BioWare supports Dragon Age writer after Internet hate campaign

Posted February 22, 2012 by Joannes Truyens in News.

News: BioWare has issued a statement of support for Jennifer Hepler, a writer on Star Wars: The Old Republic and the Dragon Age games who was the victim of an intensive Internet hate campaign.

When the whole of the Internet comes together to stand up for a cause, it can be quite the thing. When SOPA threatened the very fabric of the space-time continuum, the combined powers of the Internet contributed to its downfall (we at BeefJack also lent a hand). The flipside of that coin is that it can also focus irrational and senseless hatred on a single point.

This happened to Jennifer Hepler, who is a writer at BioWare where she worked on the Dragon Age games as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic. She woke up one day to find several online communities railing against her and her writing. Apparently she single-handedly ruined BioWare and the Mass Effect games. She didn’t even write for those, but why do research when you are ANGRY?

When old comments of Hepler’s were quoted on the official BioWare forum stating that she doesn’t play games herself and believes that combat sequences should be skippable, all bets were off. Her Twitter account was flooded with vile and hurtful messages and has now been taken offline. When our own Lewis Denby stood up for Hepler, he was immediately accused of being a BioWare stooge.

Now BioWare’s Dr. Ray Muzyka has issued the following statement in support of Hepler:

Jennifer is a valued, talented employee who has been with BioWare for many years and we hope will be with us for many more. It is awful that a few people have decided to make her a target for hate and threats, going so far as fabricating forum posts and attributing them to her, and singling her out for projects to which she has not contributed (i.e., Jennifer is not even a part of the Mass Effect writing team). All of us at BioWare support and will continue to support Jennifer fully, and are happy to see so many people out there are also supporting her during this difficult time.

They have also donated $1000 in Hepler’s name to Bullying Canada, which sounds like an organisation that wants to bully Canada.

The BioWare fanbase does seem pretty finicky when it comes to the universes created by these games, as proven by the reaction to the latest Mass Effect tie-in novel.

I haven’t played Dragon Age II myself, but I’ve heard from a certain someone that Anders (pictured above) was a particularly well-rounded and intriguing character. Guess who wrote him. Take that, Internet!

Tagged as Bioware, Dragon Age, Hate campaign, Internet, Jennifer Hepler, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Writer