380°

The Curious Case Of The 'EA Game Dev' Who Said He Received Death Threats

Earlier this week, a man with “Game Dev @EA” in his Twitter profile wrote that he had received death threats from angry Star Wars Battlefront II fans. His story was covered by news outlets like USA Today, the BBC, and Yahoo. Vice wrote an editorial about it, CNBC ran a headline about it, and the tweet was retweeted by hundreds of people. There’s just one lingering question: Does he actually work at Electronic Arts?

Nineball21122375d ago

Wow. According to this article, it sounds like a case of a nut job who has been lying the entire time about working for EA. What drives people to make up stuff like this? I don't get it.

-Foxtrot2375d ago

I'm more taken aback Kotaku actually looked into this as much as they did...like real investigated journalism.

isa_scout2374d ago

Jason is the best investigative journalist in the video game industry. Every time he writes something it's eye opening. Kotaku is fortunate they have him because he's the only reason I even occasionally visit their site.

mercyblades2374d ago (Edited 2374d ago )

Yeah, Jason is a great journalist/guy. He’s done great work interviewing developers and he actually asks them some questions from fans.

Christopher2375d ago

Ikr? Was just talking to Bono and Lady Gaga about this stuff the other day over tea. It's weird how people will just create lies for attention.

But seriously, we see a lot of that here. People sometimes need attention and they find the only way to get it is by creating these online personas. For those who stick to them to long, they tend to end up where this guy is.

Eonjay2375d ago (Edited 2375d ago )

I still think sites are to blame for not investigating fake news. It shows you how little work they do to validate what they put out. I just think this is poor on their part.

bloop2374d ago

To be fair, it's not as bad as some of those other lunatics, like the idiot who said his brother was missing after the Vegas shooting and then asked everyone to follow his Instagram. Having said that, he's still an idiot. As for the journalists, I think even the overly blatant Twitter account name should have been a give away. "Game Dev @ EA." How original.

1nsomniac2375d ago

Making up death threats is the new “Thing” a local member of parliament here in the UK named MP Lucy Allan has been caught making up death threat claims in order to progress her career.

It was factually proven & instead of being punished she was let off & it looks like career in politics now seems to be on the rise.

That’s UK politics for you though.

Christopher2375d ago

How quickly people jump on the anti-harassment train. Sure, harassment sucks, but so do game journalists who would rather report on that than EA and their MTs issue or just actually make sure what they're reporting on is legit to begin with.

And getting told by people that we should take responsibility for the actions of the few... This is why we are only responsible for our own actions. It's the only thing we know to be true and to actually have control over.

-Foxtrot2375d ago

That's the issue though in cases like this...death threats apparently pop up and it's made out to be bigger then they are like here I thought it was 30 employees with hundreds of threats sent to each one. Not dumbing down death threats sent to anyone but you have to understand that a select few can't represent the majority otherwise you are giving the accused the chance to shift the blame from what they've done and make that into a bigger deal to play the victim card

In reality it's this one guy, who dosen't seem to even work for EA and he got 7...compared to how many people in gaming who are taking part in this fiasco

Eonjay2375d ago

"How quickly people jump on the anti-harassment train"
I'm not convinced. There is nothing wrong with fighting harassment. The problem., is jumping on the train with out knowing what you are representing or allowing yourself to be duped by fake things. This is no way means we have to stand for real harassment. It only means we need to know people are out to deceive us.

2374d ago Replies(1)
fenome2375d ago (Edited 2375d ago )

Talking about "armchair developers". Lmao

Death threats are no joke, but there's a huge difference between a legit threat and some random ass-hat on the Internet saying stupid shit on the internet. I should know, I've been told to drink bleach and live stream it just on this site. Lol

I'm not saying that's all this is though, no one knows because there's no proof. If he takes legal action and posts screen grabs then it's a whole other story. Otherwise he's probably just an attention whore who got too much of what he wanted.

KillBill2374d ago

But if a fake persona is being attacked on twitter is anyone really being attacked? If threats actually were received from this fake person then would it be a threat against the persona or the person acting as the said persona?

fenome2374d ago

Good point.

"A fake persona lying on the internet gets threatened on the internet by a different fake persona on the internet."

subtenko2375d ago

Thousands if not millions have received mugging threats...FROM EA! The former is worse yea, but punk moves sometimes return back on ya.

NordicRainy2375d ago

People love to be victims these days. But seriously is this guy insane or something?

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70°

How EA & Xbox Are Defining Gaming's Bleak Future

Xbox and EA have recently made baffling moves that define how bleak the future of the gaming industry is with major companies at the helm. Ryan Bates from "Last Word on Gaming" posits in this op-ed that maybe it's not ineptitude, but intention.

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lastwordongaming.com
Profchaos1d 10h ago (Edited 1d 10h ago )

Name someone that isn't trying to look us these days maybe cdpr.

Take two, ubi and yes even PlayStation are pushing us to own nothing and be happy with our live service ad injected games on a sub so they can raise prices at will and take access away when they see fit.

If it keeps up I'll be a full time retro gamer and this industry will be crashing hard

As rediculas as it sounds we need government reforms to defend consumer rights

60°

XCOM's Jake Solomon Q&A - Building a Narrative-Driven Life Sim Game at Midsummer Studios

XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns director Jake Solomon has founded a new studio to make a life sim game. Here's a new interview with him.

Read Full Story >>
wccftech.com
380°

Microsoft's quest for short-term $$$ is doing long-term damage to Windows, Surface, Xbox, and beyond

Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood's plans to increase every department's margins.

Read Full Story >>
windowscentral.com
Brazz2d ago

"The plan to move Xbox games to other platforms is codenamed "Latitude" internally, and I know there's debate and unease at Microsoft about whether or not this is a good idea. More upcoming Microsoft-owned games slated for PlayStation are already being developed. At least for now, they're potentially obvious games you'd most likely expect. And yes, while it's true Microsoft is a prolific publisher on PlayStation already, it has typically revolved around specific franchises like Minecraft. From what I've heard, Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood's mandate to increase every department's margins. "

Yeah, they are going to kill Xbox hardware.

Xeofate2d ago

"Yeah, they are going to kill Xbox hardware."

It's for the best.

Quit stringing along xbox fans and screwing over PlayStation owners.

crazyCoconuts1d 22h ago

Take good care of those Xboxes if you have 'em ...

outsider16241d 22h ago

An Xbox game on a Playstation. Never in my years of gaming did i ever thought this was gonna happen.

jznrpg1d 18h ago

It is dying anyway so doesn’t make much of a difference

VersusDMC1d 18h ago

No way can they get rid of the hardware as probably 90% of game pass subscribers are hardware users.

Highly doubtful those users will move to PC or Cloud to subscribe there and the competition (Sony and Nin) will never have gamepass on their system.

If they want to keep the current subscribers, they need to keep releasing new hardware.

PSPSA1d 9h ago

I'm not convinced, why then announce that they're actually working on the next-generation Xbox with “the largest technical leap”, and also looking into handhelds now?

Rols1d 8h ago

Not like MS don’t drop things a hot potato if it is not performing. Look at MS history to see products or platforms discontinued. Xbox is not a charity for MS, it needs to make money and the ABK was the last roll of the dice for Xbox.

purple1011d 7h ago

Xbox hardware team members have been incorporated into surface team

This perhaps shows they are not expecting big things from Xbox as a separate entity

Abear211d 4h ago

Seems like they are planning to win next gen. All the acquisitions were this generation and nobody except Xbox fans expect games from the acquisitions any time soon.

I’m sure Microsoft can afford to lose money on the short term, pretty sure they do risk assessment when acquiring many companies and spending billions, they’ll be fine lol.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 1d 4h ago
gold_drake2d ago

i think it will kill off the xbox brand. windows will be fine.

but there is and would be a chance that xbox might be killed off in the future. if they fail to make the money they put in. imo.

S2Killinit2d ago

They wont kill it, but they will go fully PC while keeping xbox as a brand, and go multiplatform for the most part. They will also work tirelessly to diminish console gaming’s importance.

PRIMORDUS1d 23h ago

It would be best if Xbox goes the way of Sega, just make and publish games. I know I myself will not support them at all with buying games from them, you all can. 🙃

ChasterMies1d 21h ago

The Xbox brand will live for the games. I don’t expect Microsoft to entirely drop out of gaming hardware. They make Surface tablets and laptops. They’ll make Xbox branded hardware for those that want it.

shadowT2d ago

"Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation"

Forza and Starfield next?

Skuletor2d ago

Starfield would be no surprise and there's the rumor that it will come to Playstation after the Shattered Space DLC, Forza (along with Halo and Gears of War) I find less likely but I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually end up on PlayStation too, especially if Xbox give up on hardware and go the Sega route.

shinoff21832d ago

Not to worried about forza. I'd rather see others like what inxile and obsidian are working on. Starfield sounds like it needs more time in the oven so let it cook first imo. If starfield and it's a small if does release on ps it'll be in the fall around the time for dlc or right at the dlc and come packaged with it.

-Foxtrot2d ago

In the words of Phil Spencer when he was talking about Nintendo last year

“It's just taking a long time for Microsoft to see that their future exists off of their own hardware"

S2Killinit2d ago

Yup. MS are a cancer to console gaming.

Aloymetal2d ago

100%!!
I wonder what happened to that dude that was always here posting those court articles with cartoons about MS spending all those billions in studios. He suddenly disappeared, I guess he doesn't like bad news when the green brand is in trouble. No new articles from him as of late...

PRIMORDUS1d 23h ago

Yup, and it's only going to keep spreading.

Outside_ofthe_Box1d 23h ago

Phil Spencer's words always comes back to bite him lol

2d ago Replies(7)
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