Dragon Age 3: BioWare Stands By Controversial Writer
The writer for Dragon Age, Jennifer Hepler, triggered an avalanche of hate from certain elements of the global video game community when she disclosed that the doesn’t actually like playing videogames. For its part, Bioware, released a statement written by its co-founder, Dr. Ray Muzyka, that lent her full and unequivocal support.
Hepler has been the victim of a particularly nasty Internet hate crusade due to her admission that she didn’t like playing video games. A little bit of background regarding this current brouhaha. While Jennifer is currently a senior writer with BioWare, the statements that drew the Internet’s anger were actually quite old. In fact, they are five years old. The statements are so old that the only available online copy are through Internet archive site Wayback Machine. She said in the interview with Killer Betties that her least favorite activity working in the industry is actually playing the videogames themselves. She said that she became a videogame writer because she loved writing and not because she was driven by a love of playing the games. She said that her interest in a game is centered on how good the story of the game is. If it doesn’t have a good story, she would find it hard to get interested in playing it. She even suggested that it might be a good thing if games can be fast-forwarded like a video. This, she said, would allow her to skip the gameplay segments and enjoy the game’s story and writing. The interview got circulated again recently and now some people have photoshopped her picture with an unattributed and very inflammatory quote. Hepler’s Twitter account was peppered with hateful messages. It got so bad, she asked that the account be closed.
Screenshot from Dragon Age 2 (Credit: BioWare)
Muzyka was very clear in supporting Helpler and said that BioWare will continue to support her. Moreover, Bioware has donated $1000 to an anti-bullying charity in Canada. What a classy response from Bioware!
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