‘Halo’ Franchise Director Receives Dozens Of Death Threats Over ‘Master Chief Collection’
Halo: The Master Chief Collection has had more than its share of issues since it launched on the Xbox One in November. Are these problems worthy of death threats though? Franchise Director Frank O’Connor claims to have received more than his fair share.
O’Connor was active on the gaming forum NeoGAF following the unfortunately broken release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. He was one of the first 343 Industries representatives to apologize for the game’s poor matchmaking performance and other issues. Multiple updates to the game have solved those issues for some, but not all, and the overall matchmaking performance is still slow. However, his activity as one of the faces for studio has resulted in death threats that have forced him to cut back on the updates.
O’Connor told a poster on NeoGAF that he was “lucky” after enjoying a much improved experience in Halo: The Master Chief Collection. “Lots of people are having the same experience as you (which still isn’t good enough) – but many people aren’t having as good an experience. Something we hope to fix properly, soon.”
This was O’Connor’s first post on NeoGAF in days, a forum where he’s typically the most active sharing details on Halo, or just commenting on general news events on the Off Topic board.
“I am not posting much for a couple of reasons, one, too busy trying to fix. Two, well past a couple of dozen believable (I don’t personally believe them, but better safe than sorry) death threats,” he wrote in explanation of his absence.
“Apologies. We’ll keep communicating via Halo Waypoint.”
These kind of threats toward game developers are not uncommon, unfortunately. A Bungie executive was recently “SWATTED” following the release of Destiny. More infamously, Call of Duty: Black Ops II developer David Vonderhaar received death threats following the release of minor tweaks to guns in the game.
Death threats have also become a common refrain in the GamerGate controversy with figures on both sides on the receiving end. The bulk of the reporting has focused on threats to anti-GamerGate figures such as Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu though, and largely ignored threats received by pro-GamerGate figures such as Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos.
Death threats over the social media sites, and the internet in general, are a disturbingly common trend for public figures on the internet. Which ones can be taken seriously, and which ones can be ignored is the problem.
[Images via Chinese VR-Zone, Halo Waypoint]
