Today on Headline
RePLAY: BioWare’s Jennifer Hepler is under attack, Valve and hardware
development and a Pokémon scam on Apple’s App Store.
Hell hath no fury like
the internet, whether justified or not as BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler learned quickly when a
post on Reddit accused her as the “cancer that is killing
BioWare.”
The post contained a
heavily edited interview from October 2006 where Hepler was asked about the
least favorite thing about working in the videogame industry. Her answer: “Playing
the games.” The Reddit post completely ignored the context of her answer where
Helper was expecting a child and had little time to play as a result.
“And with a baby on
the way in a few months, my minimal free time (which makes it impossible for me
to finish a big RPG in less than six months already), will disappear entirely,”
said Hepler during the interview.
Her comment about a “fast-forward
button” to let players skip combat in games only added fuel to the controversy.
“Gamers almost always include a way to “button through” dialogue without paying
attention,” she said, “because they understand that some players don’t enjoy
listening to dialogue and they don’t want to stop their fun.”
“In a game with
sufficient story to be interesting without the fighting, there is no reason on earth
that you can’t have a little button at the corner of the screen that you can
click to skip to the end of the fighting.”
According to Reddit’s “ohemeffgee”,
ever since the post went up Hepler has been harassed with phone calls and
e-mails.
And when Hepler
decided to join Twitter a few days ago she was relentlessly attacked on her
writing ability and physical appearance. In response, she Tweeted: “I just
figure they’re jealous that I have both a vagina AND a games industry job, and
they can’t get either.”
BioWare’s Studio GM Aaryn
Flynn
joining the fray in Hepler’s defense with a blunt and not PR-friendly
response just made matters worse: protestors are now accusing BioWare of treating
customers disrespectfully.
Since the writing of
this article, Hepler’s Twitter account has been deleted.
Agree or disagree with
her comments, like or dislike her writing, Hepler doesn’t deserve these attacks
on her character.
In the name of
innovation, Valve’s Gabe Newell told Penny Arcade Report that he wants wearable
computers and to consider hardware development. More on hardware development
and less on wearable computers, but Valve exploring such a venue is definitely
turning heads.
When asked about a
future where Valve sells hardware, Newell responded, “If we have to sell
hardware we will. We have no reason to believe we’re any good at it, it’s more
we think that we need to continue to have innovation and if the only way to get
these kind of projects started is by us going and developing and selling the
hardware directly that’s what we’ll do.”
Newell added he rather
leave the hardware to the experts though, but said it was “important enough
that if that’s what we end up having to do then that’s what we end up having to
do.”
For more on Valve’s
long term projects, wearable computers and answer to fans about Half-Life 3 check out the full interview
at the source link below!
Remember how Apple was
removing counterfeit App Store games like Angry
Ninja Birds that somehow made it past their strict approval process and
reached the top of the App Store chart? It looks like Apple might need to
re-evaluate their system: a bogus Pokémon app has appeared in the App Store from
an unknown company dubbed as the House of Anime and it has already reached the
top two slot in the Paid Apps chart.
Cheated consumers are
out en masse protesting on the reviews page about how the app doesn’t even work
or open.
A closer look reveals
that the app is not endorsed by GameFreak or Nintendo and the House of Anime is
even offering products like Digimon+
and YuGiOh+, both copyrighted to
Bandai and Konami respectively.
Ultimately, it looks
like Apple needs another clean sweep of its App Store.
