One of Swords Podcast 006: Hey, Look, Blur!

Yeah, the internal mic is pretty great, actually.

Love the show, but … um … you know, I understand this week probably sucks for you, but there's a LOT of hostility on this show. I'm not sure what I think about that. It's so very unlike the Dan I usually listen to. Kind of put me off.

Hope everything shakes out a little less hectic for you in the next few weeks.

While we're posting links… http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702970/Infini...

Good luck to West and Zampella in their lawsuit, I hope they take the money and the franchise and go independent like Bungie. This is plain and simple, without a doubt, corporate greed. I.W. just made billions of dollars for Activision. No matter how high you stand on that box and try to redirect, you're not going to be able to spin a good light on Activision. I seem to recall B.K. making a speech about embracing creativity at DICE recently, words are meaningless with actions like this.

Also, I agree with Matt, this attitude definitely put me off as well, lost some respect for any future opinions from you. If you're trying to be like Major Nelson, maybe you should take better notes. ;-)

While we're posting links… http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702970/Infini...

Good luck to West and Zampella in their lawsuit, I hope they take the money and the franchise and go independent like Bungie. This is plain and simple, without a doubt, corporate greed. I.W. just made billions of dollars for Activision. No matter how high you stand on that box and try to redirect, you're not going to be able to spin a good light on Activision. I seem to recall B.K. making a speech about embracing creativity at DICE recently, words are meaningless with actions like this.

Also, I agree with Matt, this attitude definitely put me off as well, lost some respect for any future opinions from you. If you're trying to be like Major Nelson, maybe you should take better notes. ;-)

I rarely blow my top but this week is about as bad as it gets. I had a 20-hour day yesterday and was getting a lot of “ooh ooh say something ooh take THAT” from people. I was very frustrated, personally and professionally.

Ryan, I hope that simply hearing alternate viewpoints isn't what puts you off, but…your post here actually supports my point from my podcast rant. “This is corporate greed, without a doubt, pure and simple.” You have made up your mind based on incomplete information, and now you are spreading that opinion around. That is the core of what ticked me off, when gamers don't get the full story but go off barking up trees with inflexible attitudes anyway. You seem pretty sure about a situation that you are not, in fact, involved in.

Personally I am interested to see if Activision countersues, and what claims would be in their countersuit. You are assuming that there was nothing to provoke Activision's action, and I do not assume that — and neither one of us have that next bit of information. Activision has never said WHY they did some a dramatic action. All we know is that they did it, and the people affected feel they were wronged. Why does Activision think it was right? My ex-journo senses for BOTH sides of the sordid story are tingling, and I will not make up my mind until I get more information. And with their lawsuit, we have one side.

I am sorry to hear that you consider that “spin” because I see it as mere objectivity. To pervert an old phrase: Just the facts, man.

Also, if I express one opinion that you disagree with in a way that you find challenging, and that makes you lose respect for me…what are you judging me on, and more importantly, why are you judging me? (And what are you judging Major Nelson on?) I promise not to turn into a monster or let things like this change me long-term, but I'm still going to offer my unvarnished opinions.

My goal here has always been clarity and honesty. I think, despite the temper, I was pretty clear and pretty honest in my views this week.

Hear hear! Very sick of the gaming public assuming that Activision is in the wrong on this one. Maybe they are, maybe they're not, the point is that we have no way of knowing at this point.

Great Show! Blur codes for all?? Damn I should have held off my Mega-mailbag question for a week.

Looks like your job is starting off with a little 'trial by fire', I wish you luck.

Did you even read the link? If this is true, wouldn't you be a little upset too? The lawyer states: “Activision has refused to honor the terms of its agreements and is intentionally flouting the fundamental public policy of this State (California) that employers must pay their employees what they have rightfully earned,” said Schwartz in the release. “Instead of thanking, lauding, or just plain paying Jason and Vince for giving Activision the most successful entertainment product ever offered to the public, last month Activision hired lawyers to conduct a pretextual 'investigation' into unstated and unsubstantiated charges of 'insubordination' and 'breach of fiduciary duty,' which then became the grounds for their termination on Monday, March 1st.”

I'm not saying anything as ridiculous as what you've proclaimed the “stupid half of the internet”. By the way, where are these things being said? Can you point to them?

Eh, when someone rants like you did, I'm not reminded of a clear thinking professional meant to represent a multi-billion dollar company and clear up their image. To use your words, I think that kind of stuff belongs in the “stupid half”. Also, your tone makes you sound like a sellout or “fanboy” (what you've been called before by your own admission since taking this new role).

Anyways, we'll see how it all plays out… here's some food for thought by user cochtl on polycount :
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=70...
“The obvious thing is that the people at IW along with the 2 founders are that they make too much damn money off of their games, plain and simple. I’m sure that when contracts were being written no one could fathom the success of the IP. Now that it has made as much money as a movie like Avatar Kotick’s eyes realized that the royalties alone would be counter intuitive to shareholder interests.

By removing the people in charge you totally bypass royalty agreements AND pretty much guarantees other costly employees to leave the studio; the people with enough clout to not have to worry about not finding a job again, the ones that also make a shit ton of money relative to other devs. The ones that stay are the ones that don’t earn as much or are scared for their job. Meanwhile newer cheaper people will roll in knowing that at least they can attach the name to their resume while getting pay. Hey it beats not having a job right?

Now Activison can renegotiate terms with another developer that would totally be grateful to work on a IP that is almost guaranteed to sell millions of units, all at a much cheaper cost than the original developer. I’m sure that Kotick recognized that Treyarch is working for peanuts in comparison to IW regardless of the fact that the original dev pioneered and in many cases innovated the product.

I think it’s smart that West and Zampanella are suing for IP rights AND LAWYER FEES. That shit right there is important because Activision, being a giant entity with a bottomless well of money and all, can and will deadlock this suit in litigation forever until the founders money dries up and can no longer sustain the battle. I really think those guys have a shot but I know that Kotick/Activision is capable of prolonging a perceived win into a massive debt filled nightmare.

Besides, any losses Activision incurs from the suit can be made up if they retain the rights to the MW property which guarantees massive profit. That’s what I gather from all of this.

To be honest, it’s a real morale killer. It makes me realize how little Balls devs have in the industry, OR BRAINS for that matter, to manage our IP’s and creative license while being independent. This industry is founded on creativity and allows for the introduction of franchises that can append additional creative components and avenues while people and game companies continually grow. Instead we get shit on like idiots because we are more interested with pretty pictures and lines of code than managing or trying to find like minded people to help manage the awful but totally necessary business aspect that controls our daily lives and ever increasingly, renders us jobless like true starving artists…”

This is all I'm saying. The IW guys have serious claims. Activision took serious action against them. This is all very serious…and incomplete.

Ryan, you can point to the stupid half of the internet as easily as I can. You have read it — anybody who says they know what is going on when they do not? Stupid half. Anybody who blindly believes one thing but refuses to consider another? Stupid half. My rants are at the people who have closed minds and fixed attitudes. They have convinced themselves that they are experts yet they have no actual working knowledge of anything they are talking about. Is Activision wrong? Is IW right? Is it somewhere in-between? We don't know because we don't have facts. Calling something the truth when you don't have all the facts? Stupid half. This is hardly the first time I've seen it.

Don't think for a second that I don't believe that IW's claims are to be taken seriously. But what rational person thinks you really get fired for no reason? Doesn't mean Vince and Jason have nothing to be angry or litigious about — but I keep wondering what happened BEFORE this moment to reach this moment. If this goes to court or a countersuit is filed, it will all be out in the open, and we will know more. But until that time…all we have is one side of the story.

Also — and I gotta say it again — I'm not involved in this. Neither are you. We're all bystanders in what is simply a legal dispute — employment, money, royalties, it all comes down to the legal agreement between the parties. If you are a laywer representing either side, you should care deeply. Otherwise, what I see is a bunch of people livid over something that has little to no bearing on their personal lives, outside of “I will be interested in playing the next game these guys make or I won't” and “I will be interested in playing the next game Activision makes without them or I won't.” That is, of course, the same core decision gamers face EVERY DAY at the store with EVERY GAME on the shelf.

Whoever was wronged, I hope they come out on top. And that's as invested as I intend to get, because it doesn't put Gamerscore on my plate. All the rest of this is drama for the sake of drama, and dude…I'm rapidly growing tired of it.

And that's what I exploded at on the podcast: The unnecessary, arrogant drama of the fans. Vince and Jason, they have a reason to be upset at Activision. The average gamer on the street's creative or financial fate does not hang in the balance.

I to am amazed that the internal mic picked your voices up so well. Just think if you had to redo the whole show again. Maybe the first Friday podcast if that happened.

On the IW/Activision note, don't kill the messenger aka Dan. This is some how reminds me of the late night debate with Leno/O'Brian, but NBC had no one on the inside to be the messenger. Really all this should happen behind closed doors. The public should know 2 things and only 3 things, 1) people at IW got fired. 2) Activision is doing what they can to carry business as usual by talking about up and coming COD Titles. As far as the reasons why they got fired and the ending settlement all that should happen behind closed doors. What ever happened on either camp won't sway me to stop buying or playing IW titles or COD games. It's a business and when other companies do this daily it's like this too though it happens behind closed doors.

Really the IW guys that got fired and went to G4 or made it public turned it very unprofessional in my book, and really it should have been nobodies business.

Lastly, thanks Dan for the shout out even though I'm not that creepy, I only chat or get direct insights from via twitter. NOw lets all wait for Monday and play some Blur.

And whoa, I just realized this phrase:

“Eh, when someone rants like you did, I'm not reminded of a clear thinking professional meant to represent a multi-billion dollar company and clear up their image.”

Is that what I'm here for? Who told you that? I'm here to provide insight about games in development and, when possible, show some of the other stuff going on too. In this case, I have no insight in “the other stuff going on.”

“To use your words, I think that kind of stuff belongs in the “stupid half”. Also, your tone makes you sound like a sellout or “fanboy” (what you've been called before by your own admission since taking this new role).”

I have been a fan of many Activision games, and maybe I could have been called a fanboy for those — like, say, I76 — but I do not recall “by my own admission” being called a fanboy for Activision. I certainly have had a different outlook on the company than most people.

I understand, sir. I hope everything plays out good on your end, though I suppose that mess is going to get worse before it gets better. Thanks for the show as always. The rest of it was fantastic. Love the interview. Easily my favorite part of the podcast.

I loved this podcast! The “rant” is amazing and perfectly logical. Hearing Dan go off on the stupid things that people who do not what they are talking about do is priceless and real. Sometimes a little tough love is needed. Great show.

Yeah, the 360 GT is my Gamertag, JamFX – The name is James and from good ol' England. Thanks for the answer!

Just had a thought…Wouldn't it be great if the “Ryan” in the earlier posts was McCaffery messing with Dan :)

The whole Activision/Tim Schafer thing makes it so no one will give Activision the benefit of the doubt. I personally could care less about that whole company anymore, if I want their games I'll be getting them used until they prove to be anything other than d-bags(not that other companies don't do the same thing)

Dan, your “rant” was right on. I couldn't agree with it more. There are two sides to every story, but rather than waiting for the other side before forming and opinion everyone takes the “Activision is greedy and the lawsuit proves it” stance. First, that lawsuit is all about putting the plaintiffs in the best light possible and getting public opinion on their side early. Mission accomplished there I suppose. As to whether Activision is greedy, well there are a couple of things to consider on that viewpoint. Activision is a BUSINESS, therefore they are trying to MAKE MONEY. Y'know, that CAPITALISM thing you Americans are so fond of telling everyone is so great? Activision pumped millions into IW on a hunch that it might pay off. It did. If West and Zampella were so confident in their brainchild perhaps they should have continued to struggle as an independent studio instead of taking millions from Activision. Just a thought.

That may sound like I'm “an Activision fanboy”, but frankly that couldn't be further from the truth. If you randomly gave me five Xbox 360 titles I couldn't tell you who published them. I'm a fan of games, not of game publishers. What I'm not a fan of is stupid, narrow-minded people, the very people you were talking about when he referred to the “stupid half of the internet.” Frankly, I think you were being generous in stopping at “half”, I'd have pegged it at more like 95%.

‘the [Dan] doth protest too much me thinks’

I got through, what I can only describe as, your ‘rant’ & I can assure you that it is the first and last one of swords podcast I will listen to.

A couple of points;
You talk about the misguided sensationalism around this issue and then go charging headlong into an example of a disgruntled ex-employee shooting his employers!! Are you suggesting anything by that? You may need your own lawyers. Fortunately, your partner was able to provide a dose of sanity as to why security guards are used particularly during sudden terminations. That was when you weren’t repeatedly speaking over the top of her.

For someone who ‘knows nothing about the issue’ and claims that it has nothing to do with your job you sure as hell had a lot to say and came across as quite the ‘company man’. Your obsequiousness to ‘big business’ and ‘lawyers’ using all ‘those big lawyerly words’ was at minimum ridiculous but worst still you were dishonestly spinning the story in the classic ‘there’s always two sides to the story blah blah blah – again, quite the company man. To be fair I don’t think you realize how compromised you are. If you did, the recommended strategy would have been to simply keep a level head put out the information as it came to hand & focus on your Activision job. Not attack people in some misguided or dishonest attempt to ‘represent the interests of fairness’. I mean my heart bleeds for the poor put upon corporations!! Again your hostility suggests there is more at stake than just ‘fairness’.

Tell me this, at what point post Wall Street’s meltdown & billion dollar bail out of ‘business’ are we to place all of our trust in ‘big business’ & ‘the lawyers’. Talk about asinine! Do you still believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Should we trust those who are richer and smarter than us to do the right thing? Guess what? You and I and millions of other ordinary folk paid for their stupidity (including both the smart and stupid half of the internet) & just because one of these companies is now paying your meal ticket don’t try and convince us that we should all go back to playing games and not consider the corporate and social responsibility of ‘business’. A healthy skepticism of the motivations of large private corporations seems to be warranted don’t you think?

My motivation for the message? I have no idea what’s up at IW & Activision but let the opinions run free or would you prefer net censorship? You can rant as well but just don’t pretend your being unbiased when you do it company man. You can use as many techniques as you like to distance yourself from your employer as some sort of embedded journalist or ‘a fly on the wall’ but you are just the most recent shining addition to Activision’s PR machine. Accept it & deal with it.

Finally, I felt the first message (Matt) said it all….

‘Love the show, but … um … you know, I understand this week probably sucks for you, but there's a LOT of hostility on this show. I'm not sure what I think about that. It's so very unlike the Dan I usually listen to. Kind of put me off.’

Honest & heartfelt from someone who admires you & all you could do in response was to bleat on about how you had a bad week. Just apologize dude – in the conduct of your work you not only repeatedly talked over your co-host in your rage but you wasted a good portion of the podcast ranting on about an issue that you knew ‘jack shit’ about. I wonder if the makers of Blur are satisfied with the lead in?

Like I said, I know jack shit as well about the issue but I have seen too many people play your stupid little PR game to not let it go unanswered.

Patrick

I don't think I.W. took millions from Activision, they made BILLIONS FOR Activision… In the spirit of capitalism, West, Zampella, and I'm sure other employees at I.W., are demanding money owed to them for CREATING and busting their asses to release this game. Perhaps you should follow the news like Patrick alludes too…. you know that whole economic collapse based on greed and lack of accountability??

If you, me, Dan, joe-q public, invested in something that made us billions don't you think you'd allow some CREATIVE FREEDOM to develop the next big thing? (I love how Dan completely overlooked that DICE speech). Kotick went on record saying he supported that, and then fires the studio heads of the most successful entertainment launch in history.

Speaking of narrow minded… I guess you and Dan have met every single person who uses the internet and derived your statistics from that? If I gave you 5 360 titles, the publisher's name would be first thing in the opening sequence. And please, go back and listen to OXM podcast, Ryan & Dan rip on Kotick and Activision.

Oh and Dan… this has nothing to do with the gamer? Are you living in some dream world? If we fire these studio heads based on business.. doesn't matter?? we'll just pick up anyone else off the street to fill their shoes and of course it's so easy to make games, ya, the same quality product will come out on the other end. This attitude makes me sick.

RRRRROOOOOAAARRRRR…..DAN ANGRY! Dan need food! Dan read too much twitter and comments on blogs…taking it too personally.

Sorry to see you go Patrick. But I'm not in favor of censorship, and I resent the accusation. I am, however, in favor of people not spreading misinformed opinions, jumping to conclusions, and stirring up drama for the sake of drama.

This is true. What can I say? I lost my temper. You guys have never heard it before. Won't be happening often; it's not who I want to be.

There are two sides to every story (or, as the old saying goes, three — which in this case would be Vince and Jason's side, Activision's side, and the truth). Right now, you have Vince and Jason's side and it deserves to be taken very seriously. But without Activision's side — the reasons for WHY such an extreme move was made — how can any rational person say anything of value? And yet, all I hear are voices talking, talking, talking. This is what frustrates me to the point of ranting.

I'm not saying what Activision did was RIGHT, and I think people are taking my anger at this situation as a defense of its actions. That is not the case. I'm saying we do not KNOW why Activision did it and until we do, nobody can judge anything.

As someone who has spent my entire life looking for the both (or all three) sides of a story, I am reserving judgment until I hear not only Vince and Jason's claims but Activision's claims as well.

The people who know details right now are silent because, legally, they have to be. Everybody else is making half-informed noise.

I think some of you have a valid point, but I think that was exactly what Dan was trying to do. Make you feel a little uneasy.

Dan isn't here to be kitty-cats and rainbows. The angry speech at around 26 minutes was clearly passionate and personal. it was a message from someone who has been in the industry for a long time and seeing more random twelve year olds on “the twitters” telling the world how sure he is that Activision is murdering the people.

Dan isn't hired to be Mr. Sunshine Radio Morning Show Voice of Assanine Annoyance. Dan isn't the PR guy working in spin alley (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_alley ). He's to put the human face on Activision – and I know exactly what it feels like to reach a boiling point and just tell the rumor mills to SHUT UP.

Patrick, Dan told the story of the guy who went crazy and killed his employers, because of all of the rumors that the “security guys” at Activision were some kind of mercenaries! I've lost a job, I've been escorted out of a building, it's NORMAL – but it's because of events like the guy who blew away his bosses that things like that ARE normal. That was the point Dan was trying to get accross.

Again, don't think of Dan as some PR spin-master – or even as an Activision employee. He's just a guy with a podcast. He's going to say things that he'll probably get in trouble for with Activision. And I admire him for that – frankly I think he's got more balls than Majornelson – because he's going to say things that “the people” don't like – he's going to say things that “the company” doesn't like – he's going to tell it like it is (or at least as his lazy eye sees it!), and if he gets to a point where he's stressed and angry about something, he's going to say it – just like anyone else with a podcast, regardless of who signs his day-job paychecks.

-NuAngel

the rant should be a feature of the show.

You had it right though. Going through business registration for software and web development I've seen similar large companies remove key employees for justified reasons. The only reasonable response to the events I saw were people hoping for Vince and Jason to pick up a new job so they can get back what they do. You were in the right to be ticked.

I read all of the comments while at work the other day and thought to myself, “Wow, Dan must have really lost it on the podcast…”

When I got home that night I downloaded the podcast for the commute the following morning. And sure, Dan gets upset during the podcast…but the way the commentators here made it sound, I was expecting a verbal lashing of biblical proportions. I was expecting Dan fully transofrmed as Company Man, attacking all of his readers. Someone on the iTunes page actually insinuated they were threatened and would never listen again.

Instead, what I heard was a man — admittedly flustered — speaking nothing but logic. He made zero assumptions, repeated many times he knows nothing, as you all know nothing, and made no illusions to the contrary.

Never mind the fact that he had a really informative, entertaining interview with the producer on Blur at Activision right after the IW news which was very enjoyable and sadly buried amongst the negative comments.

I came away from this podcast disappointed in my fellow One Of Swords readers. Perhaps many of you vocal enough to comment were fly-by-night listeners, attracted to the podcast when the IW news hit the web. I don't know. But you all come off sounding like a bunch of hurt babies. Dan pulled back the magical curtain to reveal the simple facts of the matter, and your fantasy crumbled. It's a pathetic display of feedback in this thread.

I spotted you in the Blur beta last night — I guess you got in through other means! :)

Ha! That I did. I was hoping to get in a few games and chat a bit with you, but I think you were in a party. I had to settle for just trying to bump you off the LA Docks.

I talked a bunch of friends into trying the demo and we had a great time knocking each other around the track last night.

I liked your rant. It's exactly how I felt after reading comments on G4 and Kotaku. In all fairness, though, most of those commenters don't have fully formed brains, yet (according to the latest popular scientific news).

People don't realize how risk-averse Activision is. And firing the heads of their most successful studio to keep from paying out a few million dollars in royalties is risky. A few million dollars is a small amount compared to the expected future earnings of the studio. It's easier and cheaper to keep good developers comfortable.

[...] their game on with the game’s production team (including Lip Ho, who you may remember from the podcast). Anybody who plays gets entered into a raffle, and I believe there’s going to be a champagne [...]