Well Intentioned
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
He reminds me a lot of John Romero, really. He was attached to a big name back in the day and likely has legitimately great capabilities when on a team that lets him play to his strengths. However, he's no good on his own because his ego inevitably cripples him. So, he continues coasting by grifting off name recognition while producing either a humiliating failure (Daikatana in Romero's case, Firefall for Kern) or a thoroughly unremarkable product that makes almost no waves when, or if, it's ever actually completed(EM8ER for Kern, and Empire of Sin for Romero).
The difference between the two is Romero was actually able to put his ego aside for five minutes and produce Sigil. Despite being little more than a megawad with a soundtrack, it was by all accounts well received and even got included in Bethesda's latest Doom/Doom II rerelease. Kern OTOH likely can never work with a team of industry professionals because his behavior has made him walking bad PR for any company that might otherwise hire him for a project. Hell, even if he did get a professional gig again he'd likely fuck it up by demanding to be given a bigger role than he's capable of effectively handling.
I'm not too familiar with Kern, but didn't he have a legal background or something? (Yes, I'm aware of Ion having the same.)
I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a programming/dev/whatever background and he was more just a project manager. Say what you want about Romero, but he can code and actually build a fucking game.