IGN Editor-in-Chief Fired Over "Alleged Misconduct"

via statement from IGN to Kotaku (Jason Schreier)

This news comes two months after former IGN employee Kallie Plagge accused her former co-worker Vince Ingenito of sexually harassing her and another woman. (Ingenito was let go in March 2017.) The Monday after Plagge made those accusations, IGN’s editorial staff had several meetings about what had happened, and eventually decided to put out a statement committing to “fix what is broken” within the company’s culture.

During one of those meetings, someone accused Butts of harassment, according to a person who was in the room. The accuser did not share more details in the meeting, but IGN consequently began investigating what had happened.

The massive gaming website IGN has fired its editor-in-chief, Steve Butts

lol

Man, the internet is a stupid place. A guy gets fired for misconduct at work and half the comments on the story at Kotaku are people laughing at his last name being “Butts”. The whole internet should be fired for misconduct.

@htr10: the internet is known for being easily distracted

Well, you know, if he used better judgement, he wouldn't be the butt of a joke.

@shiftygism:

You’re fired from the internet for misconduct. Remember when Jeff let loose in Butt City? He’s also fired from the internet.

@shiftygism: Don't mean to butt in on the conversation like this, but that was quite amusing.

I know you can't choose your last name.

Until youre a legal adult

then you change your last name so you're not a grown man named Butts.

Another one butts the dust.

Yeah this scumbag Butts is harassing his employees and creating a toxic work environment but no, you focus on the people laughing at his name and call them stupid. Nice priorities.

This guy is defiantly the Butt of the joke.

I did this. I did this to this thread. I called out people about making jokes about the last name Butts and in accordance with the "opposite of what you intended" law of the internet, made this thread be about butt jokes. I fire myself from the internet. I will now take "the long walk" into the wasteland, a la Max van Sydow in the Judge Dredd movie (the Sylvester Stallone one, not the good one).

I refuse to feel bad about about roasting this jerks goofy last name.

The massive gaming website IGN has fired its editor-in-chief, Steve Butts

You reap what you sow.

@htr10: No friend. We all did this. No ifs or butts about it.

Im a mailman, you see a lot of unfortunate names delivering mail. Saw a guy with the last name Buttram once.

Title seems weird. Misconduct was alleged, then IGN did an investigation which apparently lasted at least two months, then they fired him as the result of that. Sounds more like they determined misconduct, not just alleged.

It's a good thing they are getting on top of this now before it becomes a systematic problem.

When something stinks, it's usually the Butts.

I think that's just a passing legal sort of thing.

These days I'd say I'm more surprised when people are alleged to be moral, ethical people.

I'm happy that the IGN staff took such a strong stance on this especially since it would have been so easy to hide behind the fact that Plagge had already left the company. The way she was treated was terrible, so I'm glad they took it seriously (even it took too long). Disgusted to hear that not only was this EIC unempathetic to Plagge's harassment from a coworker but also that the EIC directly hurt another. Glad to hear they're gone (and I hope the relatively-small make-up of the game's industry doesn't rehire them).

haha his name is steve butts

Given the way he responded to the Kallie Plagge situation and to Kallie herself on twitter, can't say I'm surprised at all. Hopefully this leads to meaningful change at IGN.

I'm guessing he was a butt man?

I don't follow IGN anymore due to how some of them treated Colin Moriarity after a bad joke on Twitter. That just rubbed me the wrong way and was made much larger than necessary, making Colin out to be a person he probably isn't. That said, I'm glad they're doing something about this. I'm also surprised that Vince Ingenito is gone; I hadn't heard about that. Though if he did those things, that is creepy and it's good he's not there. That said, have they taken comments off the videos that people like Naomi are in because the comments section any time I had ever been in there was littered with people talking about Naomi Kyle's looks... Oh, I just read that Naomi Kyle left IGN. Hmmmm.

What a butt head.

Well, he shouldn't have let loose in butt city if he didn't want to get called on it.

This Butts guy sounds like an ass.

What an unfortunate last name.

I'll admit I was clenching pretty hard when I heard that an IGN employee was fired since I do like to listen to their podcasts on occasion, even worse that it was somebody who ran their entire editorial department. It's pretty shitty that the work environment there sounded pretty bad for the last little bit due to the stink hanging over the whole company. IGN did a really bad job of handling the harassment situations recently and need to be more anal about getting these investigations done properly.

@kingbonesaw: Wish IGN didn't spend so much time farting around.

He he, Steve...

At least his parents didn't call him Seymour.

I bet some people will think the allegations are asinine, but I don't give a toot, some people deserve to be pinched.

Or Harry.

Or Richard.

Or Wolfgang.

@theht: I see what you did there.

The culling continues. Good.

Just imagine how much better the internet will be once this is all "done". If shitbags no longer have a mainstream media outlet to tarnish, the decent people's voices will be all the stronger. This dude was the head honcho there.... Which articles did he nix and which did he request one wonders.

Its pretty sad how many people make light of this because of someones name. Steve has been around since the PC Gamer days and its sad to see him go out like this. As someone who IRL has a name that gets made fun of because of its spelling i'm SMH at this community.

I'm not defending his personal behavior at all but what he has done to transform IGN as a whole around from what it was before made me recently change my opinion of the site.

Harassment in the workplace should never be tolerated. No ifs, ands, or Steves about it.

Meh, it super sucks that this sort of thing happens all the time but I'm hopeful that at some point people will learn and understand that all of these issues stem from culture and the perspectives of ones own privileges rather than just boiling it down to people being aweful.

While is also not fully wrong that some people can be just bad, awefulness in general doesn't appear out of the ether and just materialises for no good reasons but rather doing bad things can stem from similar inspirations as good things can. There is a complexity to the issue that not enough people are willing to think about.

I think its really important to think about on how such a problem could've surfaced in the first place. Kicking out the person alone for doing something very wrong is just one step out of many on how to prevent further misconduct.

Wasn't Incognito (reviewer on IGN) fired for a similar thing? I believe that there might be a systematic problem here.

@puchiko: You're upset at the people making fun of someone who sexually harassed his employee?? Wow...

I think you got this whole thing ass backwards; it was gonna happen regardless, don't be so hard on yourself.

I'm looking for a Butts, first name Seymour.

So two things:

1 - Glad that the guy got the 2 month investigation. We live in a time where people are guilty until proven innocent, and that’s not the way it should be. Too many places either fire or make someone leave just due to allegations. Everyone deserves to be innocent until proven otherwise.

2 - People need to quit looking at their place of employment as a dating pool. There are so many other outlets now to find someone to date. Dating, or trying to flirt with a coworker is just a bad idea. Keep it professional. Even if you hang out with people outside of work, be yourself while outside of work, and then be in professional mode while you’re at work.

What are you implying? I'm not defending the guy. I'm not upset, I'm just SMH at how people are making light of a situation.

Well, they fired Butts...

In regards to your pm: i have no problem with you. Further ridiculing a guy who abused his power over a subordinate is not making light of the situation. He will most likely move on, get a new job, and everyone else will forget about it. He deserves no sympathy for his last name because he did a good job at his last place of work where he was also harassing employees.