New Age Amazon

gailsimone:

ealperin:

gailsimone:

soearthlings:

prawnsy:

comradewodka:

saphire-dance:

gailsimone:

sapphoshands:

gailsimone:

It was an emotional day yesterday. I didn’t want to talk about the effect it was having on me, because, well, who cares, and it’s personal, but it was definitely taking a toll.

I went on Twitter at the end of the day, and was just, I don’t know, blathering a bit, nothing meaningful (I don’t find…

That is not okay, holy shit.  What a horrible ad campaign.

What was the company/game?  I feel like this is a case where they need to be named and shamed and inundated with messages pointing out how horribly inappropriate their actions are.

It was Portal2, but she said it was entirely her who did the Suicide scenario thing.

Please don’t harass her…I just, wow, I just am still stunned.

Well I just knocked that Game off my shopping list. Off to email the company and let them know exactly why they lost a customer.

 No, please read the other reblogs before you condemn Valve, you guys.

This idiot has nothing to do with Valve, her suicide ploy has nothing to do with the REAL Portal 2 ARG, and she most definitely doesn’t realise how much her shameless actions are negatively reflecting upon a game that is consistently marketed as quirky and fun.

THANK YOU. if you choose not to buy portal 2 or decide to SHAME VALVE for something one stupid person did, then it is actually you who is acting stupid. do some research. the ARG and valve would never promote making fake suicide threats for their game.

It’d be nice if the original poster would stop being stupid as well. She keeps saying “please don’t bother the girl” but since no one knows who the girl is, no one has the ability to contact her. But they know the ad was for Portal 2 so they’re directing all their anger at the Portal ARG. At this rate her followers are going to start a campaign against Valve for no reason. 

Wow. That’s some nice deductin’ there, Tex.

Except she posted it in public and I responded. I preemptively am asking people not to harass her, just in case.

I again state, I have NO grudge against Verve. I don’t give a shit about Verve one way or the other. I have never heard of an ARG before last night.

But if the company has ANY contact with the people running this ARG thing, it would sure as hell be in their best interests to communicate some protocol guidelines before someone gets HURT.

 Agreed, Gail. Agreed. I don’t want a casualty in this girl’s life.

What was scary is that anyone who has worked a hotline will tell you, that kind of disconnect, that near-aphasia, that’s common, it’s a warning sign. So what seems like innocuous game chatter to those in the know sounds scary as FUCK to people who have dealt with this situation for real.

For those who are worried for the huge game company, I say again. She apologized, she said SHE was behind it and no one else.

I checked my DMs, I’ve actually gotten three of these ad notices, and TWO of those were from situations made to look like genuine need-to-intervene crisis scenarios. SOMETHING is wrong.

And honestly, if Valve isn’t aware of the ARG and someone is doing this sort of thing, then they NEED to be aware.  Because while Gail is being pretty fair here and isn’t placing the blame on them, there are other groups that WILL place the blame.

I’m sure anyone who has any experience in gamer culture knows how the media loves to latch onto things like this in reference to video games.  Grand Theft Auto causes violence.  Doom causes school shootings.  There are talking head pundits who would LOVE to be able to go after a popular video game like Portal 2 and claim Valve is using suicide to promote the game…even when it’s really clear they are not.  Valve needs to be ready to respond to this, needs to contact these people and either say “Hey, cut it out,” or “be sure you’re making it clear from the VERY BEGINNING that we are not involved.”  They need to have a statement prepared in case this whole thing gets blown out of proportion.  Because while Gail saying “This was a really shitty thing for a person to do for a video game add,” you damn well know somebody like Jack Thompson would start yelling “VALVE WANTS YOUR CHILDREN TO KILL THEMSELVES!  IF YOU LET YOUR CHILDREN ANYWHERE NEAR A COPY OF PORTAL 2 THEY WILL END UP AS HARDENED CONVICTS WHO KICK PUPPIES!!!!”  And THAT scenario is a bit more likely to hurt sales, wouldn’t you think?