Hey guys,
Taini Flaremist, one of the AQ3D Community Managers, resigned today and this is our official response.
Now as we all know, nobody cares or believes what a company says in a time like this. In fact, most people are really hoping there’s a juicy controversy and it gets more heated.
So here’s the ground rules:
It really sucks that we lost Taini. She was an amazing member of our community. I didn’t get to work with her much, but the team members who did really respected her and appreciated working with her.
It is a terrible loss, and there is an important lesson here moving forward.
For the record, the personal relationships between people that work with us are none of our business. I would not even be talking about this if it hadn’t been directly mentioned in her publicly-posted resignation letter.
At the end of last year, we learned that Taini and one of our other junior developers had been in a relationship. By the time we learned of it, it had already ended, and both of them were able to continue working together. At the beginning of this year, we learned that Taini had begun to feel uncomfortable working with the developer. As soon as we learned of that, we took immediate action to investigate.
We spoke with them both to understand what was happening and resolve the situation. By the end of the talks, both were still interested in working together and as far as we knew, that was the end of it.
(And once again,just to make sure you’re clear, people’s personal relationships outside of work are none of our business.)
Ok, so how did this all go South? We were under the impression that everything was fine. But video-game studios like ours are made of real people.
About a month ago, Taini made what she called in her resignation letter “an unprofessional decision.” As a community manager, the number one rule is that you are there to be a bridge between the developers and the community. I was trying to find a delicate way of putting this, but as a community manager, you can’t mess with developer accounts or trash them in front of the players for personal reasons.
She wanted him removed from the Community Management channel, and told us directly she didn’t want to work with him at all. This, of course, creates a terrible situation, because a game’s Community Manager needs to be able to work alongside the rest of the team.
As you know, everybody screws up sometimes, and I mean everybody. The best way to handle this situation was to have a cool-off period. We asked her to take a paid, month-long break to reset, and we would talk with her at the end of April to discuss moving forward together. (And to be clear, the break was a direct result of her "unprofessional decision.")
A couple of other unrelated things happened during this time which, again, I would not have brought up except they were publicly Tweeted. So shortly after this, Rellik also made a handful of mistakes which had us questioning our strategy on how our community management department was operating. In the past, the game leads always talked directly to the players. This made a lot of sense, because they have the power to immediately take the action players want. So going back to the old way seems like the correct action for the time being.
The private messages that Rellik shared to Taini, which she publicly posted are, in fact, correct, but I want to share some background information. Originally he was hired in a marketing role for the app stores, Steam, and social media. That didn’t pan out. Because we liked him, we shifted him to more of a Community Management role. While he was really friendly and good with the players, this can be a really difficult role. He made a series of mistakes over time. Each time, we had calls to talk about what happened until the most recent series of issues (referenced partially in Taini’s Twitter posts).
Because we like Rellik as a person, rather than ending his contract early, he was moved back to focus on ad and marketing tasks. We let him know at the time that it did not seem we were likely to renew his contract at the end of the term.
That brings us back to Taini. Several days ago, we had reached out to Taini to have our one-month check-in meeting. This morning, I announced in the 3D team meeting that we were going to talk with Taini and move her into a fuller Community Manager role with a focus on social media. Hindsight being 20/20, I really should have communicated that that was why we wanted to meet with her.
But when it came time for us to have the call, she posted the message she shared on social media. We haven’t actually gotten a chance to talk with her yet directly.
Now, normally, as many of you know, what would happen is that we would reach out to her, try to find a way to make everybody happy, and that post would go poof. But that is not what is going to happen this time. This time, I wrote the letter above telling you exactly how it is. And I’m sure that slanderous things are going to fly, as that is the nature of these emotionally-charged situations. But the facts remain the same.
Two consenting adults who were both team members, both of roughly equal rank, had a private relationship outside of work. When we were made aware that she was uncomfortable, we took action with both parties to resolve the situation. No matter what other rumors start flying, that is what happened.
Losing Taini was a huge blow to the community. A lot of people, including myself, are feeling sad, hurt, and bad that this couldn’t have been fixed. So I’m just going to share my personal feelings: I feel bad for both people involved in this. I gave it to you straight. And because this is a matter of the heart, there are two sides to the story, and nothing that anybody else says really matters.
So I’d just like to remind everyone that real feelings are involved here. Please be kind and sensitive. If this is the path Taini’s chosen, then our official position is, we’re just going to be supportive. She can count on the team and I for anything; she just needs to reach out.
Sincerely,
Artix