Extra Credits

Will isn't an American citizen (I assume), so he wouldn't have an SSN. He should have a TIN as part of the package to legally work in America though.

He says he is an American citizen though, that’s how he claims to have the right to work in the US. He says he has a US passport.

That’s shit you have to check though, not just take someone at their word. You especially don’t do that shit for 6 months.

That’s why I’m confident they’re not running statements by a lawyer, any lawyer would have told them not to admit in writing to not running proper right to work checks.

edited 17th Jun '18 4:56:55 PM by Silasw

James' statement is also a bit bizarre to me. Maybe this is me being overly simplistic since I don't understand how these types of organizational things work, but you shouldn't need an HR firm to tell you whether you were shitty to someone else or not. His statement completely dances around admitting anything and makes it seem like he was simply a bad manager and obliviously ignored a problem that was going on that he should have known about. Yes, he was a bad manager but he was the one directly doing the shitty things. He shouldn't need third party consultants to know that.

edited 17th Jun '18 6:42:06 PM by Draghinazzo

Someone on reddit noticed the response to Will is signed by Belinda Zoller, but the text makes mention of her on the 3rd person, which is weird. Cast doubt on who is actually speaking there. Not a big thing, but it is yet another weirdness to the already weird and poorly thought text.

>Maybe this is me being overly simplistic since I don't understand how these types of organizational things work, but you shouldn't need an HR firm to tell you whether you were shitty to someone else or not

Not trying to defend James too much here, but there are several reasons you might want to go to an outside HR firm. It might be standard process for all complaints, it could be a way to get an opinion outside of your biases, it might be meant as an act of good faith to other employees or a way to try and cover yourself if the story went out to the public

Yeah, it's not so much for them (though an external investigation can notice things that are just normal to everyone inside) as to be able to show the public "look, it's not just us saying things are fine, somebody who has no reason to lie is saying it too".

Bringing in a third party is pretty normal — it's easier for someone else to objectively audit your policies and behavior than it is for you to do it yourself. The third-person thing is also fairly standard — Belinda is the community manger, so when she's writing things like that she's speaking for the company as a whole, not for herself personally. When she's writing as "Extra Credits", it makes sense to talk about "Belinda" in the third person.

What is a little odd is that the messages were signed at all. It's her job to write communications addressed to the community, and she's speaking on behalf of Extra Credits in her role as an employee, not speaking on behalf of herself as an individual, either personally or professionally, so why call attention to the fact that she's the one writing the post at all? On the plus side, it may be a weird sort of transparency (ie, "this is Belinda writing this, not James") — but on the down side, it may be an attempt at obfuscation (ie, James tells Belinda what to write, and then adds "and sign it as yourself so people don't think it's just me defending myself at all costs" — even though that's exactly what it would be in that situation). It's impossible to tell.

edited 18th Jun '18 5:29:22 AM by NativeJovian

Couple more things related to this:

Will did a Twitch stream of his own the day he launched the twitlonger where he talked about the GDC thing, as well as other incidents of him being, in his own words, 'so drunk I passed out and woke up underneath a tree one day.' He's definitely a fuckup of the highest order - he admits as much himself.

One of James' former Digipen students also tweeted about his time there as a professor, and the way the school is structured, and it's...ooh boy, it's ugly. Content warning for mentions of suicide.

Good that Will at least cops to the mistake. It sounds like his firing was justified, but that doesn't change the fact that James can still be an asshole even if Will deserved to be fired.

Like, the point of those sorts of schools is that if you do get through it looks great on your CV since it means you were really grilled.

And like, the point the person who wrote the tweets were making was that it shouldn't have to be like that. People in the industry deserve better working conditions, and the college's torture-like teaching method is dangerous and harmful to students.But hey, keep normalizing abuse, it's what the cool kids like James are doing.

edited 18th Jun '18 8:35:27 AM by HottoKenai

I read their tweets and the article they posted, and they misrepresented what the article was actually saying to try and make the school look worse.

A school with a tough workload is not abusive. It's just a tough workload.

edited 18th Jun '18 9:37:26 AM by Sigilbreaker26

Honestly, I feel like their defense of Microtransactions was one piece of foreshadowing for the whole mess they are in now.

That's not even remotely related.

The Digipen school shows how greedy james was when it came to charging the students more money they could afford, as well as the general assholery.

Defending Microtransactions was just a warning flag for that, honestly.

x4 Here's that person's own story of being abused by the school. Warning: mentions of self-harm.

Some other tweets

Well. This certainly paints "This is your story" in a disturbing new light.

EDIT: Come to think of it, even before EC defended lootboxes, there were a couple of occasions where James spoke approvingly of crunch. While any hacker will tell you that it's a real and sometimes desirable state, James seems to expect it of his underlings and assumes it's normal, simply because It Is The Way Things Are.

You know, much like with the Channel Awesome debacle, we can probably go back through the EC archive and find quite a few hints as to James' badosity.

edited 18th Jun '18 10:44:24 AM by VampireBuddha

I am of two minds about those tweets. On one hand, that sounds awful, on the other hand, the person doesn't give much specifics beyong the expultion (Which is a undoubtedly a dick move), especially in terms of the "huge workload".

And if you're going into the video game industry, where several months-long 90+ hours workweek crunch are a common thing, a school who prepares you for such an industry isn't exactly doing wrong by giving you a fuckton of work.

At least in the terms of teaching, it's a big thing in the industry and he's 100% right to prepare his students for it. As a school, it would be outright negligent to educate your students but not prepare them for the workload that'll be expected of them in the field of work you're sending them in.

edited 18th Jun '18 10:52:48 AM by Ghilz

So you pay between 90 and 120k for a school that's going to do its level best to fuck you, you're burnt out before you enter the video game workforce, and your degree is useless for literally anything else.

Frankly, these aren't colleges, they're indoctrination facilities and should be treated as such.

Teach the industry to be better, not to cop to the abusive dickheads at the top.

edited 18th Jun '18 11:03:06 AM by math792d

The main thing is that he supports these practices, and think they're just "normal". And just like loot boxes and microtransactions, they shouldn't be considered "normal" even if they're widespread. Or maybe they should be widespread and game devs should have the working conditions of sweatshops? Who knows?

edited 18th Jun '18 11:10:33 AM by HottoKenai

hi! So, I'm actually a recent grad of Digi Pen, so I can give a bit more up to date look at the school. I started the year after James Left, and his effect could still be seen.

the bullshit workload. there. high dropout rate, high stress. there. the schools very lopsided demographic. there.

The school being bad for LGBT people. Not a thing. Most of the people I knew there were on the spectrum in some way, myself included. the staff make a very concentrated effort to be open to all walks of life, and any bigotry is given no quarter or platform (thus relegated to the depths of the internet like 8chan)

Despite the bs, the school saw a lot of changes in the positive direction as I was there, and had a very positive trajectory when i graduated, with hiring a bunch of new staff who are trying to make things better. and that mostly has been by throwing the stuff James laid down out the window. the workload and credit load has dropped by quite a bit, and there is a concerted effort to not crushingly break people.

I also know I am one of the lucky one. I have lots of friends whom the school did chew up and spit out, and I complained very loudly for them on that fact. There are still a ton of problems and I'm usually super salty at DP, but my need for balance is making me provide a counter defense to the tweets, which is a story I am definitely familiar with.

Digi Pen was a very mixed bag, but I definitely don't regret going there, tho I definitely wouldn't recommend the version of the school I started in, and probably wouldn't recommend the school for another year or two, until the positive changes fully take hold.

(If anyone has any questions about Digi Pen in general, feel free to ask or DM me.)

edited 18th Jun '18 11:32:22 AM by Jetyl

Thank you for being open about this. Just out of curiosity, can you clarify what you mean when you said "James's effect could still be seen"?

So come to think about it, do we know yet whether James is hypocrite in more ways than just anti harassment talks? I think few posters mentioned him pretending to be a progressive, but I don't see how wanting society be better and being vindictive asshole are mutually exclusive(sure you could call it hypocritical, but vindictive assholes usually believe they are the ones hurt and justified in their behavior, so I can see how such asshole would justify them promoting progressive ideals while still being asshole to other people), so did other evidence pop up too?

edited 18th Jun '18 11:59:12 AM by SpookyMask

so, I was in the design degree, the one James spearheaded, and it had... problems.

the first year was spent with papers analyzing games, and a few lectures were just watching EC (this has changed now).

after about a year, and having made a handful of analog games (to learn design process basics, and documentation), you enter The Chain. a linked set of 5 classes (thats 2.5 years) that have to be done in order, making game prototypes following an annoying, near useless "Engagement Theory" model that James helped make (tho he was not the head architect of it). that is ontop of the team project games you make every year, and screwing up sets you back potentially a full year. the workload for those classes was insane, and the actual "teaching" for them was useful for all of 1 class, not 5. (this is on its way out as the staff rework it.)

in general, the mentality of "this is how the industry is, so suck it up" was there in full force, tho my cohort yelled and screamed very very loudly our 2nd year as we had to deal with the shit, and from there it actually saw (slow) changes.

edited 18th Jun '18 12:02:04 PM by Jetyl

Geez, that is probably worst attitude education can take "Industry sucks, so let's make studying it suck too"