What did you think would happen when you dumped all your information like that? You already saw what happened with the initial rounds of controversy, and the damage has already been done. I'm highly skeptical that Mick didn't intend for the current backlash to happen, and I find myself circling back to thinking everyone involved in this issue is retarded.
According to Mick's account everything private, up to and including involving lawyers, hasn't produced any sort of results. It is possible Mick intended to personal army his bullies but if his account is true I don't see any courses of action that wouldn't result in Reddiors acting like retards other then eating the shit sandwich.
According to Mick's account everything private, up to and including involving lawyers, hasn't produced any sort of results. It is possible Mick intended to personal army his bullies but if his account is true I don't see any courses of action that wouldn't result in Reddiors acting like retards other then eating the shit sandwich.
Of course, and I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with the fact that he made the outing. I'm just saying that it's kind of stupid to say after the fact "Guys pls don't trash on Doom Eternal just because of what I revealed, other people worked very hard on the game " when this result should have been expected by now. It's a bit too late to appeal to virtue once you've already pulled the trigger on something like this.
I remember when Eternal came out and this was one of the drohmas. I didn't look much into it as I didn't know who to believe - I don't recall anything that was really anything substantial on who dropped the ball. At the time, it seemed r/doom was all up and arms against Mick.
I was always skeptical of Marty's post, but you have to remember that after Reddit got butthurt about Trump in 2016, they did everything they could over the next few years to turn the site into an advertiser-friendly corporate shill hivemind. It shouldn't really be that surprising the remaining userbase fall for whatever is put in front of them.
I only vaguely remember the soundtrack drama when Eternal was released, and I probably didn't give it much thought, thinking this is just something they'll solve behind the scenes with money. It didn't concern me personally, it's business.
I only bought the game much later at a discounted price, and even later than that did I play one or two levels of it. I think I felt it was an ok game, not as surprisingly good as 2016, but well put together. If Mick Gordon's story is true, then I truly regret buying the game. I certainly don't feel like playing it anymore, but when I went to uninstall the game I saw that I had already done so, and it was months since I last played it. I think me abandoning it after two levels summarizes my true feelings of it, rather than the initial thought that it was "ok".
Eternal is one of my favorite games, this whole mess is really disappointing, especially when you consider how integral Mick Gordon's work is to these games. Andrew Hulshult's work on the DLC was fine, but it was nothing special or memorable. It felt like a knock-off. I'm afraid this is going to be a real problem for Doom games going forward.
Really makes you wonder how retarded, egomaniacal, utterly incompetent managers end up becoming so bulletproof. Who the hell is Marty that everyone up to the tippy top of the corporate food chain is willing to go to bat for him even after a very clear cut and dangerous fuckup that could have landed the whole company in hot water?
A sociopath. That's how you get to the top, being a soulless corporate sociopath willing to commit heinous acts to get ahead. See: basically everyone in government, the WEF, the globalists (also known as demons).
Of course, and I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with the fact that he made the outing. I'm just saying that it's kind of stupid to say after the fact "Guys pls don't trash on Doom Eternal just because of what I revealed, other people worked very hard on the game " when this result should have been expected by now. It's a bit too late to appeal to virtue once you've already pulled the trigger on something like this.
I'm sure he expected it, but he still wants to try to head it off. I think there's a reason he stuck to only naming the people mentioned in Marty's post.
Thinking about it, if this is how Marty treats Mick, I wonder how he must abuse Hugo, the creative director who probably is the one actually responsible for Doom's success.
According to Mick's account everything private, up to and including involving lawyers, hasn't produced any sort of results. It is possible Mick intended to personal army his bullies but if his account is true I don't see any courses of action that wouldn't result in Reddiors acting like retards other then eating the shit sandwich.
X to doubt that he exhausted all legal options. Dude may have legit grievances but you'd have to be a Redditor to believe that he avoided filing a lawsuit over this shit for any reason other than it being an expensive pain in the ass. He's using social media to start a witch hunt against Marty Stratton and he knows it. He's done it before and Marty has done it to him. Regardless of who's telling the truth here pretending they aren't having an internet slapfight is just plain disingenuous.
X to doubt that he exhausted all legal options. Dude may have legit grievances but you'd have to be a Redditor to believe that he avoided filing a lawsuit over this shit for any reason other than it being an expensive pain in the ass. He's using social media to start a witch hunt against Marty Stratton and he knows it. He's done it before and Marty has done it to him. Regardless of who's telling the truth here pretending they aren't having an internet slapfight is just plain disingenuous.
He has not apparently literally brought Id/Bethesda/Microsoft into court in what would absolutely be an incredibly expensive and time consuming boondoggle no. Saying he posted shit publicly to get an internet mob is a unfalsifiable position. It's possible, but I don't see any other option between "Willingly throw yourself to the legal wolves" and "just let someone tell lies about you on the internet that are incredibly toxic to your career". I would be more inclined to interpret his actions as a willful personal army request if he didn't just fucking mald on the issue for 2 years.
I don't necessarily buy Micks account. He says he was under horrid time constraints with only 2 years to do the music but he was able to do the OST for Killer Instinct where he needed to put out themes that were typically around 15-20 minutes of music every month with way more stems and he ended up abruptly quitting KI post season 2. Something about it smells fishy to me.
Yep. The metadata on the tracks in foobar confirms exactly what he's saying, too. The vast majority of them have a dual-credit, but Meathook, Command and Control, The Only Thing They Fear is You, or all the good ones in other words, are all pure Mick Gordon.
Dude may have legit grievances but you'd have to be a Redditor to believe that he avoided filing a lawsuit over this shit for any reason other than it being an expensive pain in the ass.
My first impression when reading over his long post was that he signed onto a contract wherein the company had full rights and access to everything he gave them, but he was ultimately only paid on a somewhat illogical basis - he describes having to make two songs a month during development and then going back and re-doing things, only for rejected ideas to be re-used "without payment."
If that was true, he'd have a relatively easy case: breach of contract can be pretty open-close. That suggests it wasn't actually breach of contract, and rather he feels like the company didn't compensate him fairly for his work on the game - harder to really do anything about. And doubtlessly shitty, but if you sign a contract that allows a company to take advantage of you, well, duh, they will
He'll gain it back with random people on the internet, but anyone professional isn't going to want him anywhere near their product after this. So indies might try to get him some work, but why would a big AAA studio ever want to take the risk with someone who's so very publicly airing out the dirty laundry? Even if he's completely vindicated and truthful, AAAs are extremely risk-adverse anymore.
but why would a big AAA studio ever want to take the risk with someone who's so very publicly airing out the dirty laundry? Even if he's completely vindicated and truthful, AAAs are extremely risk-adverse anymore.
To be fair, you also have to consider how exceptional id's actions were.
I don't think I've ever seen an executive of a major game studio publicly denouncing a contractor like that in a big rant on reddit.
And it wasn't even just that. They kept refusing to take it down even after Mick got lawyers involved.
And that one tweet set off such a shitstorm resulting in review bombing and Redditors going after people who had nothing to do with his mistreatment. Point being, he knows at this point how easy it is to set off social media. He wants to use social media to put pressure on id Software and he has to know at this point that social media mobs inevitably catch innocent people in the crossfire.
He has not apparently literally brought Id/Bethesda/Microsoft into court in what would absolutely be an incredibly expensive and time consuming boondoggle no.
That's precisely what I said. He's doing a public call out because it's cheaper and more effective than a lawsuit on current year internet. He may be 100% justified in doing so, but acting like he didn't know what the results would be is silly. I don't know what's going on in his head but I have a knee-jerk skeptical reaction to social media call-outs in the age of Reddit.
That suggests it wasn't actually breach of contract, and rather he feels like the company didn't compensate him fairly for his work on the game - harder to really do anything about. And doubtlessly shitty, but if you sign a contract that allows a company to take advantage of you, well, duh, they will
If he's telling the truth about the rejected songs I can still understand him not wanting to shell out 6 figures and countless hours to wage a relatively easy lawsuit. If he's lying about that then that tanks his credibility and id will use that to further fuck his professional reputation.
Yep. The metadata on the tracks in foobar confirms exactly what he's saying, too. The vast majority of them have a dual-credit, but Meathook, Command and Control, The Only Thing They Fear is You, or all the good ones in other words, are all pure Mick Gordon.
To be fair, you also have to consider how exceptional id's actions were.
I don't think I've ever seen an executive of a major game studio publicly denouncing a contractor like that in a big rant on reddit.
And it wasn't even just that. They kept refusing to take it down even after Mick got lawyers involved.
Most consumers will probably never know about that reddit post, or this entire kerfuffle, so his main concern here is more appealing to other professional studios. The timing is off in that regard - if he couldn't get the guy to take the post down after private appeals, he should've aired his own laundry much, much sooner. It still doesn't make him look great, but it at least looks more like a maverick romero-esque director had a personal grudge against him than like he is out to cause problems for the studio.
If he's telling the truth about the rejected songs I can still understand him not wanting to shell out 6 figures and countless hours to wage a relatively easy lawsuit. If he's lying about that then that tanks his credibility and id will use that to further fuck his professional reputation.
The thing is, while a lawsuit would be tedious and costly... if he really believed his contract was breached, it would be in his interest to press forward after the attempts at settlement failed, if he wanted to protect his professional career. If he just thought the guy was being a dick but knew his contract allowed ID to be dicks, he should've said his peace when the shitstorm first kicked up over all of it in full.
The whole thing with the post sounds goofy - he was offered an out-of-court settlement, but he wanted the post removed and apologized for, and that was the line? So lawyers working on behalf of ID itself were so influenced by one project lead that they wouldn't budge on a reddit post? And then he privately contacts the reddit admins to get it removed, it is, and then it's back? I've got no real horse in this race and no reason to believe or disbelieve the guy, but my honest hope is that the shitstorm gets stupider.
They might be worried about opening themselves up to a lawsuit of consumers who pre-ordered the game.
What gets a bit missed in the drama is that they've sold an edition with a Mick Gordon OST to people without getting him to actually produce one.
Considering that Stratton had Chad working on it for long time and ignored any of Mick's attempt to enter a contract, I believe he wanted to cut out Mick completely (with all the delays they were likely way over budget already) and just have Chad remix the game files for cheap. But Mick ended up going over Stratton's head and negotiated a contract with Zenimax directly.
The whole thing with the post sounds goofy - he was offered an out-of-court settlement, but he wanted the post removed and apologized for, and that was the line? So lawyers working on behalf of ID itself were so influenced by one project lead that they wouldn't budge on a reddit post? And then he privately contacts the reddit admins to get it removed, it is, and then it's back? I've got no real horse in this race and no reason to believe or disbelieve the guy, but my honest hope is that the shitstorm gets stupider.
No, Marty and his legal team wanted the post to stay up, and Marty was quite willing to torpedo settlement talks because retracting his statement would make him look like a bitch. As to the breach of contract issues, Mick said any audio minutes they used beyond the initial contracted requirement were still payable to him, and all of those spliced-together minutes they used from early submissions and rejected audio count against that. You can't reject a song and then decide to use it later anyways and not pay the guy for his work, which is what iD and Marty did.
The big issue here is Marty. Mick wants amends done to his professional reputation, and Marty is going "No, fuck you," because he can, and he's dragging corporate along because he's got more expensive attorneys than Mick.
But that's not ID's legal team, right? Here's where I'm confused:
There wasn’t just one serious issue, but two: Marty published a series of false accusations against me, and id Software shipped DOOM Eternal with double the amount of music than what they paid for.
Lawyers: I immediately had my legal representative contact id Software with complaints about both matters. Marty forwarded my complaints to Zenimax, and within days I got a response from the executive legal authority from the upper echelons of the company.
...
id Software and Zenimax engaged a large multi-national law firm as representation, and we began settlement negotiations. I demanded Marty withdraw his false accusations and issue an apology. But they rejected this on Marty’s concern that if he admitted fault publicly, that would negatively affect his reputation.
...
I struggled with Marty’s insistence on avoiding accountability but realised his company was unlikely to agree to anything unless it was mutually beneficial. With that in mind, I agreed to produce a new, proper DOOM Eternal OST.
...
But lawyers acting on Marty’s behalf expressed worry that even removing the post would reflect poorly on his reputation, which struck me as profoundly hypocritical: he should have thought about that before posting it in the first place.
In response, I told them my acceptance of their settlement offer was tied to the condition that Marty would remove the post immediately.
You see the issue, right? It sounds like there's two sets of lawyers and there's two issues. There's the idea of defamation caused by Marty, and there's the idea of ID not paying him for the music. There's the id/Zenimax lawyers, and then there's lawyers acting on Marty's behalf.
So which is which? If id and zenimax are being represented by a multi-national law firm, how would Marty be the one to be pulling their strings about a pay dispute? Similarly, why would they care about a reddit post if the defamation allegation is not levied at Id or Zenimax, but rather Marty?
Mick continually describes Id as "Marty's Company," but he's just a studio director. He's not C-suite. If Mick is making his acceptance of a settlement contingent on Marty removing the post, are Marty's own lawyers are somehow lobbying the international law firm to get them to reject the offer?
And so, for the second time, I proposed:
I would produce a better version of the DOOM Eternal OST.
But in return, I needed Marty to take down the Reddit post, publish a clarification and pay me for the extra music used in DOOM Eternal.
I can’t say I was keen on doing it, but I desperately tried to find a way to move forward and it was the only real option I had.
...
Again, lawyers acting for Marty were good at giving the impression of positivity. They seemed to be seriously considering the offer, saying they were taking it up the chain and getting “key stakeholders” onboard.
What chain are they going up if they're lawyers acting for Marty? Marty isn't ID. Marty doesn't have stakeholders. Why is Marty paying him for the extra music used in DOOM Eternal? Is he using Marty and ID-Zenimax interchangeably, and if so, why? If they're interchangeable, why does he clarify "lawyers acting for Marty" so often?
You absolutely can if the contract has wording that entitles the company to essentially everything the guy produces, if you're a scumbag company lol
Any creative that doesn't read the fine print is asking for it. Despite his not posting the contract, I can already see a loophole:
Even worse, id Software still refuses to pay for it, despite the fact their contract guarantees payment for any additional minute requested beyond the original budget.
Scraps and rejected music weren't "requested," but rather the final products which were accepted were the items which were requested. Everything else sounds like it's still legally id-zenimax's property to do with as they please, but so long as they fulfill the contractual requirement for the originally agreed number of minutes, paying him for rough drafts would be optional. If they added another level on, say, and midway through production needed that level scored, that would be an additional minute requested.
This would obviously be scummy as shit, but that's why you read them contracts
I can't really answer the rest, but no doubt Marty is throwing an internal fit about how iD/Bethesda/Zenimax can either fuck over Mick or he's going to demand a hefty severance if they want him to keep his mouth shut afterwards. If you were a corporate suit you're going to be carefully picking and choosing who is the least damaging to fuck over: a contractor like Mick or a studio exec like Marty. Right and wrong don't really matter, just nickels and dimes.
" when this result should have been expected by now. It's a bit too late to appeal to virtue once you've already pulled the trigger on something like this.
