Oh No You Didn’t! [2 comments]


Brittney

Posted in Gaming and Stuff.

Who needs drama sitcoms or reality shows when you can sit back, relax and watch developers and publishers alike lash out at each other?

<3.

Last week’s episode of Gaming Industry Drama consisted of Double Fine’s Tim Schafer calling Activision’s Bobby Kotick a “total prick” in a Eurogamer interview, for which he later apologized for, not before referencing to Kotick as Darth Vader. Remember that Brutal Legend publishing fiasco? Enough said.

There was also that juicy bonus episode where Cliff Harris of Positec Games became extremely ticked off at Epic’s Mark Rein due to comments Rein made during a panel that Harris was a part of at the Develop Conference in Brighton.

Harris and three other panel members were discussing marketing techniques for indie titles. Rein was not a part of this panel, just an audience member in the front row, but proceeded to open his “big mouth” and give his conflicting opinion. This resulted in Harris making a blog post in which he stated he “resented having some triple-a studio jerk come and tell someone whose run a microstudio for thirteen years that he is doing it all wrong”, and concluded with “Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on how to communicate better with gamers? Fuck off.”

This week, we have Glenn Schofield of Sledgehammer games calling out EA. Back history: Glenn Schofield was a part of the subsidiary of EA, Visceral games, before he and Michael Condrey left to form Sledgehammer Games, which Activision owns.

Because all battles are best fought via Twitter, Schofield tweeted the following:

“Wow, a year ago today I left EA. What a day that was. They really treated me like shit even after creating Dead Space 4 them.”

And later…

 “Seems my tweet got some attention. Didn’t mean to. But after a year of EA bashing us it’s good to get it off my chest.”

Well, there you go. Do you really want to know what it feels like to be treated like “shit”? Go talk to Infinity Ward. I’m sure the employees of Respawn Entertainment also have some old stories to tell.

Granted, specific reasons why Schofield was treated poorly weren’t given, so who knows.

Something tells me we haven’t heard the last of it.

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2 Replies

  1. Boots33 Jul 21st 2010

    I’m sure certain developers have every right to gripe about the wrongs they’ve faced in the business, but can you imagine if the average Joe fired a salvo at his former employers on Twitter/Facebook/whatever social-networking site of their choosing? Most people would probably be on a lot of companies sh*t lists after that. Heck, some employers already try to view a candidates social pages or google search their names before hiring them, just to see what kind of public personality they have.

    I’m all for these guys venting, but to do it so publicly seems a bit on the dramatic side. Just make games, please.

  2. Brittney Jul 22nd 2010

    Yeah, I couldn’t imagine slamming my former employer via Twitter or Facebook. Can’t risk burning bridges…unless the bridge is already burned, that is! (Ie Acti/Respawn).

    Schofield could have always kept it to himself, but obviously he wanted to publicly slam EA. Cause a scene, you know.

    *grabs popcorn*


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