Remove ads

Accusations against Chris Avellone

The Laurent

The Laurent

Councillor
Pronouns
They/Them
Right now are there is is this one article and two sets of accusations, so no knowing whether this will sink like a stone or capture attention. Either way, I felt like it was something that warranted discussion, considering how impactful Avellone is on some parts of the industry in making a number of well-regarded games.

cogconnected.com

Dying Light 2 Writer Accused of Sexual Assault

Dying Light 2 narrative designer & writer Chris Avellone has been recently accused by two women of committing sexual assault.
cogconnected.com cogconnected.com

Currently, it seems to be 'just' accusations of kinda gross sexual harassment.
 
So... it appears to be, at the moment, literally just tweets that are alleging this.

(Granted Chris's response of "just talk to me." bruh that's not a good look for a person accused of sexual assault.)

no police complaint, private lawsuit, more coming forward, etc

Just "He assaulted me." "me too!"

Like... okay. Do you want to do something about this or should we just sit here nod and go "yes what a bad man."

Not to mention we're like #3 on google search this so I dunno. I'd like to see more development otherwise I'm just going: "Big, if true"
 
Mercenary said:
Not to mention we're like #3 on google search this so I dunno. I'd like to see more development otherwise I'm just going: "Big, if true"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm pretty sure most people would want to see more development? I dunno, do you think this suddenly isn't newsworthy because there isn't an avalanche of claims crashing down all at once?
 
Uh oh. I've heard a few stories about Avellone being hard to work with. If he's a serial harrasser on top of that, well... it goes a ways toward explaining some things.

It's the kind of thing where I don't want to believe it, but because I'm afraid it might be true, I'm inclined to? Fuck.
 
Mercenary said:
So... it appears to be, at the moment, literally just tweets that are alleging this.

(Granted Chris's response of "just talk to me." bruh that's not a good look for a person accused of sexual assault.)

no police complaint, private lawsuit, more coming forward, etc

Just "He assaulted me." "me too!"

Like... okay. Do you want to do something about this or should we just sit here nod and go "yes what a bad man."

Not to mention we're like #3 on google search this so I dunno. I'd like to see more development otherwise I'm just going: "Big, if true"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Considering the police's reaction to anything sexual harassment/rape related, I don't think that's the slam dunk you think it is.

...also, the article literally came out yesterday, so we don't actually know whether there will be more people coming forward or not. Maybe there will be, maybe there won't?

E: If there was a Megathread for discussing things like that, I would have just added it to that. But we don't do that anymore, which means each accusation has to have its own thread.
 
Last edited:
The Laurent said:
Considering the police's reaction to anything sexual harassment/rape related, I don't think that's the slam dunk you think it is.

...also, the article literally came out yesterday, so we don't actually know whether there will be more people coming forward or not. Maybe there will be, maybe there won't?

E: If there was a Megathread for discussing things like that, I would have just added it to that. But we don't do that anymore, which means each accusation has to have its own thread.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

As each accusation should.

One of the ways such things are disappeared is to exile them to a collective dumping ground.
 
Well, the New Vegas debates are going to take on a significantly different tone now.
 
Mercenary said:
So... it appears to be, at the moment, literally just tweets that are alleging this.

(Granted Chris's response of "just talk to me." bruh that's not a good look for a person accused of sexual assault.)

no police complaint, private lawsuit, more coming forward, etc

Just "He assaulted me." "me too!"

Like... okay. Do you want to do something about this or should we just sit here nod and go "yes what a bad man."

Not to mention we're like #3 on google search this so I dunno. I'd like to see more development otherwise I'm just going: "Big, if true"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is the 'Humans Are The Real Monsters' of responses: tired, boring, and overdone. Call me when you get some new material.




From someone in the games industry I quite respect.
 
Apparently Angry Joe is also a twat.


TBH, enough men in the games industry are getting called out (again) that this could probably be changed to a general sexual harassment/assault thread.
 
Never cared much for his writing, but I was genuinely surprised by this. Though, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been. Remember when he posted a lurid tell-all about his experiences at Obsidian, and he chose to release it on RPGCodex, a forum largely populated by Nazi incel chuds? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that perhaps he still believed it was *merely* populated by grognards with unreasonably high standards, but now? No way.
 
The Victorian said:
Never cared much for his writing, but I was genuinely surprised by this. Though, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been. Remember when he posted a lurid tell-all about his experiences at Obsidian, and he chose to release it on RPGCodex, a forum largely populated by Nazi incel chuds? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that perhaps he still believed it was *merely* populated by grognards with unreasonably high standards, but now? No way.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I mean I did go "Yeah, sounds like something someone on RPGCodex would do"

It is sad because I do generally enjoy his writing. But there are other good writers.
 
"Bloodlines 2 publisher Paradox Interactive has been in contact to explain that Avellone was only 'briefly' involved in the project, and that 'none of his contributions remain in the game that Hardsuit Labs is continuing to develop,'" reads the tweet.

The report clarifies that Paradox had nothing to say in relation to the allegations that Avellone had sexually harassed multiple people. It merely stated that anything written by him was no longer present in Bloodlines 2.

"Chris Avellone briefly worked with the Bloodlines 2 writing team early in the development of the game," Paradox told Gamasutra. "Through an iterative creative process, however, none of his contributions remain in the game that Hardsuit Labs is continuing to develop."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It doesn't sound like there was much to remove.

Still, it's interesting to see Paradox move so decisively on this issue.
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
It doesn't sound like there was much to remove.

Still, it's interesting to see Paradox move so decisively on this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, the former probably contributes heavily to the latter. If there was a lot of material from him in the game then the decision to burn all that work and have somebody replace it would have required more thought. As it is, they are basically losing little or nothing in return for distancing themselves from someone who they now don't want to be associated with them.
 
Last edited:
Avernus said:
Well, the former probably contributes heavily to the latter. If there was a lot of material from him in the game then the decision to burn all that work and have somebody to replace it would have required more thought. As it is, they are basically losing little or nothing in return for distancing themselves from someone who they now don't want to be associated with them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah, previously even the vague idea that Chris Avellone was involved in the game probably drew more interest than it pushed away. This is no longer true.
 
The Victorian said:
Never cared much for his writing, but I was genuinely surprised by this. Though, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been. Remember when he posted a lurid tell-all about his experiences at Obsidian, and he chose to release it on RPGCodex, a forum largely populated by Nazi incel chuds? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that perhaps he still believed it was *merely* populated by grognards with unreasonably high standards, but now? No way.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That got an eyebrow from me.

The fact that he's apparently a semi-regular poster there despite not having much of a social media or forum presence elsewhere, combined with the aforementioned scuttlebutt, and now this? Raise my level of concern to "Oh fuq".
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
It doesn't sound like there was much to remove.

Still, it's interesting to see Paradox move so decisively on this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Paradox has recently made some very clear steps to distance themselves from a lot of their shitty toxic fans.

They banned that "no mixed race humans" mod for Stellaris, they banned the "remove kebab" meme off their forums, and they also officially repudiated shitty fans using the "deus vult" meme to justify Islamophobic garbage in their fandom.

Now, there's a lot to be said about how their strategy games encourage shitty behaviour and may thoughtlessly reinforce awful thoughts (hello, Stellar War Crime Simulator), but the devs themselves seem alright.

Hell, the management consented to the work force being unionized, which is kind of unheard of for a major game development studio.

Paradox as people are alright. The games are worth an entire discussion thread on their own, to be honest, because dear God.
 
Last edited:
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top