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My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

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Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#221

Post by jszymborski »

Loughla wrote: post #151
jszymborski wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would companies go to bat for these execs that are liabilities? Why not pay out the settlement and send Marty to Zenimax's St Helena division to prevent having to pay this sort of thing out again? (or worse, risk the damage of having someone not willing to take hush money like Mr. Gordon).

>Why would companies go to bat for these execs that are liabilities? 1. Companies are not alive. They are synthetic entities made up of individuals. They do not make decisions on their own. Their decisions are dictated by the decisions of the individuals inside of the company. 2. If I work in AP and receive a notice from a company executive to pay a contract that is signed by said executive (if they have clearance in…

You can rephrase my statement to be

"Why would this synthetic entity made up of individuals go to bat for these execs that are liabilities?" I'm not sure that it makes the answer clearer.

It's hard to imagine a company w/o the transparency along the chain of command required to detect and prohibit and executive from getting hush-money rubber stamped. At least not one that actually makes money and isn't robbed blind by its middle-management.

On a side note, I've more than once gotten the trademark HN pedantry about "Companies not being people, but made up of them" and it never surprises me that people feel the need to remind me of it. When someone says "Company X made decision Y", it is short-hand for "The people responsible at Company X made decision Y". This is commonly accepted English.

I don't think companies are mysterious creatures able to sort right from wrong, I think they are made up of individuals who can sort right from wrong.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#222

Post by jszymborski »

mywittyname wrote: post #175
bombcar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because six figures is cheap compared to all the other things they pay for. It happens way more than you think.

And yet, they tried their damnedest to screw Mick out of a similar amount of money. Which leads me to believe this isn't cheap for them at all.

Yah, I think this falls under the category of a bad business decision that was easier to make because it was reactionary and not preventative.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#223

Post by castlecrasher2 »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #130
agentwiggles wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked Eternal, I know that a lot of people felt the new mechanics were too much of a departure from 2016, and I'm sympathetic to that, but I had a hell of fun time beating the game on Nightmare. It turns it into something like Hotline Miami, where there's a room full of guys who can kill you almost immediately, so you wind up playing the encounter over and over until you have the perfect path of devastation through…

> It turns it into something like Hotline Miami, where there's a room full of guys who can kill you almost immediately, so you wind up playing the encounter over and over until you have the perfect path of devastation through the enemies. I call it Mario-ization, and I hate it. I also hated Eternal. It wasn't Doom. It was a "first-person jumper." Based on the previous game, I pre-ordered the deluxe whatever version,…

>Based on the previous game, I pre-ordered the deluxe whatever version, and then couldn't stand the game, even on the easiest setting. This was the game that finally ended pre-ordering for me.

Same here. 2016 was perfection in so many ways that Eternal is just...bizarre by comparison. Nearly every aspect of Eternal was just plain mediocre or bad to me.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#224

Post by jonorsi »

mrob wrote: post #158
ndepoel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lowering the volume does not equal introducing more dynamic range. It was just done to avoid clipping when pasting two bits of track on top of each other. The masters delivered by Mick Gordon were meant for use in the game. I'm not an expert at game audio engineering, but the brickwall mastering may have been intentional to make the music stand out over the rest of the game audio. Either way those masters were approv…

>Lowering the volume does not equal introducing more dynamic range. It was just done to avoid clipping when pasting two bits of track on top of each other. If you overlap two tracks, and reduce volume to avoiding clipping, the combined track has spikes in volume where they overlap. This is increased dynamic range. But like I said, it is not musically pleasant to listen to, and it's certainly reasonable to complain ab…

That wouldn't increase the dynamic range, it's just preventing the overlaps from clipping. Both tracks would still have the same dynamic range, the relative overall volume might be different for the track you lowered/increased to match the other one, but I doubt the transition between the two would be considered increasing the dynamic range.

In order to increase the dynamic range of a mastered track you would have to uncompress/master it in the first place. If you are just decreasing/increasing the overall volume, you would have the same dynamic range just at a quieter or louder listening level.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#225

Post by mardifoufs »

fknorangesite wrote: post #216
fleddr wrote: post #178

This Mick Gordon guy has to be the most patient, understanding and abuse-tolerant person on the planet. Even after getting screwed over 30 times in a row he still was hopeful for a reasonable ending. I express that as a compliment, even if in the real world it works against you. It's not the main topic, but I like to call out attention to this: "incidences of online abuse escalated at an alarming rate as Marty’s Redd…

> used to consider trolling a "fact of life", nothing requiring intervention. I no longer believe that. ... the man and his family have to fear for their lives. I'm wondering how you could be on the internet in a post-gamergate world and still be surprised that shit like this really does happen. It's incredibly common - why do you think those calls for stricter moderation started in the first place?

Yeah, but this is even lower; it's literally just music! Even GG, as pathetic as it was, could be explained through a culture war angle.

Also, I'd disagree with stricter moderation helping, and actually, we saw the opposite here. He got moderated out of the audience, with no recourse a part from screaming into the void (until he wrote this). Without this massive documentation effort, he otherwise would've been totally recourseless.

If anything, this highlights how problematic moderation can be especially on reddit.

(I'm not arguing that moderation is bad in general, just that this story actually shows that there has to be a balance. A way to watch the watchmen I guess)

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#226

Post by enneff »

s_dev wrote: post #57

I would expect this story from a struggling indie game dev startup but ID Games, Zenimax, Mick Gordon and Stratton are all huge players in the game dev industry -- thus this looks bad for the industry as a whole. I was always curious about why the Doom Eternal OST never really showed up on Spotify. This story explains that.

This would never happen with an indie studio because they wouldn’t have the deep pockets to legally strong arm the contractor. If both parties were small businesses then the threat of legal action from either side would keep them both form misbehaving.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#227

Post by enneff »

mywittyname wrote: post #179
cragfar wrote: post #127

I don't do much contract work or deal with the video game industry at all, so I'm wondering was Mick just being overly understanding here about the payment issues? Someone refusing to pay me for work would instantly shut down any work I do with them. And my head nearly exploded when I read the part about how they secretly published a soundtrack that they didn't pay for, and then agreed to be pay for it only if he did…

Sounds like he let he guard down due to having a prior relationship with iD.

And he’s an artist and writing the music for a doom game is a huge creative opportunity for him. id clearly took advantage of that. Too many companies exploit artists who believe in their art. It sucks.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#228

Post by enneff »

sasas wrote: post #167

The original post by Marty always crossed my mind when listening to the OST sound track. It never really added up. Mick always came across a person with integrity - both artistic and otherwise. Now my mind can be put at rest. The behavior of Marty in the way it's described comes across classic narcissistic behaviors. Hopefully Mick has learned to recognize this early on in future engagements and to tread very careful…

Based on how passionate Mick is about his work, and how incredibly polished his Doom 2016 work was, I always found it unbelievable that he would have been responsible for the Doom Eternal mess. I had no idea the details would be this messy.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#229

Post by Arrath »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #205
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These contracts are very asymmetric in negotiating power. That's actually true of gaming in general: as both an artist or coder you'll almost certainly make more money and have a much better work life balance outside of gaming. Freelancers are even more disposable. Basically, people who wanna make games do so mostly out of personal passion, and that means they get pretty screwed in negotiating compensation.

How does that stop them from negotiating a lower rate, but paid upfront?

That relies on the other party agreeing to such terms. They may well choose a pay-later setup offered by an otherwise more expensive contractor, and then go on to play accounting reindeer games just like this.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#230

Post by sentientslug »

valdiorn wrote: post #214
fleddr wrote: post #178

This Mick Gordon guy has to be the most patient, understanding and abuse-tolerant person on the planet. Even after getting screwed over 30 times in a row he still was hopeful for a reasonable ending. I express that as a compliment, even if in the real world it works against you. It's not the main topic, but I like to call out attention to this: "incidences of online abuse escalated at an alarming rate as Marty’s Redd…

> We're talking about a disappointing audio track for a stupid game Uh, the Doom eternal soundtrack is widely regarded as one of the absolute best game soundtracks ever created. I've not actually read this whole thing (am about to), neither was I aware of this whole mess, but I'm a massive fan of Mick and the Doom soundtracks. They have hundreds of millions of streams on YouTube in total.

What you are quoting was written by the composer of the soundtrack (Mick Gordon)
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