Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 284 posts

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#231

Post by enneff »

mywittyname wrote: post #186
nvarsj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems obvious to me. Making a public statement is always going to be the option of last resort for a professional. Seems like Mick did everything he could and finally did this as his last ditch attempt to at least rescue his reputation.

I'm surprised that he can't issue a DCMA takedown of Doom Eternal.

The ownership of those works is certainly a complex issue. Contractually ownership would have been assigned to id, but what happens for unpaid work? What about works in progress? Depends on the contract terms and the interpretation of those terms. Sounds like a lot of grey areas, and there can be significant repercussions for making spurious DMCA claims.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#232

Post by enneff »

ilaksh wrote: post #108

Anyone else have experience with Id Software Studio Director Marty Stratton? We don't want to ruin his reputation unnecessarily either. But if he really did commit defamation to this degree, it should not be a footnote.

Have a look on twitter. A few people “me too”ing wrt their relations with the guy.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#233

Post by MichaelZuo »

Arrath wrote: post #229
MichaelZuo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well presumably the other party will agree at $0. So it’s really a question if there’s a mutually agreeable price, not whether it’s feasible in the first place.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#234

Post by Arjuna »

mrob wrote: post #168
Arjuna wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: ”His edits are riddled with these clearly visible mistakes. Anyone comparing my original tracks to his edits can hear (and see, by looking at the waveform [1]) the unmistakable errors introduced during the editing process.” [1] https://twitter.com/DoominalCross/status/1251690243389927424

This is comparing Doom 2016 with Doom Eternal. It shows strange production in Doom Eternal that is very probably an error (overlapping without crossfade), but it provides no additional information as to why the Doom Eternal OST has low dynamic range.

In the tweet, the waveform image on the left is Mick’s original “BFG Division” track from the Doom 2016 OST.

In the same tweet, the waveform image on the right is Chad’s edited version of Mick’s track for the Doom Eternal OST, entitled “BFG Division 2020.”

The comparison is valid, because it is Mick’s music, and it also serves to demonstrate the audio engineering expertise on the Doom 2016 OST, which was hailed as a masterwork soundtrack in the genre.

However, Mick did not mix this particular track for the Doom Eternal OST, and this is the critical point of this specific waveform comparison; that is, as Mick expresses in the article (and the waveform comparison demonstrates), the Doom Eternal OST is not entirely representative of his actual work, or the full depth of his audio engineering expertise.

This is due to decisions and modifications that were made without his input (e.g., the aforementioned editing).

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#235

Post by dspillett »

x55j33 wrote: post #63
dspillett wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Horror stories like this are the main reason I only ever bill by the hour and invoice biweekly. This sort of thing is why I've always kept a salaried position. I could make more, perhaps have more varied & interesting work, and maybe gain other flexibility, if I switched to contracting, but few people extolling these benefits to me ever mention the flip side when things aren't perfect – I'm more than happy to make…

> Work starts late because of no fault of mine Yes, but apparently in Mick's case your name is on the product, and your reputation gets ruined if you don't play ball. A big software company can pay lawyers much longer than you can keep food on the table without pay.

His name was there without permission effectively, due to the lack of contract, so I doubt they'd try to fight that way. They have the big team but the opposition has an open&shut case, not worth the cost and the risk of subsequent action for wrongful use of the name. They might threaten of course, so he'd still need nerves. Again, reasons why I've always stayed away from contracting!

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#236

Post by danuker »

agentwiggles wrote: post #4

This is really disappointing to read. Mick's soundtrack was a huge part of making DOOM 2016 and Eternal such great experiences. His talk at GDC where he goes into some of the process of creating the soundtrack is fantastic, so much fun to see the creativity he brought to the game's music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4FNBMZsqrY The next DOOM will be a little less DOOMy without him.

> DOOMy

This popped to mind, an unrelated but appropriate song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOJcY3iMZG8

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#237

Post by aliswe »

stingraycharles wrote: post #50
nimbius wrote: post #38

"Afterwards, he offered me a six-figure settlement to never speak about it." Mick, thats not a settlement, thats a payoff for taking a hit so the boss doesnt take the fall. Marty wanted this to go away so he could continue ladder-climbing the tech industry. that he even attempted to do this strongly suggests hes probably paid these things out before.

Tangent, but I always wonder how these kind of payments are paid for. Would it be out of pocket money for Marty, or would he let Mick bill some phantom hours and have the company pay for it?

Maybe bookkeeped under "litigation".

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#238

Post by danuker »

JohnBooty wrote: post #79
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #2

Horror stories like this are the main reason I only ever bill by the hour and invoice biweekly. Like, sure, I'll change things to meet requirements but I'm not going to work for free or go without pay for months. It's also much easier to fire bad clients or to stop working when an invoice goes unpaid for too long. The only downside to this approach is when salaried subordinates don't understand this dynamic and rack…

why I try to issue invoices frequently. Agree 100%. Although I've found that for this to be effective, you also need to be able to cease work which means you need a sufficiently large financial cushion. A long time ago, when I contracted, I was essentially living month to month. I invoiced frequently but clients would often pay up in a painfully slow manner. But I had no real leverage because I was unable to cease wo…

> which means you need a sufficiently large financial cushion.

Absolutely. But this happens wih pay-per-project also, which is why on-demand contract work is much more expensive than salaried.

> no real leverage

You can always look for a new job/client, even while working for the present one. A counteroffer is quite convincing.

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#239

Post by pas »

fleddr wrote: post #219
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm strongly against authoritarian overreach and used to consider trolling a "fact of life", nothing requiring intervention. I no longer believe that. We're talking about a disappointing audio track for a stupid game yet the man and his family have to fear for their lives. This is hardly the first incident like this and not even close to the worst. Remember when Reddit decided they knew who the Boston Marathon bomb…

Well, AnIdiotOnTheNet, perhaps you could be more of a role model yourself by not making baseless assumptions. I've been on the web since 1996 and am well aware of what people can do. Depravity I couldn't even imagine exists. So no, I didn't just learn that people do really bad stuff. The reason I used the term "a fact of life" is because addressing this issue can come at an enormous cost to society. Nobody would want…

there is a difference between mindlessly trolling a group/community (spamming, DoS and DDoS, flashmobs, 14 year olds standing across some building on the street and looking "menacing", etc) and harassing and threatening one or more specific people (voice messages, stalking, doxing). we already have legislation about the latter, it's simply not enforced.

and there are no real conventions about what sites should do when a) one of their members is a target from the outside, b) harassers use their site as an accessory (eg. to communicate, organize, store photos/videos, advertise, recruit)

and obviously it's not a clear-cut issue. mandating sites to somehow filter out harmful messages is not trivial. at the same time it'd be great to provide a few independent clearinghouses for these, it'd be great if users could opt-in to have content aimed at them filtered, etc. (for example it'd be very useful for sites to have a setting for users to only allow receiving private messages from users with some minimal reputation, and so on)

Re: My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal

#240

Post by valdiorn »

sentientslug wrote: post #230
valdiorn wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

damn, that is so sad - it's objectively an amazing soundtrack. It's really sad that this whole experience has damaged his perception of his incredible work so badly :(
Post reply on HN