BioWare writer quits after death threats to family

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Update (Thanks James)

Jennifer Hepler left BioWare this week to begin work on a book about narrative design and do some freelance work. Her most recent job title was senior writer on Dragon Age: Inquisition. But it was Dragon Age 2 that led to the death threats, the threats against her family and children and the harassment.

When asked if the harassment led to her depature, Hepler told Polygon "No, leaving Bioware was for family reasons. I am going to be working on a text book on narrative design among other game-related freelance projects."
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Original story:

The senior writer on Dragon Age II has decided to leave developer BioWare after ‘graphic threats’ were made to kill her children.

Jennifer Helper was working on sequel Dragon Age: Inquisition but is quitting BioWare this week to go freelance, in large part thanks to threats she and others of the team received in the wake of Dragon Age II’s release.

The game was unpopular with many hardcore fans and although Hepler was able to ignore most of the threats and abuse on the BioWare forums and Twitter she also received emailed death threats and threats against her children, as well as abusive phone calls.

Hepler revealed the threats in a wider article on the subject of fan abuse on website Polygon. The story is also reminiscent of an incident last month, when fans threatened to murder a Call Of Duty developer because of minute changes to some of Black Ops II’s weapons.

The catalyst for Hepler’s abuse was a six-year-old interview in which she admitted she didn’t enjoy combat in games. This was enough for fans to blame her for unpopular changes in Dragon Age II, describing her as a ‘cancer’ that was destroying BioWare.

‘I was shown a sample of the forum posts by EA security,’ says Hepler ‘And it included graphic threats to kill my children on their way out of school to show them that they should have been aborted at birth rather than have to have me as a mother.’

The situation highlights both more general problems with cyberbullying and the targeting of women via Twitter, both of which are likely to see more strict legal sanctions in the future.

Another part of the problem for Hepler though was BioWare’s sympathetic portrayal of homosexual characters, which has not only been the catalyst for some of the abuse but also much of the positive support from fans.

‘The outpouring of support I received — large amounts from female and gay fans — was incredibly heartening,’ said Hepler. ‘Without the negativity, I’m not sure that I would ever have heard from all of these people confirming that there is a need for characters that tackle touchy social issues, for characters who are untraditional or even unlikeable.’
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Source .
 
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Is it her 1st day on the internet? I agree that death threats are horrible, but seriously is she 5 years old to not know that it's all empty trash talk?
 
Lyt said:
Is it her 1st day on the internet? I agree that death threats are horrible, but seriously is she 5 years old to not know that it's all empty trash talk?
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I think getting phones calls is a good enough reason to take it seriously. Specially when kids are involved.
 
Lyt said:
Is it her 1st day on the internet? I agree that death threats are horrible, but seriously is she 5 years old to not know that it's all empty trash talk?
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I'm not sure you'd have so cavalier an attitude were you the one receiving those death threat calls.
 
Hi everyone,

This Metro article blew the story wholly out of proportion - they completely twisted the source: Plague of game dev harassment erodes industry, spurs support groups | Polygon

Jennifer Hepler left BioWare this week to begin work on a book about narrative design and do some freelance work. Her most recent job title was senior writer on Dragon Age: Inquisition. But it was Dragon Age 2 that led to the death threats, the threats against her family and children and the harassment.

When asked if the harassment led to her depature, Hepler told Polygon "No, leaving Bioware was for family reasons. I am going to be working on a text book on narrative design among other game-related freelance projects."
Click to expand...

There's a full interview over on Polygon if you want the full context and a better discussion of the kind of abuse devs get for simply making fun things to play.
 
Lyt said:
Is it her 1st day on the internet? I agree that death threats are horrible, but seriously is she 5 years old to not know that it's all empty trash talk?
Click to expand...

No-one should just have to "suck-it-up" when it comes to harassment and death threats. Having to deal with crap like that is a perfectly valid reason for going somewhere else (even though she said it wasn't the reason).

These morons who do crap like this NEED to be caught and thrown in jail, you don't just say stuff like that regardless if you mean to carry it out or not.
 
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