Alison Rapp confirmed yesterday on her Twitter account that she has been fired from Nintendo of America's Treehouse team, who are responsible for the localisation of games.

Nintendo's official statement on the matter states it is simply because she was found to be in breach of contract by having a second job:

"Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo's corporate culture."

However, according to one of Rapp's tweets "moonlighting is actually accepted at Nintendo.  It's policy".  She goes on to state that she was doing it under a fake name with no real identifiers simply to pay off student loans.

Nintendo has faced criticism however due to the fact Alison has for some time suffered online abuse from the GamerGate group and while they deny responsibility in this matter, they deny responsibility in all related matters.  

The group had targeted her for what they felt was inappropriate desexualisation of games when they were localised.  The two biggest examples given are the removal of a slider that allowed Xenoblade Chronicles X players the chance to change a female avatar's breast size and the removal of a scene in Fire Emblem: Fates where a gay character was drugged to fall in love with a straight one and a mini-game where you could pet character's faces.

She was targeted because she was part of the Treehouse team responsible for localisation, but she herself worked in the marketing section and had no involvement in the localisation and she was in favour of no changes being made to Xenoblade Chronicles X.

This logical detail didn't seem to prevent people from going out of their way to sent vitriol to Rapp herself and to contact Nintendo calling for her contract to be terminated.  Ms. Rapp appeared on live streams and was active on social media and it seems that this, merely being an active female gamer and public voice, that sparked ire in the misogynistic GamerGate group.  To make matters worse for Ms. Rapp, a white supremacist site encouraged their followers to contact Nintendo pretending to be a concerned parent calling for her to be fired.  

GamerGate used a university paper from 2011 that Ms. Rapp wrote about Japan's relationship with child pornography laws to try and defame her.  It is obviously a complicated and emotional issue for many and her paper can be read online, which Ms. Rapp herself posted on her LinkedIn profile.  However, in it she defended the right for Japan's culture to remain as it is, which is exactly what GamerGate claims to be trying to achieve.  

During this abuse, which has been going on for some time, Nintendo did not comment in spite of being pressed by Kotaku (and perhaps others).  It is this, along with their general handling of the situation, that has resulted in many fans being disappointed with Nintendo's actions.  Brandon Sheffield from Necrosoft announced that they have cancelled their plans to make a Wii U game because of Nintendo's actions.

While Nintendo claims that Ms. Rapp was in breach of contract due to her second job, and Ms. Rapp claims it is an accepted part of working for Nintendo, it is clear that Nintendo could have done more during the last few months to defend her and try and explain, from the very top, that she had no role in the decisions that GamerGate allege to be the cause of their concern.

It has obviously been a difficult period for both parties for very different reasons.  Ms. Rapp is now looking for work, although has seen a lot of support online for what has happened, and spent most of yesterday evening explaining the situation on Twitter.  

Nintendo's released the following statement explaining that her firing was due to the second job, not due to harassment and pressure from outside sources:

"Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race or personal beliefs. We wish Ms. Rapp well in her future endeavors."

Additional information from Eurogamer and Kotaku.