Death at WotC

[The Little Raven]

I thought I should make you guys aware of this.

http://kotaku.com/5032443/xbox-developer-dead-in-murder+suicide

Joseph Batten, the Senior Manager of Digital Technology Projects (the division in charge of MTGO and D&DI) at Wizards of the Coast murdered his estranged wife and then killed himself some time in the past week.

I'd like to extend my sincerest condolences to all those impacted by this tragic event.

 

[Family]

My condolences. Tragic.

 

[Rechan]

This is awful. Condolences.

 

[Steely Dan]

Seriously dark, I hope they didn't have children.

 

[Filcher]

This is terrible. Does the family have a foundation we can give to in recognition of her work?

 

[El Mahdi]

Heartfelt condolences to both families and the WoTC family.

 

[Gailbraithe]

Well DDI definitely isn't going to happen now.

 

[evilref]

Well DDI definitely isn't going to happen now.

That is not only baseless speculation but is in incredibly poor taste.

 

[D'karr]

Well DDI definitely isn't going to happen now.

Could we please give it a rest. This is bad enough without the added thread crapping.

 

[Gailbraithe]

That is not only baseless speculation but is in incredibly poor taste.

Well, maybe DDI isn't sunk for good, but losing a senior project manager isn't going to get the project done any faster, and tends to derail these things. It certainly doesn't bode well for the project.

As for being in poor taste: What you want me to do? Break down in tears because some people I don't know died? I didn't know these people, you didn't know these people, the vast majority of users here didn't know these people, there's little point in pretending we're all broke up about it. You may find my lack of maudlin tears in incredibly poor taste, which is fair, but by the same measure I find threads like these wear a bunch of people make a show of their public grieving for people they didn't know in incredibly poor taste.

Seriously, if we're not talking about how this affects DDI, then this is just a sick bit of misery tourism that has absolutely nothing to do with D&D or gaming.