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. *kobold moment of silence*
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. *kobold moment of silence*
Oh my!
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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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. *kobold moment of silence*
Holy frak. My sympathies to his and her family.
Shocking, really. I don't even understand the impulses that lead to these things happening.
It's also depressing that we don't have better methods available for people to protect and heal themselves when relationships break down into mental disruption.
How awful. I'm sorry for her and her family.
How some people entertain the delusion that other people are their property mystifies me. You've been left. What are you going to do about it? If murder/suicide tops your list, then that's probably why you're being left, you @#$%ing dummy.
If your lover doesn't want you anymore because of something you did? You can ask if there is any chance to turn things around by putting in a concerted effort to change your behavior for the better. If not, well then help them pack, because if they'll be happier elsewhere, and you truly love them, you want them to go on in their journey and not be their albatross.
(see: 'It Don't Matter to Me' by Bread)
On the other hand, if someone wants to leave you because they're interested in someone else? Good riddance, muckface. NEXT! Life is full of chapters, and some don't end well. That's why they invented the next page, turn it and start anew knowing that no one can take you away from yourself. Change sucks but we adapt. We always adapt.
CEO
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DMcCoy:
Horrifying news. Ummm, the article you linked to said (amongst other things):
He had also worked for Microsoft but most recently worked for Wizards of the Coast, publisher of hobby games such as Magic: the GatheringI'm slightly confused since the article says 'most recently worked for', so I'm not clear if he was actually in employment at the time of this awful event (which would certainly not justify but might have contributed to his state of mind if he was out of work???)?
Yes, he was still working at WotC and was in charge of Gleemax as well as DDI and MTGO. His job was the tech backbone part of the website. A sad event for our industry and for WotC.
-Lisa
DMcCoy:
Horrifying news. Ummm, the article you linked to said (amongst other things):
He had also worked for Microsoft but most recently worked for Wizards of the Coast, publisher of hobby games such as Magic: the GatheringI'm slightly confused since the article says 'most recently worked for', so I'm not clear if he was actually in employment at the time of this awful event (which would certainly not justify but might have contributed to his state of mind if he was out of work???)?
Here's his resume Link. He started with Wizards last Dec and became Sr Manager in Feb 08.
Tragically, sometimes people hurt too much (or believe that they're hurting too much) to have the strength to make the kind of 'rational' response that you outline. :(
Point taken...
But I have lain broken and bleeding on the craggy shores of love lost.
I was not rational. I was miserable and wanted reality to be anything but what it was. However, I still managed to not commit murder.
Losing a lover doesn't make a sane person murderous, but being a murderer at heart will likely cause you to lose lovers.
Very, very sad.
The Jade:
Could you please look at your post again. It reads to me as if you are implying that it was blatantly obvious to everyone that the man was 'a murderer at heart', in which case I do not understand how he would have got such a job or married in the first place.Edit:
I don't know if this is a thread appropriate for dramatic exaggerations that I have seen you use to good effect in other places.
For clarification's sake, then:
My point was that if you have harbor murderous obsession in your heart, that's quite likely going to be being picked up by your lover. Are they going to want to stay with you, sensing the darkness and danger within? It could be the very reason they leave.
I see no dramatic exaggerations on my part. I meant exactly what I said. It is, however, a dramatic subject, to be sure. You're suggesting that I'm not showing reverence, and that really wasn't my intention, but I'm sincerely sorry if I'm coming off that way.
It's a touchy subject, Charlie, and I don't mean to ruffle feathers, but then I've got strong feelings about murder/suicides, and sympathy for the murderer is not one of them. Though I certainly feel bad for anyone with a broken heart (up until the point of violence).
Edit: In answer to something you mentioned. My only explanation for how someone could possess such terrible potential and still get a job and a wife would be that, though I think people are who they are and their potential is mostly pre-set, they usually mask their demons quietly. As a teenager, I once dated a girl that was fresh from a mental institution for very serious reasons, and I wasn't brought up to speed until the fan got real dirty. Should I have been able to tell? Probably. Did I? Nope. Ouch.
You post as if you or someone close to you knew the pair personally, so in that context fair enough that you're certain that the husband harboured obsessions, and sorry for getting snappy at you.
It's a tough thing for any of us to think or talk about... and I'm sure we all connect to it in different ways. You absolutely don't need to apologize, but it is appreciated. Thank you.
I didn't see the points in my writing that you're been seeing, so it's hard for me to explain myself, but I was only talking about these kinds of crimes, in general. I bow my head low before any cruel death, but I've never been able to shut off the part of me that wonders about the reasons. Perhaps I shouldn't have wondered aloud during the very same day the news hit.
My god, that's... that's terrible.
The article doesn't seem to mention it, but I can only pray she didn't have any children who had to go through that.
I hope her family and friends recover and move on, and that his family and friends aren't injured or hindered by his heinous actions.
Well said, that goes for me too.
Wow, man.
My God!
My condolences to anyone close to those who died.
According to the article, he was verbally abusive and obsessive, and she had gotten a restraining order out against him. Just a guess, but I bet that it wasn't another man.... At least not at first. I feel sorry for her and her family, and I hope that this doesn't translate into another black eye for the hobby since people like that will go off no matter what industry they happen to work in.
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My heart goes out to the families of both of them. I can understand the despair that would bring someone into this state of mind.
Its sad that someone didnt have the presence of mind to help him pull himself out of it.
I dont think their are many of us out there that havent at one time or another havent said "I cant take this anymore" (or some semblance thereof..)...its what happens next that defines us though.
However its done. and now its up to the families of the deceased to go on...and they deserve everyones heartfelt prayers.
Very sad. It's really hard for me to understand the rationale behind something like this. Makes me want to give all my loved ones a hug.
Gotta wonder whether this is connected to last week's Gleemax announcement. If this guy was the backbone of both Gleemax and D&DI, maybe that's why Wizards has chosen to focus just on D&DI for now.
My condolences to the families and those affected by this tragic event.
Good grief, how sad. This and Gleemax's cancellation have probably dropped morale in the technology group to zero.
I have lots of friends at both WotC and Xbox, and they're dealing with some horrible stuff right now. So I'm sure that they appreciate your condolences.
However...
A man does not abuse and then murder his wife and then kill himself because of job stress, or relationship complexities, or mediocre product decisions, or any place of business he or his wife might work.
If a man does so, it is because he is insane.
It doesn't mean you don't want to lower job stress, or encourage people you care about to get counseling, or make better product decisions, or match people to jobs well. But the causal link is not there. Something else must be required to make people take actions like this.
Mike
Makes you feel like your own problems are nothing.
I but that Joseph Batten had a super privilaged life in comparison.
Sorry but I have no sympathy for the man.
Call me hard harted if you like.
Crime of passion? Not romantic in my book. Just horrific.
I don't think he was trying to be romantic.
Judging by the history of abuse, it sounds like he was already careening down a slippery slope before the estrangement. Must have had a "bad day" and just lost it. I think insanity's like a force of nature... a human mind gone feral, wildly trying to gain control. You can't reason with a hurricane or a rabid wolf; it doesn't care how good or bad it has it over a starving kid in a third world country.
'Course, unlike a hurricane, these things can be prevented. Shame our society doesn't have empathy for mental illness the same way it seems to for cancer patients and physical genetic disease. I honestly think it would help if it did. But the phrase "GET HELP" is more often shouted as an invective instead of spoken as a sign of sympathy.
Madness is today's leprosy.
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Speaking as a member of the psychological community, people ignore there mental health it's just as, if not more important than your physical health. Because like your physical health it can and often end up in death and injury if you ignore it. That being said it is very hard to look back at a deceased persons psyche and try and determine what went wrong where, without a patient to analyze and talk with it remains conjecture. I have the utmost sympathy to the family in this trying time but it is another alarm. If you feel like something isn't right well it most likely isn't, speak to a professional they can help you sort it out.
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A man does not abuse and then murder his wife and then kill himself because of job stress, or relationship complexities, or mediocre product decisions, or any place of business he or his wife might work.
If a man does so, it is because he is insane.
It doesn't mean you don't want to lower job stress, or encourage people you care about to get counseling, or make better product decisions, or match people to jobs well. But the causal link is not there. Something else must be required to make people take actions like this.
Mike
Definitely. It could be argued that such things are within all of us, though, and most of us, through thousands of generations of being slowly domesticated (civilized?), have developed an ability to deal with these feelings and impulses such that we don't even notice them most of the time.
You can usually point to one catalyst event as the trigger, but when something like this happens it has been building for a long time and, as others have noted, mental illness is not something well-understood or well-handled in our society today. So yes, it's entirely possible that one thing, and it could be tiny, went wrong and that was the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were. Unfortunately other people paid for his illness, and many lives have been ruined because of it.
Another example of this kind of thing, even though not all of the details are known at the moment, is the situation that happened in Canada last week. For no apparent reason, a 40-year-old man decided he would stab his seat-mate on a bus in the neck 40 or 50 times, then decapitate him. Nobody knows why... the two men didn't know each other... and the guy who got killed was asleep listening to music with headphones at the time. Who knows what kind of warning signs were apparent before this happened?
I guess my point is that it's a delicate balance. Her husband should probably have been arrested for brandishing a gun and issuing such threats, but so often this kind of thing gets past law enforcement who don't understand the level of danger involved for the others around the person.
I do feel for both him and her. She was an innocent victim, and likely he was as innocent a victim in that he had little or no control over the impulses that would cause him to do such a thing. Not that it excuses his actions, but it's something to keep in mind.
That is truly awful. My sincerest condolences to all.
I have lots of friends at both WotC and Xbox, and they're dealing with some horrible stuff right now. So I'm sure that they appreciate your condolences.
However...
A man does not abuse and then murder his wife and then kill himself because of job stress, or relationship complexities, or mediocre product decisions, or any place of business he or his wife might work.
If a man does so, it is because he is insane.
It doesn't mean you don't want to lower job stress, or encourage people you care about to get counseling, or make better product decisions, or match people to jobs well. But the causal link is not there. Something else must be required to make people take actions like this.
Mike
Full agreement. Most of us have job stress, financial stress, and sometimes the people who matter most to us decide they want to seperate and change a script we truly believed in. It's heartbreaking, but we do not kill our loved ones. We do not do this because we are not pathologically insane.
I feel an abiding reverence during a time of such tragedy, even when I don't know the people involved, but after reading the details of this murder I felt just as much anger towards that kind of victimizer as I had sympathy for the victim. Restraining orders only seem to enrage this type of guy, but I honestly don't have access to real numbers on the subject. Women in her situation seem to have so little leverage in securing protection for themselves. As someone who used to teach a women's self defense class, so that they could avoid being victimized, or victimized again, the safety of people in her situation is very important to me.
I wish there was more a effective recourse for women in her situation. If there was a fund to pay into, that did good work, I would absolutely donate. I'm open to suggestions/links. Anyone?
Let’s not forget the small part we all played in the deaths as well. Gleemax = not good, but we bagged on it hard and probably contributed to its failure, and the driving of an already unstable man past the breaking point.
Do I regret calling a spade a spade? Not in the least. My criticism could have been more constructive now, in hindsight.
Let’s not forget the small part we all played in the deaths as well. Gleemax = not good, but we bagged on it hard and probably contributed to its failure, and the driving of an already unstable man past the breaking point.
Do I regret calling a spade a spade? Not in the least. My criticism could have been more constructive now, in hindsight.
As I said elsewhere, a product is a product, not a person. I've had games reviewed well, and games reviewed poorly. Neither of those is about me. Decorum always is appreciated, but if you're putting your work in the public eye, the public doesn't owe you any respect. You have to earn that.
So nothing anyone here could have done would have stopped this from occurring. This man was past the breaking point when he started hitting his wife. That was no one's fault but his.
Mike
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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I wish there was more a effective recourse for women in her situation. If there was a fund to pay into, that did good work, I would absolutely donate. I'm open to suggestions/links. Anyone?
Don't know. This organization seems appropriate but I'm nowhere near there.
Yikes.
