Jennifer Hepler leaves Bioware due to threats by fans

[BloatedGuppy]

Imagine if a movie writer said "I like writing, but I hate the whole visual aspect of them. I wish people had an option of just shutting off the video portion and only listening to the dialogue."

Would you still suggest to that person that they should be writing movies if they said that? Of course not. You'd tell them to go write an audiobook, because that's basically what they're trying to turn movies into.

The same rationale applies here. If she doesn't like gaming, she should write in a medium more suited to her writing talents rather than trying to strip the interactivity out of an interactive medium.

It would make absolutely no difference to me whatsoever if someone who was good at writing dialogue had a terrible grasp of, say, cinematography. That's not what they're getting paid for.

And I certainly do not recall her or anyone saying "I hate interactivity in games, and believe it should be removed, so all you do is read". That's an absurdly distorted interpretation of what was said.

Consider the below...

Take Steven Merchant- the voice of Wheatley in Portal 2 for example. In many interviews he talked about how much he absolutely loved doing voice acting for the character. Even though it was hell for a lot of the times. Yet when they ask him about the game itself, not only did he state that he still doesn't understand the whole hype behind the game.(yet alone what it's really about) but he never even bothered to play the free Portal 2 copy Valve gave him, nor does he care about it in the slightest.

Following your logic, Merchant's performance was terrible and he should never have been allowed to voice Wheatley because he's not a gaming fan.

Not you Bums, I'm using your quote as an example for Kitten.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You're not reading my post because you're in too much of a hurry to defend the indefensible.

So I'm going to suggest that you go back and read my post this time, and take your time with it so that you know what I'm actually saying and not just making things up.

My friend, your post is right there, for all to read and enjoy. By all means, if you think I'm misinterpreting your position, please clarify. As it stands, I see absolutely no disconnect between what you wrote and what I responded with. Further, I am mildly alarmed at your characterization of Hepler's position as "indefensible", which is a term usually reserved for things like capital crimes, or Justin Bieber.

 

[bjj hero]

She gets to write stories, diaogue and charecters that thousands of people get to experience and live. Thats what writers do. Not being a keen gamer doesnt mean she settled. If she was designing the combat system etc and hated it then maybe. Even then plenty of programmers and graphic artists work on things that are not their first love. You can still enjoy the process and take pride in the finished work. There must be others that wish there was a skip feature for the game as there is an audience for lets play videos.

Would you feel the same about artist who build worlds and charecters for games, and enjoy doing so, but arent keen on gaming or the genre of the current project?

It's not that she's not good at gaming, her statements indicate that she doesn't like gaming in general. Specifically the fact that, if you want, you can just skip right on through all the character, dialogue, and stories that she worked so hard on writing if you're not interested in them. To contrast that, she wishes there was a "fast forward" button so that you could skip through all the actual gameplay and just go through the story.

This indicates that she'd be much happier writing in a different medium, one where she could be assured that people were enjoying the stories she wrote. I don't know how she ended up in the gaming industry with an attitude of "My least favorite thing about the gaming industry is the games", but to me that says "I settled here because it was a job that could use my talents in writing. Is it ideal? No, but at least I'm writing." That's "settling" my friend, taking a job in a field when you'd clearly be happier in another.

As such, yeah, I'd say the same about a game graphical designer if had the same "The worst thing about the gaming industry is the games" mentality. Not being good at games is fine, not liking the genre you're currently working on is fine. You STILL wanted to be a game world designer though. That's completely different from saying "I wish we could fastforward through the gameplay sections of the game and just get all the story bits." Those are the words of someone who doesn't really like the industry they're in, in general. As such: they settled for it.

Dragonbums response above answers much of this but Im just going to say I disagree with you. "Maybe" she likes that she can flesh out the what ifs in videogames and thats not an option in films and books. In dragon age there are multiple endings to the same story. Fall in love with morrigan? Back the mages? Kill the wolves? This is hard to recreate in movies or books. There are plenty of reasons she could choose to write games other than "I cant get a book deal". Some writers like to do multiple styles and formats.

Shes there to make believable worlds and charecters. Many would say this is a strength for bioware. Her interest in playing these or other worlds is not needed.

 

[Denamic]

Do something that even slightly upsets anyone on the internet, and you'll get death threats. Hell, even I've gotten death threats, followed by threats to rape my mother, and I'm not even famous or any sort of high profile anything. The internet is a vile place, but you're only feeding the trolls by conceding defeat. If their shit is proven to work, they're more likely to keep doing that shit. Of course, if you don't like working in an industry because of the vitriol, that's perfectly understandable. But don't go out of it by admitting defeat. Hell, make something up if you have to. Just don't let the shit-for-brains win.

 

[Dragonbums]

Yes, but that can be true for a lot of writers in the industry.
You aren't hiring writers in games because they like games. You are hiring them because they can make a good story. Just like you make a story for a book, she was making a story for a game.
That does not necessitate that she enjoy, or rather, be good at playing games.
How many people have you seen on here say they like Mass Effect for the story, and couldn't give two shits about the game? Quite a few people. In fact, more people talk about the story in Mass Effect, then any of the gameplay elements.
Now I am aware that Hepler did not have any relation to the Mass Effect games. However the same can be applied to DA.
She was hired because she has shown that she is good at storytelling.
That's it.
That is her job.
To collaborate with other authors on how the story should go.
No where in that job description "loves to play videogames" is included.
She doesn't like to play games. Fine. That has no affect on the game what so ever.
It's not like she is directly in charge of making the gameplay, character art, coding, modeling, etc. For if she was indeed in THOSE fields and said that, then I can perhaps agree with you on this.
But a writer? Not really.

No.

You don't work in an industry that you don't like. That doesn't make a damn lick of sense no matter how you try to defend it. If you don't like playing video games, you shouldn't be working on video games. Why? Because you're not going to understand the customer's needs nearly as well as someone who actually has an investment in the product in question.

She is not working for the customers needs. She is writing for Biowares needs. Hepler is hired by Bioware. She is not hired by consumers. She is not the only writer on the team. If the other writing staff, director,producers,and artists have deemed her story good enough to put in the game, then clearly the entire team has a problem. Putting all the blame on Hepler is childish and shows you don't really have an understanding about team work. She is not a one man team.
Either way , I still disagree with you. She applied to the Bioware writing staff to write stories. Not play games. Playing games is not mandatory in writing a story. As long as what she wrote fits in line with the gameplay then she has done her job.

If she just wants to write and doesn't like the interactive portion of video games, then she could write for movies or books. Instead, she's suggesting that games should include the option of removing the major thing that sets them apart from these other mediums.

No. She said that she wishes the player can skip all the unnecessary battle sequences that do nothing to progress the story in any way feasible. That is hardly an unreasonable request. Since so many people on here complain about needless grinding in games and just want to get to the next part of the story. Similar to how the players can skip every single cut scene just to get to the battle sequences.

Imagine if a movie writer said "I like writing, but I hate the whole visual aspect of them. I wish people had an option of just shutting off the video portion and only listening to the dialogue."

Would you still suggest to that person that they should be writing movies if they said that? Of course not. You'd tell them to go write an audiobook, because that's basically what they're trying to turn movies into.

I could care less what he/she's stance on that is. They weren't hired to film the movie. They were hired to write the script for the movie, and if it's a damn good movie then I could care less how much he loves filmography. At the end of the day their job was to write. Not film.
When you are in the creative medium field such as this, there are times where you don't get to pick and choose what kind of category writing you want to do. You go where the money is, and do a damn good job so more people can hire you.

The same rationale applies here. If she doesn't like gaming, she should write in a medium more suited to her writing talents rather than trying to strip the interactivity out of an interactive medium.

Hepler cannot strip out any sort of interactivity in videogames with her script. Nor do I think she even holds that much power to persuade any staff in Bioware to do so.
She was the head writer, and that's as far as it will get. Any loss of gameplay due to her stories can all be blamed whoever is in charge of modeling and coding and CGI effects- for they are the ones who ultimately decide which will be cutscenes and which will be gameplay. Hepler has no control over that, and I highly doubt any writer in many videogame studios had the power to do that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And yet you clearly didn't, because in my post:

Imagine if a movie writer said "I like writing, but I hate the whole visual aspect of them. I wish people had an option of just shutting off the video portion and only listening to the dialogue."

At no point in my post did I ever claim that she was trying to "force" people to do anything.

Don't bother responding to a post if you're not going to read it, please.

Why is that remotely controversial? Gaming has always provided the player with a host of options. Depending on the game, I can change the difficulty, I can change what content I see and don't see, I can change the gender or race or appearance or personality of my protagonist, I can slam the space bar to skip through vast reams of story.

And now someone comes along and suggests we skip some supplementary shooting portions, and you characterize it as "indefensible".

I'm also totally confused why you're convinced this tiny semantic detail was evidence I misread your entire post, but perhaps you're having a bad day. If you're having a bad day, I'm sorry. I'm having a terrible week myself.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Sorry my friend, but you'd be the...well fourth of fifth person I've discussed the matter with and I'm getting tired of repeating myself. I've said my piece for the topic at hand, if you disagree with it then that's perfectly fine. I think the disagreement stems from disagreeing on what the term "settled" means, and I've just lost all interest in trying to explain what I mean. Have a pleasant day.

P.S. I suppose you could say that I've decided not to "settle" on this argument, and as such I'll be following in Hepler's footsteps and move on with my life.

Edit:
P.P.S. At least I'm getting out before the death threats start, though. >.>

2nd Edit:

Snip.

See Above.

 

[Hero of Lime]

While I found her comments about gameplay to be super duper messed up in any sense of the word, when someone is driven out of the industry like this, I'm not happy nor am I surprised one bit. I agree that her sentiment about story telling was almost toxic, but I knew her views would not affect the industry at large anyway, so I wrote her comments off. Even if I don't care for their methods, it gives this horrible impression of gamers that coincide with what people supposedly out of touch with gaming say about us some good precedence.

We can be more nasty than satisfied, we recognize great games and developers, yet lots of gamers prefer to spend more time painting targets on people's backs with the perfect anonymity of the internet. Like I said, I'm not surprised when this stuff happens anymore, it's as surprising as the sun coming up every day.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm sorry, but do I really need to explain why "I don't like that whole 'game' part of a video game, I sure wish it was just dialogue and pictures like a movie" is a problematic stance for a video game developer to take?

What, am I in the Twilight Zone, where people have suddenly forgotten what constitutes a "video game"?

Why is it problematic? A) She's just a writer, it stands to reason she'd prioritize writing. B) Even if she was the project lead from start to finish and made a wacky game with virtually no interactivity as a result of her curious beliefs, what on earth is "indefensible" about that? Are you imagining a dystopian future in which you'd be forced to buy and play it?

As for what constitutes a video game, I've long been under the impression it could be any of a great many things. Some of the earlier text adventures were indistinguishable from Choose Your Own Adventure books. Are they not "games" now?

 

[LordLundar]

It's part of online culture now.

I reject that, and so should you if you think this is wrong.

I wish more people had your attitude. I'm sick of people just saying "Well that's the internet" and dismissing an actual problem.

Gamers have presented themselves as absolute scum, and unless we reject the "way things are", that isn't going to change. We need to shun these degenerates who post on /v/, /r/gaming and the like and maintain some sort of credibility.

That's all high minded of you and what-not, but what exactly are your solutions?
Because there really aren't many that don't lead to the much feared 'Crack down' on our "rights to freedom of speech" that are the FIRST WORDS to be raised on the defense shield by literally everyone on the internet in efforts to keep the GOVERNMENTS from controlling them. It wasn't but a few years ago that the U.S. and many other countries tried to pass laws prohibiting and regulating the INTERNET and anonymity.. to the point in some extremes where you couldn't even hide behind a screen name. Sure, if people could be identified readily by name and photo id they might be more tactful in their comments. But anyone with legitimate grievances against their government or an authority figure might find themselves without an open platform to challenge them, opening the door to totalitarian governments swooping in to "punish" those who are too openly critical, or worse, who have extremely valid criticisms that catch on to the greater population.

Bottomline, you have to take the wheat with the chaff. The you can't separate the scum from the pond. Again, not condoning but sometimes there are little evils we must suffer for the greater good. Altruism is BS.

The solution is to make these dregs realize that the First Amendment HAS LIMITS! It is not an excuse to be a raging asshole everywhere in the world and if it requires people being criminally charged for harassment or issuing death threats then it's doing it's a good start. The internet does not mean that standing laws don't exist. It's not anarchy and people need to realize this.

There is no excuse for this behavior. NONE! Anyone on this thread that said "But" or "however" or anything similar just became part of the problem. If people don't realize there's consequences to this sort of behavior than it's time to MAKE them realize it. And if that does mean the clicking of cuffs or the person facing financial ruin for it then so be it.

And spare me the strawman about "the ebil gubberment iz gunna shut me up!" If that shit was going to happen it would have happened long ago and wouldn't need new laws to do so.

 

[Dragonbums]

Snip.

Sorry my friend, but you'd be the...well fourth of fifth person I've discussed the matter with and I'm getting tired of repeating myself. I've said my piece for the topic at hand, if you disagree with it then that's perfectly fine. I think the disagreement stems from disagreeing on what the term "settled" means, and I've just lost all interest in trying to explain what I mean. Have a pleasant day.

Someone else has also showed you the alternative look that perhaps she enjoys being able to write multiple scenarios and endings for stories, and the only way she can feasibly do that without wasting loads of money is by working in videogames.
The problem with your argument is that you assumed that because she said she didn't like videogames and she happens to work as a writer in a videogame company automatically assumes that she simply had no better alternative than to do this.
If she was promoted all the way to head of writing staff for working at Bioware, it is safe to assume that she had enough passion for the studio, and that it was evident enough that the head of the studio decided to make her top honcho of an entire department.

 

[bjj hero]

Why is that remotely controversial?

I'm sorry, but do I really need to explain why "I don't like that whole 'game' part of a video game, I sure wish it was just dialogue and pictures like a movie" is a problematic stance for a video game developer to take?

What, am I in the Twilight Zone, where people have suddenly forgotten what constitutes a "video game"?

Heck, imagine if a book author said "gee, I sure hate reading, it'd be nice if my book could just show me everything in the form of a moving picture". Would you still call that a "book"?

If she was project lead that would be an issue but shes not. She is a writer. Her love of games has no relation to whether she can build a good story arch, write interesting charecters, come up with believable dialogue. The same way a voice actors love of games doesnt affect his or her ability to do a good job.

She was asked about the parts she likes and what shed like to do differently. She doesnt have the power to make those changes so it doesnt matter. It wont affect your game. Shes employed to write. Not to make gameplay decisions. Thats why I have no issue with a none gamer writing stories for games. Weve come a long way since the 80s where all games were made by 1 guy in his bed room. Its now teams with each individual bringing different skills and tallents.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

*wave* Hi. Video game writer who heavily prioritizes game play, right here. Why? Because I recognize that the purpose of video games as a medium is to tell an interactive story in which the player is directly engaged in some manner.

Certainly, you can debate how much interactivity is necessary before it crosses the line from "video game" to "animated movie", but I'd think it should be reasonable enough to assert that a video game requires SOME interactivity as that's literally the fundamental building block of the medium in the first place. It's like trying to write a book without words, or a movie without visuals. Making the primary component of a particular medium "optional" is defeating the purpose of that medium and is effectively wasting the resources and benefits that it offers as its own unique medium.

Given that they require a) actual video output, and b) actual interactivity from the player....no, they're most definitely still "video games".

What she's suggesting is that video games should be more like movies because she doesn't like gaming.

The only logical response to that is "have you considered just writing movies instead?"

Q: What is your least favorite thing about working in the industry?

A: Playing the games. This is probably a terrible thing to admit, but it has definitely been the single most difficult thing for me. I came into the job out of a love of writing, not a love of playing games... I'm really terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly -- I have awful hand-eye coordination, I don't like tactics, I don't like fighting, I don't like keeping track of inventory, and I can't read a game map to save my life.

Q: If you could tell developers of games to make sure to put one thing in games to appeal to a broader audience which includes women, what would that one thing be?

A: A fast-forward button. Games almost always include a way to "button through" dialogue without paying attention, because they understand that some players don't enjoy listening to dialogue and they don't want to stop their fun. Yet they persist in practically coming into your living room and forcing you to play through the combats even if you're a player who only enjoys the dialogue.

You'll notice she references the following things as being problems for her...

1. Hand-eye coordination
2. Tactics
3. Fighting
4. Inventory
5. Game Maps
6. Combat

You'll notice she didn't reference the following things as being problems for her...

1. Interactivity

Would you say the dialogue/story portions of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, which were the games she was on staff for, had interactivity? I seem to recall them having interactivity. I would even go so far as to say they are the meat of the experience.

I happen to LOVE tactics, and fighting, and combat, and all those things. So if Hepler went and formed her own gaming studio and made Hepler Quest, I may very well give it a pass. However, speculating about a situation where players could skip a hallway combat sequence the same way they can currently skip dialogue is hardly "indefensible". And shouldn't even be remotely controversial.