People also have to realize that Canada has different laws than those in the US, and while it sucks he got fired... he kinda set himself up by advertizing himself, but that was a time before he made his game... if it were me, I probably would have released it on a different company, but then again his success wouldn't have been so if he had gotten fired in the first place.

The Star is pretty trashy tbh. I hope that reporter is pleased with herself.

Pretty dumb of him to publicly insult his employers like that, but maybe that's what he wanted.

A lot of people are stuck in horrible jobs, and most don't have the courage/willingness to do anything about it either out of complacency or financial/family obligations. Looking for a job sucks, and there's no guarantee you'll get something better than what you have now. At least this way he's forced himself to pursue a new job, and maybe even get something that won't continue to crush his spirit. Plus all the attention his game has gotten will surely help if that's the path he wants to take.

Still kind of a dick way about it though.

@bleatingheart: Not worse than the Sun.

I can empathize with David. I worked in a call center before I left for school to make video games. I was actually working there part-time while attending school, but after they wouldn't adjust my schedule so I wouldn't be late coming from school, I said see ya. I can totally relate to the call center experience; I'm not joking when I say that his game is an accurate reflection of what a call center job is like. You guys might not like dealing with CSRs, but I can assure you that the feeling is mutual on the other end of the phone. At least for me, anyway.

Seeing as how my situation is similar to David's, I would say this to him: get a job to support your family, but don't stop making games if that's what you really want to do in life. You may be able to get the dream job you want!

I thought his name was familiar. I have some people from the indie community on my Twitter who follow him.

If you are just tuning in the score is Scoops 114, Haters 6. We now return you the the ass-whooping already in progress.

"and the reporter was just doing their job."

uh huh.

I hate to stand up for Gail Shea and her administration but I guess I'm on her side this time.

He's clearly not the happiest employee and he created a game based on his experiences working in his current and previous environments. The knee-jerk reaction is to assume that confidential information has been compromised and they would need to do an investigation.

When it comes to working with confidential information you have to assume the worst has happened. From a PR perspective there's no way he could keep his job. I wish the guy luck in the future, though. I wouldn't say he screwed up but I can understand how other people would think he has

@GlassHalfAwesome said:

I hate to stand up for Gail Shea and her administration but I guess I'm on her side this time.

He's clearly not the happiest employee and he created a game based on his experiences working in his current and previous environments. The knee-jerk reaction is to assume that confidential information has been compromised and they would need to do an investigation.

When it comes to working with confidential information you have to assume the worst has happened. From a PR perspective there's no way he could keep his job. I wish the guy luck in the future, though. I wouldn't say he screwed up but I can understand how other people would think he has

Fuck PR and fuck knee-jerk reactions from idiots.

AND FUCK YOU BILLY.

I bought it. It sucks, but that's the point. I'm sure a ton of people I show it to, can relate and get a chuckle.

Good story!

@Akrid and @No0b0rAmA you should be ashamed!

@Humanity said:

While it sucks that he lost his job and everything, but what did people expect would happen? Everyone is outraged and I don't know about Canada, but in the US if you badmouth your job in a public manner you are at a pretty high risk of losing that job. Especially big government jobs where the HR department doesn't mess around.

I 100% agree with this.

Plus, the way he talks about his job makes him seem borderline suicidal so it's probably a really good thing that he can no longer work there.

Indie games! So edgy!

@Jaxboy said:

"and the reporter was just doing their job."

uh huh.

Sounds like the reporter went out of their way to make sure his employer had their nose rubbed in a story that was clearly biased against the guy. So really the reporter was just being a douchebag.

@Jaxboy said:

"and the reporter was just doing their job."

uh huh.

That statement bothered me too, and not just for grammatically incorrect pronoun-antecedent agreement.

The headline "Tax department employee creates online game to vent his frustration with taxpayers" is at best sensationalist and at worst deliberately misleading.

Great read- I would love to see a quick view- I'm a mac user, but really want to see this game

@Jaxboy said:

"and the reporter was just doing their job."

uh huh.

That statement bothered me too, and not just for grammatically incorrect pronoun-antecedent agreement.

The headline "Tax department employee creates online game to vent his frustration with taxpayers" is at best sensationalist and at worst deliberately misleading.

@CobraCalling: The game is Windows-only, but part of the package you get when you buy it is a .swf file containing the game that will run in a browser. Some Mac users have gotten the game to run that way.

An actual Mac version is at the top of my priority list. Demand for it has been high.

@Demoskinos: Yes, but unless he is an idiot (which I'm pretty sure he isn't, because he acknowledges this) then he knows it's an unflattering way to portray his current job, and that his employer would not appreciate it. And as he was trying to get attention from it, obviously it was going to eventually come to the attention of his bosses and he'd be canned.

Getting a message out and/or trying to get a developer job aside, unless he quit he was going to get fired eventually, and he would be a fool if he didn't realize this at the time.

@scottygrayskull: I definitely knew there could be repercussions. Technically, I should have submitted the game to management for their own review, where they likely would have requested an utter sanitization of the game, or simply denied me from releasing it at all. I wasn't going to let the Agency stand between me and the game I had made.

There were a lot of potential repercussions I considered, from verbal & written warnings, to being told to take the game down. Termination was a possibility, but not one I considered to be that likely. I was certainly wrong about that.

So, overall, their reaction wasn't a huge surprise. The severity of their reaction was a bit of a shock, but I always knew this could happen. I even said as much to Patrick, and this is reflected in his article.

@skinnyman: @skinnyman said:

@Jaxboy said:

"and the reporter was just doing their job."

uh huh.

That statement bothered me too, and not just for grammatically incorrect pronoun-antecedent agreement.

The headline "Tax department employee creates online game to vent his frustration with taxpayers" is at best sensationalist and at worst deliberately misleading.

"They" can be used as a singular pronoun and is perfectly acceptable and correct. Although given the fact we know it was written by a "she" I'm not sure why it was used.

Although I agree that the article title is obviously sensationalist bullshit.

What I have learned from this is that I really want to play Dys4ia.

@ElleLenore: You really should! Especially since it is a free browser game that doesn't take too long to experience.

@Zvarri said:

@ElleLenore: You really should! Especially since it is a free browser game that doesn't take too long to experience.

I have some friends and acquaintances who have gone through hormonal treatments and Dys4ia seems to represent them fairly well in some of the stuff they had to go through. I know of a few people who might need to play this to open their eyes, or at least make them empathize just a little.

Good story. Always interesting to see games about actual human experiences, and I empathise with Gallant.

@DJNeckspasm said:

I had one customer tell me the company I worked for encouraged "niggerly" behavior because we cut off his internet until he paid his bill.

Not to dismiss your experience of working at Call Centres, because I have done a few in my life and they are god-awful. However I think you should give this one customer a break. I expect what he was saying is that your company were niggardly rather than niggerly. To be a niggard is to be be stingy or tight.

Sorry if this is a bit pedantic, I just can't help it sometimes.

EDIT: Just seen @SpaceInsomniac bring this up. Sorry for duplicating.

@geirr said:

@Zvarri said:

@ElleLenore: You really should! Especially since it is a free browser game that doesn't take too long to experience.

I have some friends and acquaintances who have gone through hormonal treatments and Dys4ia seems to represent them fairly well in some of the stuff they had to go through. I know of a few people who might need to play this to open their eyes, or at least make them empathize just a little.

I played this shortly after I made my post, and it was really good! I have friends who are trans, and while I've always tried to be empathetic to their situation is definitely presents some things I did not think about.