Dragon Age II – it’s just a video game

The senior writer on Dragon Age II has decided to leave developer BioWare after ‘graphic threats’ were made to kill her children.

Jennifer Hepler was working on sequel Dragon Age: Inquisition but is quitting BioWare this week to go freelance, in large part thanks to threats she and others of the team received in the wake of Dragon Age II’s release.

The game was unpopular with many hardcore fans and although Hepler was able to ignore most of the threats and abuse on the BioWare forums and Twitter she also received emailed death threats and threats against her children, as well as abusive phone calls.



Hepler revealed the threats in a wider article on the subject of fan abuse on website Polygon. The story is also reminiscent of an incident last month, when fans threatened to murder a Call Of Duty developer because of minute changes to some of Black Ops II’s weapons.


The catalyst for Hepler’s abuse was a six-year-old interview in which she admitted she didn’t enjoy combat in games. This was enough for fans to blame her for unpopular changes in Dragon Age II, describing her as a ‘cancer’ that was destroying BioWare.

‘I was shown a sample of the forum posts by EA security,’ says Hepler ‘And it included graphic threats to kill my children on their way out of school to show them that they should have been aborted at birth rather than have to have me as a mother.’

BLOG: Why Jennifer Hepler is my hero

The situation highlights both more general problems with cyberbullying and the targeting of women via Twitter, both of which are likely to see more strict legal sanctions in the future.

Another part of the problem for Hepler though was BioWare’s sympathetic portrayal of homosexual characters, which has not only been the catalyst for some of the abuse but also much of the positive support from fans.

‘The outpouring of support I received — large amounts from female and gay fans — was incredibly heartening,’ said Hepler. ‘Without the negativity, I’m not sure that I would ever have heard from all of these people confirming that there is a need for characters that tackle touchy social issues, for characters who are untraditional or even unlikeable.’

Update:

Jennifer Helper has contacted us to make it clear that she did not leave BioWare as a direct result of the harassment she received at the hands of gamers.

‘BioWare was tremendously supportive of me during that time, and I have experienced nothing like it since, due to the excellent policing of the BioWare Forums and new policies on the BioWare Social Network,’ she told us in an email.

‘I am moving on from BioWare now to pursue other opportunities that let me return to be closer to family in the United States after a wonderful eight years in Canada. I have no intentions to leave the game industry — I love the work that I have done and the reactions from the vast majority of fans and look forward to continuing that work in other venues.’



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