A GameStop employee interviewed for a piece on Japanese rape simulator RapeLay suddenly finds himself without a job. Was he fired for his comments on the controversial game?
RapeLay is a Japanese point-and-click game that follows the story of a spoiled rich kid who takes revenge on a family of three women after one gets him arrested for being a pervert. Through the course of the game he stalks and sexually assaults the women, eventually transforming them into his willing sex slaves.
One can imagine the sort of controversy a game like that raises.
RapeLay has never been legally available in the United States, though torrent files of the game with English translation seem to be rather popular.
Perhaps that's how the game fell into the hands of Derek Littlejohn, a gamer and two-year employee at GameStop in Oakland, Pennsylvania. During an interview with college journalist Ann Straub for her article, "Game spurs debate, causes controversy," 22-year-old Littlejohn spoke at length about playing RapeLay, pirating games via torrent, and Japanese sexual repression.
"One has to remember that Japanese culture itself is very suppressed in sexuality as a whole, to the point where they still censor their pornography with mosaics, both picture and film-wise," Littlejohn said. "If you continually suppress a country in terms of sexuality, they'll just find different ways of exploring things themselves. RapeLay is just one of those ways of people expressing themselves, to see new things."
Shortly after the article was published, Littlejohn was fired from his position at GameStop.
The firing took place on April 30, according to a wall post on Derek's Facebook page that reads: " Derek Littlejohn's day just keeps getting better and better. Just got fired from GameStop in what can only be described as 'Epic'."
The note regarding his firing wasn't available to view, but in a post referring to said note, one of his friends comments, "**** that bullshit man. I support virtual rape, especially when commited by Derek Littlejohn. You are my hero. "
The evidence seems to point to the fact that Littlejohn was fired for his comments. Knowing GameStop as I do, I can see how that could happen. When I first started writing for Kotaku, I was holding a part time job at GameStop as well. A day after I posted a story mentioning this, I received a call from my district manager, telling me corporate had called him and I was not to mention my affiliation with the company in my posts.
Shortly after that I resigned from the company.
So I know that GameStop watches the internet closely for mentions of the company name. And when the company name is spoken by an employee while talking about how easy it is to pirate and play a controversial video game about raping women? Well yes, that could certainly lead to that employee losing his or her job.
This leads us to the question: Should a company fire an employee for speaking their mind?
In this particular situation, I'd have to say yes.
GameStop is a company that's all about selling video games, and while a nice portion of that market is folks like your average Kotaku reader, mature enough to handle sensitive subjects, another large segment of the company's target audience is parents. Parents who are already nervous about sex and violence in video games. Parents who might see an article in which a GameStop representative casually dismisses a game about brutal rape and decide to shop elsewhere.
Some would argue that Littlejohn was not acting as a company representative, but when you say things like this...
"The only reason the game is really known stateside is because of a third party releasing it in Britain via Amazon, which was shortly removed due to people's complaints," Littlejohn said. "Banning has never been an issue with Gamestop."
...you are speaking for the company you work for. And should the company you work for not like what you are saying when speaking as a representative, then sure, you might get fired.
What about freedom of speech? Jeff Schille brings up the subject in his article on the firing over at Game Rant.
All Americans are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, is not allowed. There is no indication that Littlejohn made any of the statements in the interview during a shift at GameStop. Is he not free to speak his mind on his own time? Whether we agree with him or not, the man has a right to his opinions.
He does indeed have a right to his opinions. And GameStop has the right to fire him for voicing them as a representative of the company. Freedom of speech doesn't excuse anyone from the consequences of the things they say, and when your company has policies in place about talking to the press, as GameStop does, freedom of speech doesn't override those policies.
As Game Politics points out in their story on the subject, this probably wouldn't have happened had Ann Straub referred to Littlejohn as a an employee of a large retail video game chain and dropped all GameStop references, but she didn't, and Littlejohn referenced the company directly in his quotes.
In short, it's unfortunate, but GameStop had every right to react as they did, if Littlejohn was indeed fired over the article.
A quick browse through Derek Littlejohn's Facebook wall shows the guy is still employed somewhere, has plenty of friends, and spends an awful lot of time pantsless. Seems like he's taking this in stride. Perhaps we should too.
We've reached out to GameStop for comment on this story, and will update should we receive a response.
GameStop Employee Fired Over RapeLay Interview? Game Rant
Seems fair - a company has a responsibility to protect itself and its image. The employees are the face of that branding and most all of the time are the points of contact with the "buying" public. He should've exercised some common sense and discretion and made the comments anonymously at best. Just my two cents.
Perhaps that's how the game fell into the hands of Derek Littlejohn, a gamer and two-year employee at GameStop in Oakland, Pennsylvania. During an interview with college journalist Ann Straub for her article, "Game spurs debate, causes controversy," 22-year-old Littlejohn spoke at length about playing RapeLay, pirating games via torrent, and Japanese sexual repression.
"One has to remember that Japanese culture itself is very suppressed in sexuality as a whole, to the point where they still censor their pornography with mosaics, both picture and film-wise," Littlejohn said. "If you continually suppress a country in terms of sexuality, they'll just find different ways of exploring things themselves. RapeLay is just one of those ways of people expressing themselves, to see new things."
I never realized Gamestop hires accredited psychiatrists for its clerk positions.
Quote:
Knowing GameStop as I do, I can see how that could happen. When I first started writing for Kotaku, I was holding a part time job at GameStop as well. A day after I posted a story mentioning this, I received a call from my district manager, telling me corporate had called him and I was not to mention my affiliation with the company in my posts.
This explains a lot. And yeah, there's a clear conflict of interest there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikejet
If you watch Japanese porn it's so much better than anything available stateside.
There's not a lot that compares. I mean Max Hardcore is in jail and Rocco's stuff is from Europe.
Belladonna might hang and Nacho, probably can include Sasha Grey in there, but some of the really awesome stuff from Japan, no US filmmaker would ever touch that with a 10 ft. pole.
Is Pennsylvania at employment "At-Will" state? If so then Gamestop could fire him for whatever reason thay make up. If they don't like his shoelaces then he can be let go. (They do have to have a good reason for firing him when it comes to him getting unemployment benefits.)
If it's not an "At-Will" state, then he's got a good 1st amendment rights case on his hands. His statement has nothing to do with the fact he works at Gamestop. If his employment at Gamestop came up in the article, it was only to support his credendials about knowing about video games.
Is Pennsylvania at employment "At-Will" state? If so then Gamestop could fire him for whatever reason thay make up. If they don't like his shoelaces then he can be let go. (They do have to have a good reason for firing him when it comes to him getting unemployment benefits.)
If it's not an "At-Will" state, then he's got a good 1st amendment rights case on his hands. His statement has nothing to do with the fact he works at Gamestop. If his employment at Gamestop came up in the article, it was only to support his credendials about knowing about video games.
Had to laugh at that.
Also if I were in a Gamestop and one of their employees started a lecture on Japanese culture and sexual repression and it's resultant effects on society, I'd tell him to knock it off and go get my game. Gamestop doesn't hire game "experts", they hire this guy:
Not sure what the qualifications are, but my son was asking about a video game when we were at a GameStop once and the girl looked at us and said, "Yeah, I don't play video games at all. I just needed a job to help pay for my car."
I would probably say a majority. Of the people are also like that. If not, they are the exact extreme and are so into games that they probably could not determine reality from fiction.
Also if I were in a Gamestop and one of their employees started a lecture on Japanese culture and sexual repression and it's resultant effects on society, I'd tell him to knock it off and go get my game. Gamestop doesn't hire game "experts", they hire this guy:
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Gamestop employee fired over rape game import
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