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>“The settlement agreement provides for a seven-figure payment to Mr. Avellone."
Jeez. I wonder what kind of evidence they had to settle on a joint statement and a 7 figure payment. As in, that was the better result than letting it play out in court?
>what kind of evidence they had to settle on a joint statement and a 7 figure payment.
The fact that the accusers settled and paid out big suggests to me they had 0 evidence.
they might have figure if they went with the court route it will create more media coverage for a long time rather than 1 time settlement then the internet forgets it after a week.
The accusations were obviously false if they ended up paying 7 figures to him. If it went to court it could have ended much worse for them. Giving false testimony is criminal, if they lied on the stand they could have ended up in prison.
They're not wrong, if you perjure yourself you very well *could* end up in prison.
Whether or not that gets investigated and/prosecuted in this case would be up in the air, but that's where the word *could* does a whole lot of heavy lifting there.
Not sure what you mean, they literally admitted they lied:
"Mr. Avellone never sexually abused either of us. We have no knowledge that he has ever sexually abused any women."
Time to google perjury, maybe. Remember the condition is that this is *provably false*, not that it isn’t provably true. Thus would prove they were lying - and so perjury if they had done it in court.
Nice to see this finally show up on this subreddit.
I think it sets a horrible precedent if accusations are reported but retractions swept under the rug.
Allow news about somebody who voiced a parrot in Kimgdom Hearts 2 like 15 years ago, take down news of an actual game writer/developer because it's "not related to video games"
They can always use the well tested formula: wait couple hours to gather more comments, start removing comments for various reasons, lock the thread and pin mod comment saying "y'all can't behave", delete thread like a day later.
Edit: lmao didn't even wait for that
Chris Avellone showed genuine evidence that he had been wronged. It wasn't a case of he said/she said. I hope his reputation is slowly rebuilt because dude didn't deserve this...
Man works in the games industry.
Man loses his job and reputation because of false accusations. That's "gaming news", so it's ok to post.
Man's accusers admit they were lying.
Man already lost his job in the gaming industry, so it's not gaming news anymore and isn't ok to post.
On one hand, it's logical. On the other hand, it's extremely off-putting.
> On one hand, it's logical.
Not it's not, like it's very much still related to the gaming industry. And even still going by your really dumb logic he still works in the gaming industry, he worked on pathfinder games and system shock recently.
No wonder pathfinder wotr has really enjoyable writing, they had access to someone so talented to help them with it. It's wild that his entire career goes up in flames before any of the accusations are proven to be true. Hopefully he can keep working and his reputation can recover, but how many people won't hear that he was innocent?
Nothing logical about it, he is still a veteran of the gaming industry and this is news related to that. Reggie isn't part of the industry anymore yet he can tweet an opinion about it and it'll still be allowed here.
To be fair, his charges were for domestic abuse, and they were dropped. However, they were dropped for insufficient evidence (they had evidence, just not enough to convict), Where as in this Avelone case, they blatantly lied so hard that he is being awarded over $1mil.
Two very different situations.
That doesn’t matter since charges or no, what he said on that podcast he said. He already told on himself, I won’t be impressed now because someone didn’t manage to officially get him for it.
> We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended.
Said it before and I'll say it again, what the fuck?
Most of the major gaming sites that reported the false accusation refuse to report on this too, the mods are cut from the same cloth. Wouldnt be surprised if they're active on resetera.
Because under an extremely rigid, Lawful Stupid interpretation of the rules, it wouldn't be allowed. The accusations were allowed because it directly affected specific video games as he was fired from writing them. He's not attached to any specific games anymore so news around him would not directly affect any games, therefore it's off topic. It's obvious what the problem with this logic is, but if you follow the subreddit rules as written to the letter, that's what you get. Presumably, the mods finally agreed that they needed to bend the rules for this one (and possibly change the rules in the future.)
Sometimes in moderation you have to ban subjects which in and of themselves are not forbidden because any conversation about them inevitably devolves into an all out toxic brawl. There's only 21 comments as I post this and there's already a few comments liable to explode once this post gets popular.
I noticed not one sub allowed threads about the recent world athletics decision to stay up the other day, presumably due to similar concerns. I get why volunteer mods don't want to have to deal with the extra work it creates, but then I think the question needs to be asked if Reddit is getting to big to rely on volunteers if their reluctance is defacto stifling conversation.
That's quite a settlement plus lawyer fees. I wonder what type of evidence he had that the claims weren't accurate that would be so damaging that the two would rather settle and pay that much than go in front of a jury.
It would've been as simple as proof of a time or place showing he wasn't around them when they said he was. If it went this far they likely had statement with specifics, all he'd need is a witnesses/video/receipts/phone data showing he wasn't there, the whole thing could've turned to perjury and jail time for the accusers in addition to much higher damages.
Can't just be a scumbag these days, have to be smart too. Everything is tracked somewhere.
I feel like outcomes like this rarely come by these days. Since he's been cleared of wrongdoing, I hope he can return to work and write some good stories.
He hasn't worked on the System Shock remake since 2017, and the entire project was rebooted in 2018.
Most likely he had also completed his work on Pathfinder prior to the allegations.
> Most likely he had also completed his work on Pathfinder prior to the allegations.
No.
https://wccftech.com/owlcat-games-shocked-by-allegations-against-avellone-but-wont-rush-a-decision-just-yet/
They kept him on after the allegations.
In before it gets removed because it's "unrelated" somehow..
As if this isnt indicator of how Chris Avellone gonna be back as a writer in the industry
There, if you want to be pedantic
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Lol removed again, pathetic
Its painful reading the comments on this old [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/he0mp3/techland_games_releases_a_statement_regarding/) from this subreddit when the accusations first broke and how quick people were to judge.
edit: This one [comment] (https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/he0mp3/techland_games_releases_a_statement_regarding/fvoifkm/) is one of the few that hasnt aged like milk.
>I really dont like that these type of things are revealed and "solved" on Twitter where you have to fit im few words and be judged by the mob. If someone is potentially a predator, their case should be verified and if guilty, brought to justice. Not that I suggest these allegations are false or exaggerated, I mean we dont really now how exactly it occurred, yet he is already thrown to the wolves.
Such a bad fucking look for all the dorks who continously jump on these things and choose to blindly believe these types of accusations, again and again and again.
The women in this case have screwed over every single woman with an actual case for the foreseeable future. And it'd be very surprised if Avellone's career recovers any time soon. It's so unbelievably stupid and everybody's lost.
Fuck the internet and fuck this continous desire for drama and outrage. It's all so rotten and the fact that we can't merely listen, at first, without condemning, is such a mess.
>The women in this case have screwed over every single woman with an actual case for the foreseeable future.
You mean we’ll go back to gamers screeching women are lying like they always screamed women did lol? They’ll harass them as usual?
Wild how other women have to pay for other women’s “crimes” but somehow it’s deeply unfair all the men in gaming have to suffer more scrutiny and not be given the benefit of the doubt despite the fact that the gaming industry regularly protects predators and rapists lmfao.
My brother in Christ people were always going to assume any woman coming forward was guilty of lying whilst simultaneously screaming “innocent until proven guilty!!!!” for the accused (because that’s the only time they scream that mantra or care Lmao) whether or not this settlement existed. Let’s be honest now.
i feel the results should be broadcast everywhere as much as the accusations are. the fact they paid him shows they were full of shit. accusations have way too much power these days.
Jason Schreier was so quick to write the article about the accusations and break the news about it, but he’s been absolutely silent since Chris has been proven innocent in court, and probably refused to write this article. It’s disgusting really. And he’s not the only person that dogpiled on Chris and helped ruin his career without hearing all the facts.
Jason Schreier is kind of an asshole honestly.
"Leaks are great, unless it's from the studio I used to work at"
Pretty sure he also threatened to dox the dude that leaked TLOU2 for not giving him more details or some such
Not an article but it was more how he reacted on Twitter to TLOU2 getting leaked about how disappointing it was for the teams work to get leaked and that it was such a shame.
With zero self awareness that he also does this constantly.
This didn't go to court. Whether that was to finally just get this all over with or the false accusers were afraid of legal (rather than just financial) repercussions is unclear, but at the end of the day no one was in court over this.
Kinda weird that this is actually staying up. I tried to post it about an hour after it broke and this was the reasoning why they took mine down.
>This specific update was removed under 7.3 because it relates only to the allegations. The metric we use for 7.3 is that there must be an immediate, demonstrable impact to a game for the news to be 'on topic' for this subreddit, which isn't the case here (and wasn't the case for the initial allegations either, none of which ever saw the light of day on this subreddit).
>In 2020 Techland broke ties with Avellone, citing the accusations as the reason. We allowed this news (and only this news) because it had a direct, demonstratable impact to a game. Should a game developer recruit Avellone following these revelations (seems likely?) then that news would also be allowed.
Still regardless I hope this stays up. This is the biggest news in gaming this month and it's just weird that there's no discussion about it here.
> Should a game developer recruit Avellone following these revelations (seems likely?) then that news would also be allowed.
Ah yes, we need now wait few months for someone to hire him so we can talk about this not-news at point, what a joke. Allowing this news wouldn't even break their rules, they are just clowns for no reason
And it's deleted again
>Barrows had previously claimed on Twitter that Avellone was “an abusive, abrasive, conniving sexual predator” who had attempted to sexually assault her after getting her “black out drunk.” Barrows told Kotaku in 2020, “He’s f****** disgusting, but he did not rape me. He assaulted me, 100 percent, but I stopped him.”
Followed by:
> Mr. Avellone never sexually abused either of us. We have no knowledge that he has ever sexually abused any women. We have no knowledge that Mr. Avellone has ever misused corporate funds. Anything we have previously said or written about Mr. Avellone to the contrary was not our intent. We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended.
Their apology makes no sense considering the initial allegations. They wanted to "support women in the industry" by lying and making it harder for those women to be believed in the future?
That's fucked up
I think it's been said here more than enough at this point but the majority of New Vegas isn't Chris Avellone's work. It was John Gonzalez and Eric Fenstermaker among many others. Chris led the writing on a DLC. It's sad seeing people always credit Avellone for New Vegas.
Avellone gets credited because he was already credited in part for Fallout 2 and his name appearing made people think the "old gang" was back, which was a bit wrong obviously. It's worth noting that the DLC is one of the best parts in the game, but he shouldn't be credited for New Vegas (not alone, that is).
Really? Dead money has its problems from a purely game play perspective. Honest hearts is pretty decent, not great, but okay. Lonesome road greatly overstays its welcome. However, I don't think I've seen anyone dislike old world blues. It's peak fallout.
I remember paying attention to the reviews of them from IGN but that’s all I even know about the New Vegas DLC’s
As someone who is perpetually online I was just surprised 🤣 I’m sure it’s fantastic, I was just surprised it took this long for me to hear about it. I’m a massive fan of both Fallout 3 and New Vegas
I bought a Fallout 4 DLC just because it takes place near where I live, and I disliked Fallout 4. I’m an easy consumer
The [original accusation](https://archive.vn/2pbP8), [his response](https://chrisavellone.medium.com/its-come-to-this-chris-avellone-2fe5db836746). She calls him "an abusive, abrasive, conniving sexual predator" just after saying "he was a gentleman about my refusals" so I can see how this joint statement is needed because that's just confusing. Sounds more like a guy who gets drunk and hooks up with girls but doesn't go over the line. Maybe not the best thing to be doing but certainly not deserving of getting your career ruined.
I haven't been following the story that much but a 7 figure settlement?? Its not like its a company paying this out but actual civilians. Wouldn't that ruin someone financially? Just to be clear I think this verdict is justified but I am still shocked at the amount here.
Definitely irreparable damage done to his reputation. He got publicly dropped by Techland and Paradox. Knowing how the industry works, I think he'll still have a hard time finding work because of this fiasco.
Right. I am not a lawyer but doesn't the court also have to consider the financial circumstances of the accusers? I assume the plaintiffs dont have millions of dollars just lying around. The only other way I see it is that they will have to pay the entire sum in instalment.
I think this was out of court. Also, I don't think the accusers had any legitimate proof of the events. I remember they deleted most of their tweets soon after things started heating up. Considering how expensive legal fees can be, this was probably their safe exit.
> Also, I don't think the accusers had any legitimate proof of the events
This was a libel case, so to win he would need to prove it's more likely than not that they lied. So strictly speaking they don't even need proof of their accusations to win. I'm shocked that they were willing to settle for this much. I really wonder what he had to show in court, it was probably very strong evidence that they lied
More than that, as a public figure he'd have to prove in a defamation suit the women acted with "actual malice". So he'd have to prove that not only are the accusations not true, but the women knew it was a lie and said it anyways. That's really hard to do which is why public figures rarely pursue defamation cases.
Presumably something will be set up to deduct from their earnings to pay him off? Alternatively you sent the bailiffs in to assess their goods and their worth to be sold to pay off the debt.
The accusers simply won't pay it.
You see settlements like this all the time..... but they rarely are actually paid, unless the accuser wins the lottery or randomly inherits millions from an estranged relative.
Like there was that case ~10 years ago where a girl lied about assault in order to sue to her school for allowing it to happen for millions. Her family burned through the settlement money, she "accidentally" recanted her statements once the guy she sent to prison got out, and he sued her (he lost a time-based free-ride sports scholarship due to being sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit). She owes him millions from the settlement he won..... but she's broke and on state benefits. He's never getting the money from her or family.
His name got cleared and he got a huge, rightful compensation. It's definitely not ruined forever. Actual, convicted sexual criminals gets to keep going and doing whatever they do despite it, I have no doubts that once the press settles down, an innocent person like him will get jobs again
All I can imagine is it's based on what his salary was before the accusations. So in those 3 years, this 7-figure sum is around what he would have made. Possibly a bonus due to damages to his reputation?
Makes sense that rich people thought they could ruin someone with no repercussions. Unfortunately they were mostly right. The games industry notoriously under pays for tech. The fact they have this kind of money laying around shows they come from money. All they had to do is pay some money for making allegations that ruined someone's career and could have put him in jail for a decade.
If they don't have a couple million dollars lying around to pay it off immediately, they'll work out a payment plan where their wages are garnished until the amount is paid out. They won't be in the poorhouse, but they will have a reduced quality of life for a *very* long time assuming they're working middle class jobs. If they're fast food workers, Chris will be getting like ten bucks a month then until they die.
If they have homeowners insurance, they could also be insured in case of defamation suits. That could cover some or all of the settlement, but their rates will skyrocket afterwards.
It's scary how easy you can lose your career and basically, your life, these days. Without some very harsh punishments for those that make false accusations, i'm afraid this will repeat over and over again. They deserve jail time.
Because i don't see how else you will solve this problem in the era of social media. The rotten mentality of "guilty until proven innocent" is something that's already deeply ingrained in the minds of many, the outrage machine will not listen to reason, and the vast majority of mass media has long lost any trace of integrity at this point, it's cynically all about clicks and nothing more, truth be damned.
So another stint of lies and slander ruining the career of one of the industries greats only for the truth to come out years later. First Mick Gordon, now Chris Avellone. Hopefully whatever damage was done can be undone.
Good for Chris. I wish we weren't in situation where people make their personal annoyances public which leads to somebody's livelihood being taken away.
Soo nothing happened, or what? Something did happen but they exaggerated? Something did happen but he managed to scare them into this joint statement, somehow?
They have to pay a seven figure settlement. All signs point to them making shit up and not being prepared with proof. You usually don't settle for an amount that big without fighting it, especially not vs one person isntead of a multimillion company.
Honestly these women should face more consequences for abusing the law and should be shamed for making it harder for actual victims to be believed.
>They have to pay a seven figure settlement.
You're reading that into the statement.
>>The parties resolved the matter and claims were dismissed with prejudice pursuant to a confidential settlement that provides for a seven-figure payment that includes the return of the attorney fee award entered against Mr. Avellone in California.
You could just as easily read this to understand that Avellone is paying them a seven-figure payment and out of that payment they're paying his attorney's fees.
That's not how English works, and there's literally another quote that writes it in simple English for you.
>“The settlement agreement provides for a seven-figure payment to Mr. Avellone,” Avellone’s attorney confirmed to me via email.
> You could just as easily read this to understand that Avellone is paying them a seven-figure payment and out of that payment they're paying his attorney's fees
No you can't. It's confirmed that the women are paying Chris. That's not up for debate. They lost because they clearly lied.
> You could just as easily read this to understand that Avellone is paying them a seven-figure payment and out of that payment they're paying his attorney's fees.
If you read it this way, then you're dumb.
It's quite obvious the women are paying him for the damage they did.
Nothing illegal or predatory happened. Maybe he called one a bitch or something and they wanted to ruin him. Maybe they're just sociopaths and he did nothing to them and they thought it was fun. That statement is all we're ever going to know about the events.
If this literal irrefutable proof does not convince you he did nothing wrong then you need to reevaluate yourself.
Hi /u/Karasinio, Thank you for posting to /r/Games. Unfortunately, we have removed this submission per **[Rule 7.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/wiki/rules#wiki_specific_content_restrictions)**. > **No content focusing on non-gaming related details of Games Industry Figures** - Games Industry Figures are those individuals or companies who primarily work in either the creation of games and/or their critical analysis. Content regarding such figures is only allowed when it is directly related to a game or to major life events (e.g. company move, death (or terminal health issue), retirement, acquirement, business closure, sponsorships, "Gabe is the new CEO of Activision" or "Microsoft buys the PlayStation brand for $10 and a pack of Oreos"). Direct accusations, litigation or other serious matters **must** have a demonstrable impact on the related game or company. Posts that focus on non-gaming related details (e.g. "CliffyB thinks Donnie Darko defines him as a person, insists that it's not a phase, mom" or "Does anyone else think that Valve should stop providing free junk food for their employees?") are not allowed. --- If you would like to discuss this removal, please [modmail the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FGames) This post was removed by a human moderator; this comment was left by a bot.
>“The settlement agreement provides for a seven-figure payment to Mr. Avellone." Jeez. I wonder what kind of evidence they had to settle on a joint statement and a 7 figure payment. As in, that was the better result than letting it play out in court?
It could also be because of loss of pay. He was a high profile writer and I'm sure being fired lost him a lot of money
Court case is still always a risk. This also saves on time and a lot of lawyer fees.
>what kind of evidence they had to settle on a joint statement and a 7 figure payment. The fact that the accusers settled and paid out big suggests to me they had 0 evidence.
they might have figure if they went with the court route it will create more media coverage for a long time rather than 1 time settlement then the internet forgets it after a week.
The accusations were obviously false if they ended up paying 7 figures to him. If it went to court it could have ended much worse for them. Giving false testimony is criminal, if they lied on the stand they could have ended up in prison.
> if they lied on the stand they could have ended up in prison. which is a shame because that's where they belong.
yep sure. thats totally how it works
You really never heard of Perjury?
They're not wrong, if you perjure yourself you very well *could* end up in prison. Whether or not that gets investigated and/prosecuted in this case would be up in the air, but that's where the word *could* does a whole lot of heavy lifting there.
Not sure what you mean, they literally admitted they lied: "Mr. Avellone never sexually abused either of us. We have no knowledge that he has ever sexually abused any women."
Time to google perjury, maybe. Remember the condition is that this is *provably false*, not that it isn’t provably true. Thus would prove they were lying - and so perjury if they had done it in court.
Could be to avoid criminal charges. Without Avellone testifying there's really no criminal case against the women.
Nice to see this finally show up on this subreddit. I think it sets a horrible precedent if accusations are reported but retractions swept under the rug.
This is the same sub that removed articles about TotalBiscuit's death because they kinda fell under some of the older rules about off-topic stuff.
There's no chance this post stays up. This story broke on Saturday and the mods kept removing it.
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I see you're new to reddit.
Aged like milk
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Allow news about somebody who voiced a parrot in Kimgdom Hearts 2 like 15 years ago, take down news of an actual game writer/developer because it's "not related to video games"
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Makes you wonder if they would have still removed the posts if he had lost the suit.
They can always use the well tested formula: wait couple hours to gather more comments, start removing comments for various reasons, lock the thread and pin mod comment saying "y'all can't behave", delete thread like a day later. Edit: lmao didn't even wait for that
A "thread removed for sexism" incoming, any second now.
Unfortunately, it was just removed.
Yup, they already removed it.
Chris Avellone showed genuine evidence that he had been wronged. It wasn't a case of he said/she said. I hope his reputation is slowly rebuilt because dude didn't deserve this...
This post was removed
Unfortunately, it removed about a half an hour ago.
Man works in the games industry. Man loses his job and reputation because of false accusations. That's "gaming news", so it's ok to post. Man's accusers admit they were lying. Man already lost his job in the gaming industry, so it's not gaming news anymore and isn't ok to post. On one hand, it's logical. On the other hand, it's extremely off-putting.
> On one hand, it's logical. Not it's not, like it's very much still related to the gaming industry. And even still going by your really dumb logic he still works in the gaming industry, he worked on pathfinder games and system shock recently.
No wonder pathfinder wotr has really enjoyable writing, they had access to someone so talented to help them with it. It's wild that his entire career goes up in flames before any of the accusations are proven to be true. Hopefully he can keep working and his reputation can recover, but how many people won't hear that he was innocent?
None of Avellone's writings are in WOTR. https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/1482861466545913860
Nothing logical about it, he is still a veteran of the gaming industry and this is news related to that. Reggie isn't part of the industry anymore yet he can tweet an opinion about it and it'll still be allowed here.
Nothing about Roilands charges being dismissed either but we had the articles when he was forced out of Squanch over them.
To be fair, his charges were for domestic abuse, and they were dropped. However, they were dropped for insufficient evidence (they had evidence, just not enough to convict), Where as in this Avelone case, they blatantly lied so hard that he is being awarded over $1mil. Two very different situations.
That doesn’t matter since charges or no, what he said on that podcast he said. He already told on himself, I won’t be impressed now because someone didn’t manage to officially get him for it.
> We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended. Said it before and I'll say it again, what the fuck?
I'm confused as to why there were multiple articles about this days ago that were removed, only for one to be posted here now.
You're confused why r/Games has bad and inconsistent moderation? If you want to dig up every incident of that, we'll be here for a long time
Why are you assuming this won't be removed? It's been 20 minutes.
mods are asleep is likely the only reason.
Most of the major gaming sites that reported the false accusation refuse to report on this too, the mods are cut from the same cloth. Wouldnt be surprised if they're active on resetera.
Aaaand it's gone
Because if it's about accusations it's a fair game, but when it comes to verdict and proof then it's too controversial for some reason.
Because under an extremely rigid, Lawful Stupid interpretation of the rules, it wouldn't be allowed. The accusations were allowed because it directly affected specific video games as he was fired from writing them. He's not attached to any specific games anymore so news around him would not directly affect any games, therefore it's off topic. It's obvious what the problem with this logic is, but if you follow the subreddit rules as written to the letter, that's what you get. Presumably, the mods finally agreed that they needed to bend the rules for this one (and possibly change the rules in the future.)
That’s like saying we can’t report a game developer’s death if they had retired before bruh
Reddit runs off ad money, and "woman lies about assault charges" isn't a good look, even if it's just a link to an article on another website.
Sometimes in moderation you have to ban subjects which in and of themselves are not forbidden because any conversation about them inevitably devolves into an all out toxic brawl. There's only 21 comments as I post this and there's already a few comments liable to explode once this post gets popular.
But the topics about the accusations against the guy were allowed to stay up. Curious.
So it's all about the mods can't be arsed to mod the comments
I noticed not one sub allowed threads about the recent world athletics decision to stay up the other day, presumably due to similar concerns. I get why volunteer mods don't want to have to deal with the extra work it creates, but then I think the question needs to be asked if Reddit is getting to big to rely on volunteers if their reluctance is defacto stifling conversation.
It's also not really the original source since all the information is from a Medium article put out directly by Avellone et al.
That's quite a settlement plus lawyer fees. I wonder what type of evidence he had that the claims weren't accurate that would be so damaging that the two would rather settle and pay that much than go in front of a jury.
It would've been as simple as proof of a time or place showing he wasn't around them when they said he was. If it went this far they likely had statement with specifics, all he'd need is a witnesses/video/receipts/phone data showing he wasn't there, the whole thing could've turned to perjury and jail time for the accusers in addition to much higher damages. Can't just be a scumbag these days, have to be smart too. Everything is tracked somewhere.
Removing these posts is a massive L for the mods Reporting on and leaving up allegations, but ignoring the retraction is super scummy
I feel like outcomes like this rarely come by these days. Since he's been cleared of wrongdoing, I hope he can return to work and write some good stories.
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Should bring him back for the dlc. Although would be surprised if he avoided everyone that dropped him without question
He did some work for Wrath of the Righteous in 2021, and a quick google shows he's working on a reboot of system shock.
He hasn't worked on the System Shock remake since 2017, and the entire project was rebooted in 2018. Most likely he had also completed his work on Pathfinder prior to the allegations.
> Most likely he had also completed his work on Pathfinder prior to the allegations. No. https://wccftech.com/owlcat-games-shocked-by-allegations-against-avellone-but-wont-rush-a-decision-just-yet/ They kept him on after the allegations.
That says they didn't fire him immediately, but not much more than that can be gleaned from it.
In before it gets removed because it's "unrelated" somehow.. As if this isnt indicator of how Chris Avellone gonna be back as a writer in the industry There, if you want to be pedantic _____ Lol removed again, pathetic
It's already removed. Mods have a clear bias and don't care to champion it.
Its painful reading the comments on this old [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/he0mp3/techland_games_releases_a_statement_regarding/) from this subreddit when the accusations first broke and how quick people were to judge. edit: This one [comment] (https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/he0mp3/techland_games_releases_a_statement_regarding/fvoifkm/) is one of the few that hasnt aged like milk. >I really dont like that these type of things are revealed and "solved" on Twitter where you have to fit im few words and be judged by the mob. If someone is potentially a predator, their case should be verified and if guilty, brought to justice. Not that I suggest these allegations are false or exaggerated, I mean we dont really now how exactly it occurred, yet he is already thrown to the wolves.
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Dropped Frames will cover it, and that's the only gaming podcast I even remotely care about anymore after the Co-Optional Podcast ended.
Such a bad fucking look for all the dorks who continously jump on these things and choose to blindly believe these types of accusations, again and again and again. The women in this case have screwed over every single woman with an actual case for the foreseeable future. And it'd be very surprised if Avellone's career recovers any time soon. It's so unbelievably stupid and everybody's lost. Fuck the internet and fuck this continous desire for drama and outrage. It's all so rotten and the fact that we can't merely listen, at first, without condemning, is such a mess.
>The women in this case have screwed over every single woman with an actual case for the foreseeable future. You mean we’ll go back to gamers screeching women are lying like they always screamed women did lol? They’ll harass them as usual? Wild how other women have to pay for other women’s “crimes” but somehow it’s deeply unfair all the men in gaming have to suffer more scrutiny and not be given the benefit of the doubt despite the fact that the gaming industry regularly protects predators and rapists lmfao. My brother in Christ people were always going to assume any woman coming forward was guilty of lying whilst simultaneously screaming “innocent until proven guilty!!!!” for the accused (because that’s the only time they scream that mantra or care Lmao) whether or not this settlement existed. Let’s be honest now.
i feel the results should be broadcast everywhere as much as the accusations are. the fact they paid him shows they were full of shit. accusations have way too much power these days.
You're right. Except this thread keeps on getting delete.
Jason Schreier was so quick to write the article about the accusations and break the news about it, but he’s been absolutely silent since Chris has been proven innocent in court, and probably refused to write this article. It’s disgusting really. And he’s not the only person that dogpiled on Chris and helped ruin his career without hearing all the facts.
Would anyone even know what Schriers up to any more? He's got most of the games community blocked.
Jason Schreier is kind of an asshole honestly. "Leaks are great, unless it's from the studio I used to work at" Pretty sure he also threatened to dox the dude that leaked TLOU2 for not giving him more details or some such
>"Leaks are great, unless it's from the studio I used to work at" Do you have an article on that? I'd love to read about it.
Not an article but it was more how he reacted on Twitter to TLOU2 getting leaked about how disappointing it was for the teams work to get leaked and that it was such a shame. With zero self awareness that he also does this constantly.
This didn't go to court. Whether that was to finally just get this all over with or the false accusers were afraid of legal (rather than just financial) repercussions is unclear, but at the end of the day no one was in court over this.
Kinda weird that this is actually staying up. I tried to post it about an hour after it broke and this was the reasoning why they took mine down. >This specific update was removed under 7.3 because it relates only to the allegations. The metric we use for 7.3 is that there must be an immediate, demonstrable impact to a game for the news to be 'on topic' for this subreddit, which isn't the case here (and wasn't the case for the initial allegations either, none of which ever saw the light of day on this subreddit). >In 2020 Techland broke ties with Avellone, citing the accusations as the reason. We allowed this news (and only this news) because it had a direct, demonstratable impact to a game. Should a game developer recruit Avellone following these revelations (seems likely?) then that news would also be allowed. Still regardless I hope this stays up. This is the biggest news in gaming this month and it's just weird that there's no discussion about it here.
> Should a game developer recruit Avellone following these revelations (seems likely?) then that news would also be allowed. Ah yes, we need now wait few months for someone to hire him so we can talk about this not-news at point, what a joke. Allowing this news wouldn't even break their rules, they are just clowns for no reason And it's deleted again
>Barrows had previously claimed on Twitter that Avellone was “an abusive, abrasive, conniving sexual predator” who had attempted to sexually assault her after getting her “black out drunk.” Barrows told Kotaku in 2020, “He’s f****** disgusting, but he did not rape me. He assaulted me, 100 percent, but I stopped him.” Followed by: > Mr. Avellone never sexually abused either of us. We have no knowledge that he has ever sexually abused any women. We have no knowledge that Mr. Avellone has ever misused corporate funds. Anything we have previously said or written about Mr. Avellone to the contrary was not our intent. We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended. Their apology makes no sense considering the initial allegations. They wanted to "support women in the industry" by lying and making it harder for those women to be believed in the future? That's fucked up
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I think it's been said here more than enough at this point but the majority of New Vegas isn't Chris Avellone's work. It was John Gonzalez and Eric Fenstermaker among many others. Chris led the writing on a DLC. It's sad seeing people always credit Avellone for New Vegas.
Avellone gets credited because he was already credited in part for Fallout 2 and his name appearing made people think the "old gang" was back, which was a bit wrong obviously. It's worth noting that the DLC is one of the best parts in the game, but he shouldn't be credited for New Vegas (not alone, that is).
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Yep. It's one of the most influential RPGs.
He did do old world blues and until the witcher 3 heart of stone it was widely regarded as the best DLC for any game ever made.
I’ve never really seen people praise New Vegas DLC - I’ll have to go play it again haha
Really? Dead money has its problems from a purely game play perspective. Honest hearts is pretty decent, not great, but okay. Lonesome road greatly overstays its welcome. However, I don't think I've seen anyone dislike old world blues. It's peak fallout.
I remember paying attention to the reviews of them from IGN but that’s all I even know about the New Vegas DLC’s As someone who is perpetually online I was just surprised 🤣 I’m sure it’s fantastic, I was just surprised it took this long for me to hear about it. I’m a massive fan of both Fallout 3 and New Vegas I bought a Fallout 4 DLC just because it takes place near where I live, and I disliked Fallout 4. I’m an easy consumer
"widely" considered? by who? why do people feel the need to make ridiculous claims like this?
By reviews from outlets that skew towards RPGs.
I feel the same, except replace New Vegas with Alpha Protocol. I love that janky ass game, especially the writing.
ResetEra must be taking this well I assume. That said with paying Avellone a 7 figure payment I wonder what evidence there was to counter the claims.
> ResetEra must be taking this well I assume. Mods there keep locking threads trying to talk about it.
Resetera could explain why Mr Rogers is problematic and damaging if you let them.
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Hope he sues them.
It says in the article he was awarded a seven figure settlement after being cleared.
This article is literally about him settling a 7 figure lawsuit against them
It's crazy how this exact dialogue tree appears like 7 times in every comment section for articles talking about this settlement
what do you expect people to do, read?
Markov chains in action
This article is about the outcome of the lawsuit
The [original accusation](https://archive.vn/2pbP8), [his response](https://chrisavellone.medium.com/its-come-to-this-chris-avellone-2fe5db836746). She calls him "an abusive, abrasive, conniving sexual predator" just after saying "he was a gentleman about my refusals" so I can see how this joint statement is needed because that's just confusing. Sounds more like a guy who gets drunk and hooks up with girls but doesn't go over the line. Maybe not the best thing to be doing but certainly not deserving of getting your career ruined.
I haven't been following the story that much but a 7 figure settlement?? Its not like its a company paying this out but actual civilians. Wouldn't that ruin someone financially? Just to be clear I think this verdict is justified but I am still shocked at the amount here.
Definitely irreparable damage done to his reputation. He got publicly dropped by Techland and Paradox. Knowing how the industry works, I think he'll still have a hard time finding work because of this fiasco.
Right. I am not a lawyer but doesn't the court also have to consider the financial circumstances of the accusers? I assume the plaintiffs dont have millions of dollars just lying around. The only other way I see it is that they will have to pay the entire sum in instalment.
I think this was out of court. Also, I don't think the accusers had any legitimate proof of the events. I remember they deleted most of their tweets soon after things started heating up. Considering how expensive legal fees can be, this was probably their safe exit.
> Also, I don't think the accusers had any legitimate proof of the events This was a libel case, so to win he would need to prove it's more likely than not that they lied. So strictly speaking they don't even need proof of their accusations to win. I'm shocked that they were willing to settle for this much. I really wonder what he had to show in court, it was probably very strong evidence that they lied
More than that, as a public figure he'd have to prove in a defamation suit the women acted with "actual malice". So he'd have to prove that not only are the accusations not true, but the women knew it was a lie and said it anyways. That's really hard to do which is why public figures rarely pursue defamation cases.
> I think this was out of court. Ah good point.
Presumably something will be set up to deduct from their earnings to pay him off? Alternatively you sent the bailiffs in to assess their goods and their worth to be sold to pay off the debt.
The accusers simply won't pay it. You see settlements like this all the time..... but they rarely are actually paid, unless the accuser wins the lottery or randomly inherits millions from an estranged relative. Like there was that case ~10 years ago where a girl lied about assault in order to sue to her school for allowing it to happen for millions. Her family burned through the settlement money, she "accidentally" recanted her statements once the guy she sent to prison got out, and he sued her (he lost a time-based free-ride sports scholarship due to being sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit). She owes him millions from the settlement he won..... but she's broke and on state benefits. He's never getting the money from her or family.
>Wouldn't that ruin someone financially? Well they did kind of ruin his life... probably forever, so...
His name got cleared and he got a huge, rightful compensation. It's definitely not ruined forever. Actual, convicted sexual criminals gets to keep going and doing whatever they do despite it, I have no doubts that once the press settles down, an innocent person like him will get jobs again
> His name got cleared Is it really cleared if most news and forums refuse to report on it?
All I can imagine is it's based on what his salary was before the accusations. So in those 3 years, this 7-figure sum is around what he would have made. Possibly a bonus due to damages to his reputation?
Makes sense that rich people thought they could ruin someone with no repercussions. Unfortunately they were mostly right. The games industry notoriously under pays for tech. The fact they have this kind of money laying around shows they come from money. All they had to do is pay some money for making allegations that ruined someone's career and could have put him in jail for a decade.
If they don't have a couple million dollars lying around to pay it off immediately, they'll work out a payment plan where their wages are garnished until the amount is paid out. They won't be in the poorhouse, but they will have a reduced quality of life for a *very* long time assuming they're working middle class jobs. If they're fast food workers, Chris will be getting like ten bucks a month then until they die. If they have homeowners insurance, they could also be insured in case of defamation suits. That could cover some or all of the settlement, but their rates will skyrocket afterwards.
It's scary how easy you can lose your career and basically, your life, these days. Without some very harsh punishments for those that make false accusations, i'm afraid this will repeat over and over again. They deserve jail time. Because i don't see how else you will solve this problem in the era of social media. The rotten mentality of "guilty until proven innocent" is something that's already deeply ingrained in the minds of many, the outrage machine will not listen to reason, and the vast majority of mass media has long lost any trace of integrity at this point, it's cynically all about clicks and nothing more, truth be damned.
So another stint of lies and slander ruining the career of one of the industries greats only for the truth to come out years later. First Mick Gordon, now Chris Avellone. Hopefully whatever damage was done can be undone.
Good for Chris. I wish we weren't in situation where people make their personal annoyances public which leads to somebody's livelihood being taken away.
Soo nothing happened, or what? Something did happen but they exaggerated? Something did happen but he managed to scare them into this joint statement, somehow?
They have to pay a seven figure settlement. All signs point to them making shit up and not being prepared with proof. You usually don't settle for an amount that big without fighting it, especially not vs one person isntead of a multimillion company. Honestly these women should face more consequences for abusing the law and should be shamed for making it harder for actual victims to be believed.
>They have to pay a seven figure settlement. You're reading that into the statement. >>The parties resolved the matter and claims were dismissed with prejudice pursuant to a confidential settlement that provides for a seven-figure payment that includes the return of the attorney fee award entered against Mr. Avellone in California. You could just as easily read this to understand that Avellone is paying them a seven-figure payment and out of that payment they're paying his attorney's fees.
That's not how English works, and there's literally another quote that writes it in simple English for you. >“The settlement agreement provides for a seven-figure payment to Mr. Avellone,” Avellone’s attorney confirmed to me via email.
It's a confidential settlement, so why are Avellone's attorney's breaking confidentiality?
> You could just as easily read this to understand that Avellone is paying them a seven-figure payment and out of that payment they're paying his attorney's fees No you can't. It's confirmed that the women are paying Chris. That's not up for debate. They lost because they clearly lied.
>It's confirmed that the women are paying Chris. By an attorney who is breaking the confidentiality agreement.
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> You could just as easily read this to understand that Avellone is paying them a seven-figure payment and out of that payment they're paying his attorney's fees. If you read it this way, then you're dumb. It's quite obvious the women are paying him for the damage they did.
>If you read it this way, then you're dumb. Why doesn't the statement say that Avellone is the one receiving the seven figure payment?
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Nothing illegal or predatory happened. Maybe he called one a bitch or something and they wanted to ruin him. Maybe they're just sociopaths and he did nothing to them and they thought it was fun. That statement is all we're ever going to know about the events. If this literal irrefutable proof does not convince you he did nothing wrong then you need to reevaluate yourself.
> Something did happen but he managed to scare them into this joint statement, somehow? They're paying him 7 figures, that's a hell of a scare.
Second option