expect there's any way she'll be able to accept the repercussions of not supporting her brother and it then ending with his suicide. I know not many will agree but I honestly feel bad for how she'll be feeling over the next few weeks, months and years.
That is a huge mistake for anybody to have on their shoulders.
That is a huge mistake for anybody to have on their shoulders.
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Ivory Blood
Member
Wow. That's next level. Hey, if you are reading this, you should be really ashamed of yourself for supporting the shit that went down. A person killed himself because you enabled others to do harm with no due process. Alt-right my ass.
OK, I try to stay away from politics online as much as I can. I come to NeoGAF for love of videogames. I always have, even back when it was policed by extreme idelaogues. But I couldn't help notice this thread and the terrible events it covers.
So, now everyone here has been labeled "alt right," whatever that means. From everything I've seen it seems to mean being anything other than a hateful extreme authoritarian idealogue. They even call actual life-long liberals "alt right."
And yeah, this miserable "cancel culture" needs to be cancelled. It's disgusting.
So, now everyone here has been labeled "alt right," whatever that means. From everything I've seen it seems to mean being anything other than a hateful extreme authoritarian idealogue. They even call actual life-long liberals "alt right."
And yeah, this miserable "cancel culture" needs to be cancelled. It's disgusting.
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Nah, feminists are a lost cause.
Her brother died and her first instinct it to virtue signal to others that she is still “woke”. They are incapable of introspection because they believe they are always right
CrustyBritches
Gold Member
I prefer Killer Quinn and the Easy Allies.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
What it doesn't explain is how she can handwave off the utter recklessness of "outing" a person with a history of mental issues as an abuser.
That's the issue. If you bother to follow back her tweets past the splashy one that was linked, she seems genuinely upset over all this. However she seems utterly oblivious to the fact that deep down at the root of it all is the fundamental "us versus them" dichotomy thats used to dehumanise political opponents.
The reason this guy is dead is because he was used as pawn in a larger socio-political game. He was "one of them" so his life and its complexities didn't matter.
By the same token, The reason Quinn is evading (very justifiable) criticism is because she appeals to the "one of us" mentality of identitariasm/progressivism. This is the same reason why so many bad actors play the role of ally, they don't want to criticize their own lest it weaken the whole.
We need, regardless of our political affiliation, to stop this partisanship and try and reclaim our common humanity.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
"I'm a child predator; where can I find some elementary schools in the area so I can DEFINITELY NOT GO TO THEM?"
Really out here making a difference, guys.
a multicultural team of v
Member
I am so confused, shouldnt we be monitoring "alt left" forums right now, and not alt right? Seeing as they were the ones who just bullied someone to death and all?
Ogbert
Member
Are we Alt-right now?
Last time I checked I voted Liberal Democrat and wore sandals.
Cool. Do we get to wear badges?
It's insane, isn't it? Heck, even Dave Chappelle is "alt right" now, apparently.
Rien
Jelly Belly
Holy shit! They really are NPC’s. They all talk exact the same way. Who programs these systems? How about some diversity? This is boring.
Schrödinger's cat
Banned
There is no aspect to any of this that isn't tragic.
Those who claim to want change will change.
And they will start with themselves before they preach to anyone else.
Those who don't actually want change will simply put their foot on the gas and keep driving in a straight line.
Actions will always speak louder than words.
Those who claim to want change will change.
And they will start with themselves before they preach to anyone else.
Those who don't actually want change will simply put their foot on the gas and keep driving in a straight line.
Actions will always speak louder than words.
D
Deleted member 738976
Unconfirmed Member
Uh oohhhhhh! Even by mentioning NeoGAF she is "normalizing" and "providing a platform for" an alt-right site like NeoGAF! Reeeeeee
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llien
Member
I think it was a very carefully hedged statement.
She said the general "I believe survivors" accompanied by "Alec wished Zoe the best".
She just didn't dare going against the vile mob.
Ogbert
Member
No, but we can consider the legality of it.
What is happening today is that women can say anything, without repercussion. Being a dick in a relationship is not assault. It's called being a dick. You break up and move on. If I was a betting man, Quinn seems to be an utterly toxic individual that seeks out damaged men, because she is damaged herself. She has likely been abused, but has turned into an abuser herself. In short, she's off the fucking charts nuts.
If someone maliciously posts misleading information with a view to harming someone, then it is a crime. I will not 'believe women' like some pathetic fucking lap-dog. I will listen to women, like I listen to men, and I will make an informed decision based on the evidence provided.
- Status