#literally nothing on this earth was so bad to deserve the amount of vitriol that lightfall got

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

#destiny 2 #bungie #long post #and like i don't care what's anyone's opinion on lightfall. it doesn't matter #the expansion is fine. there's some bad shit in there as there is in every expansion #literally nothing on this earth was so bad to deserve the amount of vitriol that lightfall got #it was purely motivated by hate and rage from people who have clearly lost their interest in the game a long time ago #no one else normal enough would respond even to a weaker expansion this way. and lightfall wasn't even weaker #literally nothing ever released in destiny deserves to have comments bad enough to end up affecting employees #there's been some bad expansions/dlcs/seasons. whatever. none of them were like... gollum level. not even close #people genuinely treated lightfall like it personally killed their dog. it was insane. the reaction to it was insane. #it stemmed from people who should have stopped playing a long time ago and stopped being content creators for one game #i can't even properly explain just how long and tireless the ragebait content campaign for destiny has been #opening youtube and seeing 10 videos in a row of just complaining and bitching #opening twitter and seeing thousands upon thousands of posts and comments dedicated solely to hating the game #imagine being an employee trying to maintain some communication with the community #hippy was relentlessly bullied by people I've seen suddenly lamenting that she was fired. you caused this #they will never accept even a miniscule portion of the blame for this ofc. they will just keep claiming they don't have that influence #but they do. it's been proven years ago. in the same way #community comments DO reach devs and community comments DO influence what happens to them and the game #'the event is bad' 'meta is bad' 'pvp is bad' 'raid is bad' 'story is bad' stop playing. no longer asking. #it's a video game. if you hate it stop playing. you don't have to justify it to hundreds of thousands of people and take them with you #especially when it leads to employees taking the fall #so to all content creators who are appalled and baffled after spending 2 years hating the game: you did this. #and to the ceo even more: explode into dust and be forgotten

[sleepdragon]

Burn it ALL Down: The Story of a Super, a Sidekick and Fans at a Comic Con...

Comic Con is a magical time of year where we get to see the actors out and about promoting their show to dozens of places, chatting about themselves, each other, fans and their characters.  It’s a time where we get to experience behind the scenes of those shows we love, and as fans do we ever look forward to it.

 This comic con ran sour for many people, and people feel what they feel and I’ll never invalidate the if’s but’s or why’s.  But I am going to take a moment to discuss some unsettling things I’ve been seeing in the Supergirl orbit, then I’ll address the giant elephant that has been shitting on the carpet.

 1.     Representation Matters:  Alex came out in the most amazing way; it was positive, uplifting, embracing and beautiful really – she got to be all of Alex.  Fan-fucking-tastic and about bloody time.

a.     She got the girl.  Yay? Except I feel that Alex lost herself in the girl.  She forgot that she had a sister.  She marginalised Kara in every possible way.  She didn’t plan to spend Earth Birthday with her sister, her sister who is celebrating the day that she lost everything.  The day that represents her being on Earth longer than Krypton – but hey, she got the girl.  

b.     The girl is played by someone who, from all accounts is a lovely woman.  She’s dating Casey Affleck; oh noes fire her, we don’t like him.  Wait, the girl isn’t a POC because she is part Italian and Irish.  People, Italy has black people.  They do.  They can quite marginalised there too.   But she wasn’t good enough to play a POC on TV (which BTW she has never been referenced on the show has Latina)… wow, are you fucking kidding me?

2.     Diversity Matters: James has nothing to do, let’s make him the most useless vigilante since that relationship with Kara didn’t work out (thank god, it was so shoe horned and not sustainable).

a.     Diversity Matters but just throwing a POC on screen isn’t enough.  Give us something more.  James was not my favourite character, still isn’t.  He still deserves better.

b.     Diversity doesn’t mean that the character has to be likeable, but they have to get the same amount of thought as every other one.  But even much of the fandom didn’t care about his side lining, that was disappointing.

3.     Relationships are invaluable but the romance, and the ‘shipper wars have not been.

a.     Sanvers I want to love, but I don’t really think I like Maggie, and I don’t like who Alex has become with her.

b.     Karamel Not the best, but I can understand why Kara would latch onto someone when she was literally abandoned by everyone in season 2.  No, I don’t think it’s okay he lied to Kara about who he was, but it was unsurprising Kara forgave him.  Probably the most believable thing in the relationship.

c.     J’onn and M’gann if people want to talk about toxic relationships – she saved his life and he repays her by imprisoning her for no good reason, and during that time M’gann developed Stockholm Syndrome and fell in love with her capture. Yay! Positive.

d.     Danvers Sisters who now?  Were they a band or something, because damn if they didn’t break up in season 2.  They were once the heart of the show, and when that was lost the show was lost.  

e.     ‘ships are important and there is plenty of ocean out there for them ALL to sail.  Problem is that the infighting started and it became every ship for themselves, because obviously the individuals chosen ship was the least toxic of them all.  IMO, all the canon romantic relationships this season were shit, they devalued every one of the characters.  Speaking only for myself, I still struggle with what J’onn did to M’gann…

                                               i.     Some fandom ‘ships were toxic and when a guest star comments on that, at a convention, and the threats and vitriol he received there is a systemic problem.  Thankfully not all SuperCorp fans are like that, but the problem is for the actors and creatives they may not see the flip side.

                                             ii.     All fandom ‘ships had toxic members who screamed loudly and sounded like spokespeople for the ship.  It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

f.      Friendships are important if anyone can remind Kara’s friends of that, I’d be forever grateful.  Remind her Foster Mother and Space Dad for extra points.

4.     KARA MATTERS: The show is called Supergirl, so obviously the most important character should be her.  Although Supergirl did get more time than Kara, but I feel as we moved away from Kara we lost the humanity too.  It’s why I did adore the addition of Lena to the show (if they make her evil…)  I feel that when we lost Cat, we lost Kara.  I’m hoping we get more Cat this season to make up for that.

 And yeah, Melissa said that Kara’s world ended when she lost Mon-El but she expanded on it in the ET interview – the woman has lost next to everything and the hits keep on coming.  All she is seeing is loss – and that, that is the product of someone who has terrible abandonment issues.  Now, if they could actually explore this throughout the season…

 Now, much of the online fandom has been shitting on each other (I will reiterate not all), the actors and creatives and then Comic Con happened.  One of their first interviews of the day Jeremy was asked to reprise a little skit he did last year and sing the events of last season, so he hit on the main storyline affecting those in attendance (which is why Sanvers was overlooked) – unfortunately he made a tone-deaf joke that hurt people, Melissa kinda joined in and everyone laughed.

 I do believe he hit on it because of the SuperCorp fandoms notoriety, but I don’t think it was designed to invalidate the LBGT community.  I don’t believe it was a homophobic remark, I just think it was a stupid moment that any human has had.  Not even a saint could claim they haven’t accidently hurt someone by not understanding something, or joking about it.  It happens, but to assume that the intent was malicious goes against everything else they have both done in the past, and Melissa said later the same day (before all this blew up). It even goes against what Melissa said later in the same interview.

 Yes, I am aware that she called Jeremy “brave” for what he said, but no I don’t think that means that she wanted to invalidate the ship.  I think it means that she thinks he is brave to want to take on the fans, and that he was fucking stupid to do it.  Melissa may not really do cons, may not do many signings on set – but she does stop for fans on the street and she has been an ally for years.  I do not believe a single moment erases everything they have done in the past, nor do I think it makes them a bad person now.

 What I do believe is that it makes them human.  The problem is in many cases that’s the last thing we want (or need) celebrities to be, we hold them up as the perfect representation of whatever we need them to represent.  We falsely idolise them, so when they fall it hurts, it hurts a lot.  But that hurt, the hurt from our idolisation, isn’t their fault.  That’s like when we discover that our older siblings, or parents or grandparents are just human.  They didn’t hang to moon and the stars, even though we thought they did.

 Now, these humans did something well, human.  As a member of the LBGT community I will only speak for myself (and I do ask can everyone do that, no one voted for official spokespeople so lets not pretend to have them), they didn’t upset me.  I don’t feel devalued by them.  They owe me no apology.

 Jeremy has issued a 2 part apology, and no it’s not perfect but he isn’t perfect.  None of us are, I’m not going to tell anyone to give him a chance or forgive him.  I am going to say that you should forget but c’mon – people are telling him and Melissa to choke.  They are wishing a show that hires hundreds of people to be cancelled.  They are calling out and attacking their personal lives, how it any of that okay?  So much of fandom is NOT okay with the way it’s responding. Being hurt I get, threats of any kind is just ridiculous and intentionally malicious.

 Maybe this can be a learning curve for everyone, starting with realising we are all but human.  And we will all make mistakes.

(I also decided not to tag sanvers because I will not go into a tag when I don’t like the ship)

And for the love of god, don’t ask an actor to validate your ship.  They see what they see, you see what you see.  That’s okay, that will forever be okay, they never have to meet.

#supergirl #sdcc #supercorp #melissa benoist #jermey jordan #tone deaf jokes #representation matters #threatening people when you dont get what you want shouldnt be accepted #celebrities are people #stop celebrity idealisation #this is why so many avoid fandom #does fandom have to be so toxic to everyone #lucky to know awesome fans #lets all be awesome