In case we need another example to why Reddit moderation needs... moderation:
Attempting to remove the Reddit post myself
I’d had enough. I grew tired of having the respect I afforded Marty, and his employer, with attempts to resolve the dispute privately, get turned into a giant waste of time, effort and money. The Reddit post had been up for 15 months and attempts to resolve the dispute with Marty had gotten me nowhere. With my patience stretched to the absolute limit, I decided to take steps to remove the Reddit post myself.
Reddit Moderator: I reached out to one of the r/DOOM moderators. We made contact and arranged a call via Discord.
The moderator introduced himself and spoke about his love for the DOOM franchise and its fanbase. Along with the r/DOOM subreddit, he told me he also moderated the official DOOM Discord server.
I told him how Marty’s Reddit post had affected me deeply, both professionally and personally. It was a source of ongoing stress and harm, and I asked if he’d consider removing it.
Much to my relief, he instantly took it down.
But within 12 hours, the post was reinstated. The moderator blocked me on Discord and didn’t reply to my emails.
A few days later, Marty’s lawyers contacted me and said removing the Reddit post had greatly offended him. He was furious and made it clear in the strongest terms that an amicable resolution would be impossible.
I just read some of the article and that's horrible behavior from ID.
> Please remain civil, don't send hate mail and death threats (I've already gotten some myself). Last I checked this is a fan community where official people sometimes post, and none of the mod team were involved directly in the issue at hand (aside from the noted post removal)
Holy hell even the Reddit mods now get death threats.
That's what happens when abusive, toxic people aren't kicked out of online communities the first time they spread abuse around - they learn that their behavior has no consequences and, as a result, escalate.
They really don't. They're likely unpaid fans who thought they could help out deleting some spam and abuse. Suddenly they're forced to choose sides in a game of he said she said with corporate lawyers involved, and any choice they make will cause people to claim they should be taken to task for their bad decision.
I used to be an active moderator of a fairly popular community. At one point, we were requested by a US TLA[0] to remove a post that they believed contained information that should not have been made public. We complied, obviously.
We then got numerous people complaining that we, a bunch of unpaid moderators, didn't try to fight back. I recall one person saying we were "too chicken" to stand up for ourselves against a major US government agency.
If we had stood up for ourselves, the agency would have gone straight to reddit and filed a DMCA (as would be entirely within their right to do in that case), and reddit, inc. would instantly have removed the content (as hosting providers nearly always do, even if there's no grounds for a DMCA takedown[1].) Why are unpaid moderators held to a higher standard than the website itself?
[0]: "three-letter agency"
[1]: yes, this is wrong, but it's how it usually goes when false DMCAs are filed.
I would never face off with a giant corporation over reddit modding. The best case scenario is their threat being total bluster and nothing happens, and even there you have to deal with their loud demands making it purely a negative experience for you.
If the Reddit TOS doesn't absolve mods from this sort of corporate abuse, they should work on that. They can't let outside pressures manipulate their site like that. Not, at least, if they're not getting paid. Then, of course, game on. But...
If removing the post offended him, then yikes - I just sorted the posts on his original open letter by date descending and it's everything you'd expect and more.
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.
The soundtrack for Eternal was the only thing that felt special about this sequel IMO. Doom 2016 was and is amazing though, instant classic including the congenial soundtrack.
I’m even less excited about any further sequel now.
Too bad John Carmack didn’t want to put up more with the business side of things. Zenimax are slowly becoming the worst of all the gravedigger big gaming companies.
I liked Eternal, I know that a lot of people felt the new mechanics were too much of a departure from 2016, and I'm sympathetic to that, but I had a hell of fun time beating the game on Nightmare.
It turns it into something like Hotline Miami, where there's a room full of guys who can kill you almost immediately, so you wind up playing the encounter over and over until you have the perfect path of devastation through the enemies.
The main thing I disliked about Eternal was the added story elements, the very minimal story in 2016 was so perfect (it's basically: you wake up, you're badass, you hate demons, go rip and tear). Eternal tried to go for some sort of Doomslayer lore - spelling it out makes it lame.
Overall, both games are great, and I very much enjoyed them.
> It turns it into something like Hotline Miami, where there's a room full of guys who can kill you almost immediately, so you wind up playing the encounter over and over until you have the perfect path of devastation through the enemies.
I call it Mario-ization, and I hate it.
I also hated Eternal. It wasn't Doom. It was a "first-person jumper."
Based on the previous game, I pre-ordered the deluxe whatever version, and then couldn't stand the game, even on the easiest setting. This was the game that finally ended pre-ordering for me.
As always, TACMA and YMMV, etc., et. al. I wish I could enjoy these kinds of games, since a lot of effort is devoted to them these days.
After finishing Gordon's essay, the jagged and at times uneven feel of DOOM Eternal seems to make a lot more sense now. This circular creative process (give me the music so we can design the level ... no, you give me the level design so I can write the music) seems to explain what felt so wrong about DOOM Eternal, this "fantasy platform puzzle" idea that Id was driving toward.
I feel the same way about pre-ordering AAA games, but FWIW I think pre-ordering is really context dependent. Pre-ordering the next DOOM? Hell no. Pre-ordering KSP2 or something like that? Yeah probably.
Really? KSP2 is not being made by Squad. Squad got bought by Take-Two and Take-Two is having a different studio build the game... or was until they cancelled the contract and poached most that studio's talent. This is a project that seems like it has a high likelihood of failing to capture what made the original one great. I'd wait to see some demos and lets-plays before putting your money down
It looks like Squad did get re-involved in KSP2 once they closed out development of KSP with v1.12
I'm not saying people shouldn't check out KSP2 and I have high hopes it will be a worthy sequel. It just isn't the sequel I would call out as a specific example of a safe one to pre-order.
>Based on the previous game, I pre-ordered the deluxe whatever version, and then couldn't stand the game, even on the easiest setting. This was the game that finally ended pre-ordering for me.
Same here. 2016 was perfection in so many ways that Eternal is just...bizarre by comparison. Nearly every aspect of Eternal was just plain mediocre or bad to me.
They added too many mechanical things to fiddle with and it drowned out the positional combat aspect. It felt like playing starcraft in the mid to late game
It definitely gets more mechanically heavy in the late game, in a way that kinda diminishes the pure combatness of the whole thing. At first it feels sorta like "you've given me a small set of murder tools, and I need to use them to build a glorious rampage", and towards the end you have so many options that it feels less artful. I still had fun but I definitely understand the thrust of the criticism - especially given how perfectly DOOM 2016 lets you compose a symphony of destruction with just the guns you have.
I am glad you mentioned Masters of Doom. I've read it on the bus commute during my internship at Microsoft back in college ~6-7 years ago, and I cannot recommend this book enough.
I didn't want to work in gamedev at the time (due to being fairly familiar with how awful working in that industry was), and I still don't. Neither do I have a strong emotional attachment to the original DOOM, I was way too young to appreciate it back when it was released, and I didn't live in a country where it was a cultural hit. I still have no interest or fascination with working in gamedev industry now.
However, that book was something else, and it rocked my world. It is about as strong of a book rec as I can give. Both Carmack and Romero created something very special there, and it is fascinating as hell to read it. Especially since Carmack and his current endeavors are still very relevant to the world of today.
P.S. The last sentence wasn't meant to be a dig at Romero at all. I just don't see him being mentioned in the news much anymore, especially compared to Carmack, and I honestly have no idea what he is up to. But that doesn't diminish his contribution to the story of DOOM and beyond at all.
His sheer enthusiasm in this video is incredible. Also the glee when he adds 666 to the music lol (or maybe it was a pentagram, or both? Been a while since I watched).
The spectrogram stuff you're referencing was one of my favorite parts, and also the description of his crazy array of pedals he used to get the signature sound.
Gordon's YouTube channel is amazing. His videos about creating the sound of DOOM (2016) are stuck in my head very strongly. The guy clearly is extremely passionate about his work, and he loves going into the nitty gritty of the process.
His very short video about the old soviet hardware synth he managed to find and pretty much had to reverse-engineer to make use of was very memorable[0].
It was a great soundtrack, perfect for doom. but that talk left me confused.
what I got out of it. he did not want your normal heavy metal soundtrack so he deconstructed music down to it's core, created a bunch of noise, layered it up to make the songs... but it sounded bad, so he had to add the heavy metal back in.
At the end I am like... so your whole process... was for nothing?
I mean, learning a hypothesis doesn't work isn't for nothing?
And unlike previous entries in the series, iirc, during gameplay the soundtrack reacts to the player's progress rather than just being there in the background.
This Mick Gordon guy has to be the most patient, understanding and abuse-tolerant person on the planet. Even after getting screwed over 30 times in a row he still was hopeful for a reasonable ending. I express that as a compliment, even if in the real world it works against you.
It's not the main topic, but I like to call out attention to this:
"incidences of online abuse escalated at an alarming rate as Marty’s Reddit post led to frustration over my alleged professional failure, and toxic gamers grew openly aggressive.
They shared my personal details via message boards, including Reddit, which meant that abusers could now reach me in more ways than ever. They email-bombed my inboxes, crashing the server and clogging my messaging services, crippling my ability to communicate. They harassed my other clients with attempts to get me fired from their projects. They called my phone numbers around the clock, screaming messages full of abuse.
I began receiving specific expressions of violence, the content so vivid it made me sick. The torrent of abuse telling me how to kill myself, how I’d be mutilated, how they would circulate photos of my body to traumatise my family, how my family would be murdered, how they’d hurt my animals, how they’d shoot up any event I attended, how I’d be raped to death, really started to wear me down in ways I couldn’t previously imagine."
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. And surely Mr Manager Marty looks at it with approval.
A line has to be drawn in the sand. There must be a cost to such threats. A massive fine or some short prison time. Further, those enabling and launching the mob, even if unknowingly, need to carry responsibility too. This isn't just defamation, it spills over into real world danger.
I also really wonder WTF is wrong with people. Even children should know to not harass someone for any reason, let alone that perhaps that person had conflict while working on a game they enjoy.
I cannot imagine ever going after someone like that, under any circumstance.
You know what the most disturbing thing is? "Normal" people do this.
We're picturing villains, hateful characters, people with severe mental shortcomings. Deeply traumatized personalities looking for some retaliation.
Nope. It's your neighbor. That kind middle-aged guy walking his dog. The one that is considerate and intelligent enough to know better.
Several years back a dutch TV show proved this point. They did detective work to track down people making online death threats and confronted them at their door. Every single episode ended in the same anti-climax: completely "normal" people.
When pressed for an answer as to why they launched these threats...none could give a meaningful answer. They didn't even actually care about the matter at all.
I think it's the same phenomenon that causes road rage. Collective pseudo-anonymity (and on the internet, literally pseudonymity) causes people to act in bizarre ways. The other people who are interacting with them via that mediated interface (internet, cars on road, phone, etc.) are at some level dehumanized.
Very few people would do the kinds of things they do behind the screen or wheel of a car when sitting face to face with someone IRL.
But stating the obvious, not always actual physical distance since working remotely for example I don't feel like empathy is lacking. However it is an interesting component and I'm sure comes into play even with WFH.
It’s being removed from consequences. WFH you can still be fired, in person you can be punched in the face, but in these other settings there are no immediate consequences.
> 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.
Well, once you finish reading, you'll understand that the outcome of this project was in fact disappointing. Which was the entire reason for the hate campaign.
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 :(
The most popular videos on YouTube aren't the officially released OST, they're remixed/remastered versions fixed up by the community. The official OST isn't terrible by any means, it's full of musically great pieces, but it has glaring objective technical flaws and nonsensical song structures. Perfect for management to think "It's good enough, ship it" while the artist behind it thinks "This is garbage, my reputation is ruined" and the community gets up in arms about its shortcomings. Especially when the community expects something on the level of the DOOM 2016 OST.
> 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 bomber was, and got his friends and family harassed so bad that the FBI had to go on TV and give away sensitive case information just so they'd see how wrong they were and knock it off?
Or maybe how Near was harassed for being a harmless non-binary furry until they committed suicide?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Mick's been through some shit, but if it took you this long to realize that maybe the "trolls" of today aren't the cuddly affectionate clowns of the previous millennium then you really weren't paying attention.
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 anonymity to be illegal or to have every word expressed monitored by some institute. That's the reason for my hesitation, not because I didn't know about several earlier examples of this type of harassment.
I find this specific example of a hate campaign very useful for it is pure. You can't say it was an accident (we had the wrong guy) nor is it clouded by politics: it's fine if it happens to my political opponents or it was in retaliation to them doing the same thing to our side. There's no provocation of any kind either.
The above bullshit excuses are often used to be relatively lax about this phenomenon. To look away, and to see them as rare incidents.
Whilst there's never an excuse, this one doesn't even have a bullshit excuse either. For me that's a tipping point in believing that legislation is needed.
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)
> used to consider trolling a "fact of life", nothing requiring intervention. I no longer believe that. ... the man and his family have to fear for their lives.
I'm wondering how you could be on the internet in a post-gamergate world and still be surprised that shit like this really does happen. It's incredibly common - why do you think those calls for stricter moderation started in the first place?
Yeah, but this is even lower; it's literally just music! Even GG, as pathetic as it was, could be explained through a culture war angle.
Also, I'd disagree with stricter moderation helping, and actually, we saw the opposite here. He got moderated out of the audience, with no recourse a part from screaming into the void (until he wrote this). Without this massive documentation effort, he otherwise would've been totally recourseless.
If anything, this highlights how problematic moderation can be especially on reddit.
(I'm not arguing that moderation is bad in general, just that this story actually shows that there has to be a balance. A way to watch the watchmen I guess)
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 up billable hours with useless meetings or busywork. Oftentimes when this happens management doesn't realize it until they get sticker shock from an invoice which is why I try to issue invoices frequently.
> 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 less to avoid all that.
From the article:
> The contract never showed up.
> but if I needed more time, they would be happy to amend the contract later
No contract, no work. Work starts late because of no fault of mine, including late/no contract? Delivery is likely delayed. Want me to accept an assurance: put it in the contract or otherwise in indisputable writing now. This probably marks me as someone unsuited for contract work, or too difficult to work with as a contractor, ete, and that is fine by me!
> This probably marks me as someone unsuited for contract work, or too difficult to work with as a contractor, ete, and that is fine by me!
This actually makes you an ideal contractor, you just have to know how to do this tactfully.
The real issue with this situation is working as a contractor on a single project. At the point you're working for one client, full time, as a contractor...you're an employee.
If you've got no other clients, you have no ability to negotiate with the simple statement, "I have other clients I have to tend to and can't dedicate time to this work until the contract is addressed. Let me know when you're ready to resume."
> The real issue with this situation is working as a contractor on a single project. At the point you're working for one client, full time, as a contractor...you're an employee.
I disagree. I currently work as a contractor for one company more or less fully time. Because I'm a contractor, not an employee, I get to choose my hardware and OS, my own hours, I can take vacation when I want and most importantly, the employer can't force me to work in office.
Contract renewal is coming up soon, my rate is going up, and if they don't agree to it I'll just leave (if anyone needs a senior Java dev, email in bio :)).
> If you've got no other clients, you have no ability to negotiate with the simple statement
You don't need to negotiate, you need to assert you wont do free work and then don't do it.
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.
Even good lawyers would have trouble bending the obvious. He had no contract to produce the OST (first) and he could have publicly claimed, that he only produced the game music and was not involved in that final mix of the OST.
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!
One thing that surprised me was milestone billing with approvals, but moving on to the next milestone without getting approval on previous ones.
I agree with you, this project structure sounds… much worse than T&M billing, but if I were going to take on a contract in this structure I would have a simple rule of “I won’t work on the next milestone, without getting approval on the prior one” (for something like this, where the milestones are pretty small, maybe I’d be willing to work one milestone ahead).
But I’d absolutely use the schedule pressure as a tool to get them to care about approvals. Because, from the described contract structure, what incentive does the client have to give timely approvals or rejections? None!
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 work.
Kudos to contractors who achieve what I wasn't quite able to.
As an independent developer, I stop working as soon as more than once invoice is outstanding. Anything else is asking to be left holding the bag (or more of it than you already are.)
Another alternative to hourly billing is value-based pricing with up-front payments. May not work in every industry, but if a client isn't willing to do that, they're probably not a good-faith client anyway.
"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?
Why would companies go to bat for these execs that are liabilities? Why not pay out the settlement and send Marty to Zenimax's St Helena division to prevent having to pay this sort of thing out again? (or worse, risk the damage of having someone not willing to take hush money like Mr. Gordon).
>Why would companies go to bat for these execs that are liabilities?
1. Companies are not alive. They are synthetic entities made up of individuals. They do not make decisions on their own. Their decisions are dictated by the decisions of the individuals inside of the company.
2. If I work in AP and receive a notice from a company executive to pay a contract that is signed by said executive (if they have clearance in policy to do so) and the person we're paying, we have all of the back end paperwork we need to pay it out, I'm paying it out. My job as AP is not to judge right or wrong. It's to process according to acceptable accounting practices, in general, and corporate policy specifically.
In other words, why do people act like a company is this mysterious creature able to sort right from wrong, and ignore the influence people like actual executives of that company can have on processes?
"Why would this synthetic entity made up of individuals go to bat for these execs that are liabilities?" I'm not sure that it makes the answer clearer.
It's hard to imagine a company w/o the transparency along the chain of command required to detect and prohibit and executive from getting hush-money rubber stamped. At least not one that actually makes money and isn't robbed blind by its middle-management.
On a side note, I've more than once gotten the trademark HN pedantry about "Companies not being people, but made up of them" and it never surprises me that people feel the need to remind me of it. When someone says "Company X made decision Y", it is short-hand for "The people responsible at Company X made decision Y". This is commonly accepted English.
I don't think companies are mysterious creatures able to sort right from wrong, I think they are made up of individuals who can sort right from wrong.
You focused on the wrong part of that. Yes, it's semantics, but I think having a common definition is important.
Also important - the executive controls processes. Executive level leadership is privy to information that the people who literally process payments are not.
As I said; if the paperwork is in order, AP will cut the check. They do not evaluate right/wrong. They evaluate allowable and/or appropriate based on common accounting practices and specific institutional policies. Many private companies have people who, because they are executives, are absolutely able to take advantage of the company, because they are the ones deciding what is right and wrong for the company.
What I'm saying is, the person processing payment for executive level leadership is not, generally, in a position to ferret out the right or wrong of the various contracts. Unless the contract comes across and says, "this is to keep Loughla's dirty damned mouth shut," I would bet most AP offices would never catch this sort of thing.
I'm not saying that some person in Accounts Payable is meant to launch an inquisition on every cheque that goes out and blow a whistle.
What I'm saying is that I don't understand how a company does not get looted by its execs if they can unilaterally and w/o consequence cut six-figure cheques to what amounts to a personal expense. Someone like Marty sounds like the type of person to have to cut these regularly.
Surely these execs have a responsibility to their shareholders and their board to turn a profit and not misappropriate funds. Marty might be an exec but he's a cog in the ZeniMax/Bethesda machine. You'd imagine someone up the chain would notice that their project is way over-budget and over-time and look at the many zeros on the legal budget allocated to various settlements attributed to one of their rough-shot execs.
To be clear, I'm not saying what you claim isn't true, what I'm saying is that I don't understand how its in the interest of the Powers That Be at ZeniMax to do anything but bury folks like Marty by sending him to the cloud spotting division on the roof.
Not that I'm denying your claim, but if there's that little oversight on the allocation of funds, I fail to see how any of these orgs not get looted before the opening bell rings.
If any exec could just cut (likely many) six-figure cheques for what really amounts to personal expenses while overseeing a project that is allocated too few funds, is way over budget, and over time, then what keeps these orgs afloat?
To reiterate, I'm not saying I don't believe you, I just don't really understand it.
The expense is at least prima facie legitimate. On paper you’re just paying a fee to a contractor in exchange for a NDA protecting the company from liability. If you cover things up well enough, it won’t raise suspicions and nobody is going to go out of their way to investigate their boss.
At a certain point this sort of thing does become unsustainable, but most execs stop short of that point. Also, this sort of thing becomes illegal at some point as well; you can learn about cases where people didn’t get away with it, and then maybe extrapolate from there to see how other people might get away with it.
> Also, this sort of thing becomes illegal at some point as well; you can learn about cases where people didn’t get away with it, and then maybe extrapolate from there to see how other people might get away with it.
Having been in a similar situation on a lot smaller and insignificant scale, I wish I could say something coherent: I wrote and re-edited a long rant here, before ultimately deleting it. But then I see the Adam Neumanns et al. of this world still continuing to be successful despite their numerous public and not so screw-ups that add up to billions, and realize that it's the usual "A times B times C equals X".
I've seen companies spend tens of hours of multiple employee's time to reduce a one-time cost by $1k, and then because of that reduction spend $10k elsewhere.
”The same thoughtless disregard for basic music fundamentals that plagued the preliminary edits ended up on the final OST.”
As a musician and music-lover, seeing how they brickwalled [1][2] Mick’s tracks in the screenshots only serves to add to the heartbreak of his entire saga.
It seems the brickwall mastering was intentionally done by Mick Gordon. See the section starting at "id Software approved my mastering". The alleged "disregard for basic music fundamentals" appears to have introduced more dynamic range, although not in a way that's pleasant to listen to.
Lowering the volume does not equal introducing more dynamic range. It was just done to avoid clipping when pasting two bits of track on top of each other.
The masters delivered by Mick Gordon were meant for use in the game. I'm not an expert at game audio engineering, but the brickwall mastering may have been intentional to make the music stand out over the rest of the game audio. Either way those masters were approved by id Software for use in the game so nothing was wrong with those.
The problem is that those exact same masters were then used to produce the OST. To do a proper OST, you would have to go back to the source materials, remix them and produce a new master that is suitable for playback as an album. One that isn't as brickwalled and maintains more dynamic range. This is the important part that was skipped by Chad Mossholder and not caught by id Software's internal QA. If you take an already mastered piece of music meant for a different context and just cut it up and splice it back together, without regard for volume leveling, tempo adjustment or proper balancing, then you're inevitably going to produce garbage.
>Lowering the volume does not equal introducing more dynamic range. It was just done to avoid clipping when pasting two bits of track on top of each other.
If you overlap two tracks, and reduce volume to avoiding clipping, the combined track has spikes in volume where they overlap. This is increased dynamic range. But like I said, it is not musically pleasant to listen to, and it's certainly reasonable to complain about it.
You're making an extremely pedantic distinction, which is only correct in a purely technical sense. Which is the worst kind of correct.
Yes, mastering engineers work from track-level dynamic range (usually achieved with slow-response compression) to transient-level dynamic range (fast compression/limiting), and the range in between. When the context for this discussion is about "brickwall limiting", we're talking about very fast, transient-level compression, and your comment mistakes slower dynamic range for the transient-level dynamic range everyone else is discussing.
So, no. In this context, what you're talking about isn't increased dynamic range.
I'm well aware of the difference, as acknowledged by my first post in this thread ("not in a way that's pleasant to listen to"). But it is not pedantry, and it is relevant to the context, because this unusual form of dynamic range provides evidence as to when the dynamic range compression was applied. If it was applied after the edits described in the article, I do not think we would not see the volume spikes.
I do not see a single complaint from Gordon about the dynamic range, only the editing. But there is a paragraph in the article suggesting the dynamic range was intentional:
"Marty says that Chad, apparently working in a hurry, only had my supposed “bricked” in-game score to work with. He points to my so-called “bricked” score and adopts that as the reason behind Chad’s poor editing. But not only is Marty confused and clearly doesn’t understand the mastering process, but he also seems ignorant of how Chad’s editing introduced significant problems."
Note that there is no objective definition of "bricked". I personally tend to prefer higher dynamic range, but I've heard plenty of recordings with higher dynamic range than I would like. It seems very likely that some people prefer lower dynamic range than I do. Arjuna attributed the dynamic range to some unknown "they". There is no evidence for this in the article, or in Arjuna's linked Twitter thread. I believe the most reasonable interpretation is that Gordon deliberately chose low dynamic range as a stylistic choice. If you disagree, how about providing evidence?
Yes, it's clear Gordon has applied a mastering limiter to the tracks he delivered to Bethesda, and given that the style of the music involves heavy processing/effects and multiple levels of compression, a somewhat aggressive mastering limiter seems appropriate here.
But your point about "increased dynamic range" due to the editing errors is a distraction from your claim that Gordon applied a mastering limiter (which he clearly did). It creates ambiguity, because you're using it in a way that's not aligned with common usage in this context. That's part of why you're getting pushback.
In any case, if we want to try to answer the question of why the OST has low dynamic range (in the mastering limiter sense), I am somewhat receptive to ndepoel's argument - it seems reasonable that in-game tracks could be mastered more aggressively, and with lower dynamic range, than what would be appropriate for a proper OST release. Caveat: I haven't done mastering work in the context of game audio so I can't say if that's common practice, but it seems a little more likely than not.
That wouldn't increase the dynamic range, it's just preventing the overlaps from clipping. Both tracks would still have the same dynamic range, the relative overall volume might be different for the track you lowered/increased to match the other one, but I doubt the transition between the two would be considered increasing the dynamic range.
In order to increase the dynamic range of a mastered track you would have to uncompress/master it in the first place. If you are just decreasing/increasing the overall volume, you would have the same dynamic range just at a quieter or louder listening level.
”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.”
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).
> It seems the brickwall mastering was intentionally done by Mick Gordon
Where are you getting this? His in-game music was perfectly fine, and the only instances of brickwall mastering were present within the "official OST" (that was mixed by Chad, splicing together the in-game music poorly). Which Gordon had no hand in whatsoever, outside of providing the source material, i.e., the in-game music.
The edits described in the article have no mention of additional dynamic range compression. The music in the OST is described as "normalized" to 0dBFS, which means simply adjusting the gain. This suggests that the dynamic range was already compressed (which is not unreasonable for game audio, because it will make the sound effects easier to hear).
The edit described in Gordon's post talks about overlaying tracks with zero crossfading done and instruments clashing, all being done hastily by hand. That alone is a massive contributor to the dynamic range brickwall.
Gordon explicitly singled out those instances. He didnt say "the track as a whole has a DR brickwall through and through." He mentioned a complete lack of crossfading being the massive contributor to the brickwall and weird tempo changes, and it all checks out.
"Brickwall" limiting is about very short-term transient compression; to oversimplify things, those limiters are operating at the timespan of 1-30 milliseconds, more or less.
These edits are a few hundred ms to a few seconds at a time, so it doesn't make sense that Gordon would refer to them as "brickwall".
(Another problem here is that evaluating a mastered waveform's dynamic range by eye is extremely subjective, and I would argue next to useless most of the time. The way these waveforms are shown in the post, we'd be hard-pressed to tell 9db (hyper-compressed) from 14db (pretty good) by eye. Professionals have software and metering to measure this; that's a much better approach.)
Bottom line: do these clumsy edits contribute to brickwalling? Really doesn't look like it, but I don't have the raw files to measure to know for sure. Are the edits good? Not in a million years.
> Really doesn't look like it, but I don't have the raw files to measure to know for sure.
You have access to the official OST of Doom Eternal (which is claimed to have the brickwalling), as well as access to the in-game versions of those tracks (which you can rip out of the game or find the already-ripped ones on youtube easily). I can certainly confirm by playing the game and listening to the ripped files myself that there was no brickwalling in the in-game tracks. However, it becomes very obvious in the official OST.
Interesting. My initial comment was discussion of the article only. This additional information, which is not mentioned in the article, makes it seem that the brickwall mastering was not done by Mick Gordon.
Now, applying a mastering limiter to sub-tracks? Extremely novice mistake, and could be described as brickwalling. Certainly within the realm of possibility given the novice quality of the editing here.
Overlapping without crossfading is strange and very likely wrong, but it cannot contribute to brickwalling unless further dynamic range processing is applied, or unless it causes clipping, which is avoided by the described normalization. No further dynamic range processing is described in the article, and no evidence of such processing is visible in the screenshots.
> [...] Doing so caused dramatic amplitude spikes at the edit point. Chad didn’t bother to crossfade the transition: both files play simultaneously (causing spikes at double the volume).
> To compensate, he “remastered” the edited song by normalising it to 0dBFS — a rudimentary error.
That's not what "normalising" means. Normalising is just changing the gain of the whole track so the peak level matches your target. And this is obviously what it meant, because if it somehow actually meant dynamic range limiting, we would not see the volume spikes.
That open letter from Marty always felt fishy to me, because everything I ever saw about Mick made him feel like someone who is simply enthusiastic about music and all the stuff he claimed smelled wrong. I ended up writing it off as "Maybe he's just better at a public persona than I figured," and was sad but moved on. But now? Oof I wonder what Bethesda/Zenimax/MS does about this, because the look is NOT good for Marty, and Mick seems to have the receipts to back it up.
Conjecture: Marty will sue him for defamation and lose when discovery proves that substantially every allegation Mick made was true.
This was Mick's entire life for two years, but was just another contractor Marty was (badly) juggling. One of them will have a far clearer memory of what's going on.
I would agree with that. I said the look wasn't good because I can't know everything but Mick seems to have enough receipts finding a detail that makes Marty look less bad will be challenging at best.
My guess would be Marty made promises to upper management and things fell apart due to mismanagement. If this was JUST Mick and Marty interacting without some level of outside force I doubt Marty would act this stupidly.
I knew Marty's open letter was bullshit back then when I first read it since the game was originally set to release in 2019, and here he was talking about not having Mick under contract for the OST in January 2020. It was also suspicious that he said that they didn't have the source material for the game music after that contract has ended. That would be such a tremendous oversight, the studio not owning all the material for their game.
It all makes sense after reading Mick's statement. Chad was tasked with the OST for the original release date back in August 2019, and he was supposed to use the game music, including the parts that ended up being rejected for the game. This is why Mick was ignored for months when asking about the OST. They only went back to him in March 2020 when it was apparent that the studio is not up to the task.
I also think Chad was the original plan for the OST. However I don't think Marty/id ever decided that Chad isn't up to the task. Note that Mick only got the contract by going straight to their parent company Bethesda. Marty only showed up after Bethesda was already doing the contract anyway.
What's more, the announcement of the OST has some ambiguous wording. They announced it as Mick Gordon's DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal original soundtracks. This stuck out to me immediately as a combination of Mick Gordon's DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal. Mick cites this in his medium post as Mick Gordon’s original DOOM Eternal soundtrack but I think that is (understandable) wishful thinking.
This is so sad. I was unfamiliar with this whole dispute, but I've been a huge fan of the Doom 2016 soundtrack ever since that game was released. The music was absolutely essential to the game and it's amazing to me that they apparently didn't realize that and didn't treat the author as essential to the game development process.
I'm also worried that he apparently hasn't sued or settled yet. At least based on his story, it looks like he may have some amazing claims here, and any plaintiff-focused contract/IP firm worth its salt would be beating down his door to get this case. But some of his claims are likely state law claims that are subject to a statute of limitations that has either run at this point or is about to run, and settlement negotiations generally don't toll the statute of limitations. Get on it!
I would expect this story from a struggling indie game dev startup but ID Games, Zenimax, Mick Gordon and Stratton are all huge players in the game dev industry -- thus this looks bad for the industry as a whole. I was always curious about why the Doom Eternal OST never really showed up on Spotify. This story explains that.
On the contrary, after the horror stories coming from Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard, sometimes requiring the government to intervene, my expectation is really low. If anything this is a dull affair since nobody got killed or sexually harrassed.
This would never happen with an indie studio because they wouldn’t have the deep pockets to legally strong arm the contractor. If both parties were small businesses then the threat of legal action from either side would keep them both form misbehaving.
I don't do much contract work or deal with the video game industry at all, so I'm wondering was Mick just being overly understanding here about the payment issues? Someone refusing to pay me for work would instantly shut down any work I do with them.
And my head nearly exploded when I read the part about how they secretly published a soundtrack that they didn't pay for, and then agreed to be pay for it only if he did another soundtrack for them.
Delayed or never received payments are common for video game freelancers. Most projects fail, and so the likelihood you don't get paid out for a portion of your work is very high. You just have to eat it and set your rates accordingly. iD/Zennimax are big enough there's no excuse here, but as far as mentality anyone that's been freelancing in games has probably crossed over into this territory of just hoping the client stops being an idiot at least once if they're honest.
These contracts are very asymmetric in negotiating power. That's actually true of gaming in general: as both an artist or coder you'll almost certainly make more money and have a much better work life balance outside of gaming. Freelancers are even more disposable.
Basically, people who wanna make games do so mostly out of personal passion, and that means they get pretty screwed in negotiating compensation.
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.
I am 100% on Mick’s side here, but so much about this situation screams naivete and poor contracts/legal advice on his part.
He should have come down on them like a ton of bricks as soon as they announced an OST with his name on it, but that hadn’t been contracted (which both parties admit, so it’s definitely not he-said she-said).
And he’s an artist and writing the music for a doom game is a huge creative opportunity for him. id clearly took advantage of that. Too many companies exploit artists who believe in their art. It sucks.
John Carmack had no hand in DOOM (2016), and was out of iD Software for quite a while by that point, so I have no idea why you felt the need to bring him up.
Oh damn, I actually had no idea. I stand corrected, thanks for pointing it out.
That explains why there was so much hype for how good Snap Map (the level editor) turned out. I remember playing with it for a bit, and it seemed both powerful and super easy for someone with zero experience in it to get something simple but fun going.
id Software has a long history of dysfunctional management that goes back to its inception. It’s probably not fair to single out John Carmack but there was plenty of backstabbing. All four founders left the company on bad terms.
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a gag agreement that wasn't put forth by an absolute asshole to cover up their asshole behavior? Like are they ever used for good?
By their very nature, gag agreements tend not to go public. Therefore, we're probably not going to get any stories of "good" gag agreements in the news.
Yes; among the kinds of restraining orders against assholes, there can be provisions against certain kinds of public speech on certain topics (e.g. which would be harassing to someone).
They can be used in court cases to avoid biasing the public/jury before the case is heard to completion. Depending on your perspective you may see this as protecting the assholes involved but its intent is for a balanced and impartial hearing.
Non disparagement clauses are gonna be common in any settlement where the other party has the legal upper hand. A wrongful termination would be an example, where the settling party would want assurances the manager won't pull a Marty on reddit.
The original post by Marty always crossed my mind when listening to the OST sound track. It never really added up. Mick always came across a person with integrity - both artistic and otherwise. Now my mind can be put at rest.
The behavior of Marty in the way it's described comes across classic narcissistic behaviors. Hopefully Mick has learned to recognize this early on in future engagements and to tread very carefully. This applies to all people in power in companies. Do not trust until that trust is earnt, no matter how friendly or forthcoming they appear.
I learnt this early in my career and can (hopefully) can spot these people quickly before they gain too much leverage. Give them nothing that can be used against you because there is a good chance it will come back to bite.
Based on how passionate Mick is about his work, and how incredibly polished his Doom 2016 work was, I always found it unbelievable that he would have been responsible for the Doom Eternal mess. I had no idea the details would be this messy.
Unfortunately, abusing artists in media companies has become the norm.
Hollywood and the Music industry set the example for how to extract maximum value from an artist while keeping them desperate for money. Unfortunately, those Hollywood behaviours seem to have jumped to game development.
What a story. I've had to take action against bad clients before when I was working as a consultant. Never a fun process.
Mick's work on the soundtrack is such a huge component of what made these games great. His dedication to the final product and the fans is admirable. I hope he doesn't have to go through something like this again. The stress alone is not worth it.
Marty came across as a slimy prick in the (otherwise excellent) Noclip documentary about the making of Doom (2016). Turns out the real-life version is much worse.
I remember bouncing off DOOM Eternal after a couple hours because all its clever new mechanics were oddly anti-fun and puzzly resource management. Like the creators didn't know what made the predecessor special. I was confused and stopped playing a couple hours in.
So I watched the Noclip hoping to understand the design choices better. Marty was disgustingly smug and assured about it all, coming across like a victim for being a misunderstood creative genius. Several times he implied the 2016 breakout hit he was following up on was dull and repetitive.
That helped me understand where it all went wrong. I'm devastated but not surprised that Mick got treated this way. Props to him for choosing to get the word out instead of taking a payoff. I hope there are professional repercussions for Marty.
I bought the 2016 release at full price like within the first month of its release and decided to skip Eternal when I heard several reviews mention you had to ration ammo. Few things annoy me more than shooters that don't let you shoot as much as you want. Hell, every time I replay DOOM 2016 the first thing I upgrade is ammo all the way, and only then do I even consider upgrading health or armor.
I never played 2016, but ammo in Eternal is pretty much similar to any older Doom games, except that you also get ammo by using chainsaw on enemies. I think this made the game excellent, because it forces you to get close to enemies and use different types of attacks. There's lots of ammo if you know how to play it. The game always spawns these 'fodder' type enemies which can be used to get ammo, so you'll never run out.
I don't know, I didn't play Doom back in the day, but I did play other '90s shooters and as a general rule none of them were resource management games. The difficulty usually arises from multitasking, reflexes, and precision. They're designed so that if you use your entire arsenal situationally you'll never run dry unless you have really poor aim. The resource you do have to manage, although indirectly, is your health, because in each level you can only recharge so much before death is inevitable. DUKE3D was an exception, where on most level it would let you recharge completely at the cost of standing in one place just holding down the use key continuously for one or two minutes.
Yeah that game loop was what I loved too. It was brainless in the ways I enjoyed, made you feel like a Doom Guy. It was as hard as you wanted, in that vein of game. Eternal was a brave subversion that just didn't suit the origins of the franchise. Maybe they won some crossover fans, but I'm not convinced the trade was worth it.
I found it dull and repetitive, and loved Eternal. I have no idea whether I'm in the minority, but just because someone is a horrible person ethically doesn't mean that their taste in video games is horrible too.
Fair, I can definitely see why players will enjoy one or the other more. They are quite different in what mechanics they tailor for. I was put off by the demeanor of the creative director in the documentary, who it turns out wasn't Marty at all but Hugo Martin.
Wow I vaguely remember that reddit thread and I think I felt a bit confused about it. Seemed like such an OTT reaction to something that should be handled internally - and then for a public statement you would keep it short, sweet and indirect (i.e. 2 paragraphs where you don't blame anyone except maybe yourself and some section of the company).
Not surprising behavior from id software. If you've ever read the book "Masters of Doom" (great book, btw) you can see that id software from the very beginning is really only known for making cutting edge games and that they've always had problems with bad management and abusing employees.
There is a difference between questionable management when your company consists of under 10 employees (aka ultra-startup mode) vs. when you are a large gamedev company under the umbrella of a massive publisher.
A lot of things can be more understandable when you are a single-digit employee count company running on a shoestring budget (which iD Software was at the time), especially when no intentional malice was present. It is another thing when you are a large dev company that has a massive financial backing of a massive publisher, and you appear to be intentionally malicious towards a single contributor who did nothing wrong and was instrumental to your success.
Truly insane. It's a shame Mick had to go public on this so hard, I feel it has undoubtedly hurt his professional career. But what Marty/id Software did here is completely unacceptable and absolutely disgusting. What a mess.
I don’t think he is going any hard in-fact all of his post is completely focused on his treatment. He could’ve exposed Marty’s/id’s treatment with others. I think he still is trying to avoid confrontation in court, maybe settle outside.
Well, there are some good places to work. I've heard Hello Games (makers of No Man's Sky) are pretty alright, notwithstanding the kerfuffle with their initial release of NMS. I've had some acquaintances working in various Ubisoft locations say it's not bad.
Though even if it is a well-managed studio, you'll still have to deal with occasional crunch to meet holiday deadlines and such, plus the pay is often lower than similar positions in other sectors.
It's easy to say, and important to do, but also hard to do.
These relationships always have a hugely asymmetrical power balance. As a contractor your reputation is so critical and the games industry is a small place. And there are far more artists than jobs.
Contracts are in actuality tend to be based on trust. The contract probably said the payment was due when tracks were approved. If iD drags their feet on approving the tracks, then Mick is in trouble.
If the contract were instead structured payment on delivery, then iD is in trouble if Mick delivers substandard work.
Even if Marty's side of the story were 100% true (which seems doubtful), throwing a hissy-fit on Reddit basically stating "I hired a terrible person to do the music so don't blame me" is a bad look.
If iD drags their feet on approving the tracks,
then Mick is in trouble.
If the contract were instead structured payment
on delivery, then iD is in trouble if Mick delivers
substandard work.
Thank you for stating this so clearly and succinctly. There are a lot of simplistic "should have had a better contract! should have had a lawyer!" etc type comments here.
Aside from extremely trivial stuff (and maybe not even then) contracts and lawyers aren't perfect magic armor for either side.
You still need both parties to act in relatively good faith or somebody is going to be screwed over to some extent.
I might not have gotten it had I not seen it happen with (construction) contractors.
A sub-contractor did terrible work, and took out a mechanic's lien on our house nearly immediately after completion. One of their workers then assaulted my wife when she yelled at his mother (his mother apparently handled the finances and was trying to pressure my wife into signing something she didn't agree with about the quality of work).
On the other hand, mechanic's liens exist specifically for the case where the general contractor is not being timely with payment to subs; it's basically the only lever they have. In this case the lien was improper, and the AG told us we should sue if we didn't have evidence of it being lifted by EOD. I do wonder how many people just capitulate and pay for shoddy work just to make them go away.
Reading through this particular situation though, he was in a unique position to negotiate due to all of management bungles.
1. Original soundtrack author.
2. Conference announcement that he would be producing the sound track as presales exploded.
There were others as well.
I'm a very patient person, but one thing I've learned over the years is that you can't drag your feet when people are intentionally stalling you.
Within 2 weeks of the E3 announcement after multiple attempts to get it resolved, you have to make it clear that you can't continue working without a contract in place.
I'm sure it's a "hindsight is 20/20" situation, but it was hard to read through all of that management abuse without seeing him put his proverbial foot down.
That's a very valid statement, but at the same time you have to be prepared for it if you plan to be a contractor anyway.
You need your own agreements. You need somebody to review agreements presented to you. If there are IP concerns you need to have clear legal language present around that as well.
To get there, it's worth it to network in attorney circles. It's well worth it.
In creative industries it's incredibly common not to get paid for 6 months or more.
I remember a certain animation studio based out of NYC that worked on an entire animated series for 9 months after only getting paid for the first episode and then their client had a meeting with them and said "Jesus told me not to do this project". That was the end of the project and the studio. Nobody got paid. They were already constantly 6 months behind paying their animators before taking on that job...
Ugh, what a horror story. I mean, crunch is terrible enough, but I can't imagine how exhausting it must be for music production, especially when it's this kind of balls-to-the-wall power-metal stuff that is used for DOOM. While I can appreciate that it's really well done, I actually had to turn it off during the game because it was just too much for my ears.
it was always obvious that DOOM Eternal had a pretty troubled development, what with all the delays, the apparent focus on the novel multiplayer mode that nobody ended up really liking at all, the promised-after-release Dark Souls-style "invasions" system that never ended up materializing, and the general unfocused nature of the final product compared to its predecessor. but getting a peek behind the scenes here is really interesting because even though it's not the focus of this post, it does help paint a picture of a pretty rough dev cycle. it's really too bad because DOOM (2016) was an excellent complete package of a game, and Eternal felt pretty rough by comparison… I wonder what the franchise can do to make a comeback at this point. personally I'd be alright with letting the DOOM brand lie fallow for awhile once again before taking another crack at it.
fantastic read, and I hope things go better for Mr. Gordon going forward.
DOOM 2016 got by on its freshness and its tone. The combat mechanics in DOOM Eternal, while having some divisive elements, really pushed the envelope for the series and for FPS games in general. But that was thanks to Hugo Martin, not Marty Stratton.
eh, I definitely saw what DOOM Eternal was going for in terms of gameplay, but I wasn't really a fan of how it turned out in the end. the previous game was definitely a bit barebones as far as innovative gameplay was concerned but that was OK—it was a solid shooter, and a somewhat surprisingly good DOOM game! some people didn't care for the "arena" combat but I loved it, each arena was evocative of a miniature Quake multiplayer encounter! and then when Arcade Mode was added after release, I spent hours perfecting my runs on a few levels. instead of just iterating on the previous game, DOOM Eternal tried a bit too hard to craft a unique "combat puzzle" design ethos, which was alright, but didn't quite click with me.
one specific part that stuck out like a sore thumb to me—despite being ultimately a pretty minor thing—was that part where there's goop on the ground that prevents you from jumping. when I got to that part, I was like, oh neat, ok, here's a new gameplay element. now I'm gonna have to consider if there's goop on the ground in combat encounters or something going forward, cool. but no, instead, it was just used in that one sequence so you have to trudge through some goop and avoid a few stationary tentacle monsters, and then it never appears again. this stuck with me because it shows how far they've strayed from the classic DOOM design ethos, of giving level-builders tools to design interesting experiences. instead everything felt very setpiecey, very specifically-designed-for-this-encounter.
the lore stuff too felt overwrought as well—I really enjoyed how DOOM (2016) felt in that regard, it felt like you just got plopped into (the cancelled) DOOM 4, but instead of becoming immersed and participatory in the story, Doomguy didn't give a shit about anything except, goddammit, these moron scientists in yet another alternate universe once again did experiments with Hell shit and whoops yet another demonic invasion has arrived as a result—well, you know what to do, time to kick some demon ass regardless, it's what you do best! it was a good twist on the Half-Life 2 worldbuilding formula, sort of leaning on the fourth wall without totally breaking it, recognizing that players don't want a Half-Life-style DOOM 3 again, but rather, they just want to shoot some damn demons.
but then DOOM Eternal decided to play it straight and make all this overwrought lore and crap that I just could not for the life of me be arsed to care about at all. and they could've toned down the fanservice in the hub world to about 20% of what they shipped and it would've been nice without being over-the-top.
It’s a horrific story and should be a cautionary tale for anyone doing contract work. A lot can be said but a few things come to mind:
1) To call this Marty character shit would be an insult to shit. Mick made the mistake of considering him to be an honest individual who can be reasoned with. It’s disgusting that Marty’s employer hasn’t fired him so hard that he goes into orbit.
2) Mick should have a ruthless business manager interfacing to clients and handling contracts and payments.
carmack/oculus were not innocent bystanders. That they couldn't prove it in court is very different than carmack/oculus being innocent. oculus are bigger scum than zenimax.
As a musician I understand his desire to deliver a finished work that everyone could be happy with even after he was given strong incentives to just bail on it. It is a shame that the OST he wanted to release wasn't able to happen.
Based on the wording and the table of contents I'm pretty sure lawyers were involved in at least reviewing this open letter. A final ditch effort before the real expenses begin.
Is it known why this response comes out now, 2-3 years after the “DOOM Eternal OST Open Letter” to which it responds? Waiting until any related NDAs time out?
Mick says in the statement that he feels like he has exhausted every other avenue of addressing the Open Letter and lack of payment for all of the music used in the game, this is pretty much a last resort that he didn't want to have to publish.
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.
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.
As an amateur it sounds a bit like copyright with a lien or caveat attached. They legally own it now, but can't legally use it since it was rejected and not paid for. It's not as clear cut as if I personally ripped BFG Division to put in my indie game.
The post explains it quite well, I suggest reading it. I know it is a long read, but there is zero fluff or wasted space on much personal musings in there, all pure factual content.
Tl;dr: very messy legal proceedings and multiple settlement offers (including a proposed gag order that ZeniMax's legal team was trying to force upon Gordon) are the reason for why. And those legal negotiations started less than 2 years ago, after the release of the game. And throughout that whole post, it is evident that Gordon (despite being wronged multiple times in a row) pretty much kept giving them second, third, fourth, etc. chances to resolve it amicably, as he believed it was in the best interests of the projects ultimately succeeding. Only to get taken advantage of and being stabbed in the back multiple times by the same person he decided to give those extra chances and forgiveness to.
This is a really long read.
If you want a summary the Factual rebuttal at the end and the TL;DR are good.
Really damning account regarding Id's management and Marty Stratton in particular, and it seems like he's got a rather thorough paper trail to back it up. The worst I feel is him not being paid for half the music used in game that he produced and then discredited by lies on social media, and those are things he can clearly prove with the payments that were made and legal contracts he signed.
An actual contractor horror story, this will probably make future composers be very careful when signing anything with Id Software as long as management remains the same there.
This Marty person seems like a full on psychopath. I always wonder with stories like these how the lawyers feel after a day’s work. Like, “hi daddy, how was work?” - “oh it was fantastic, we strong armed an independent musician into getting screwed over by our client, an ambitious psychopath!” -hugs-
Parent comment might seem flip, but it’s actually a real and important point. There are quite a number of people with anti social personality disorder within corporate management structures. Marty has all of the hallmark signs.
I think the real sad part is that Mick wasn’t able to identify Marty’s personality type at the outset, and seemed to keep falling for his lies, gaslighting, and manipulation, and under estimated the degree to which someone like him would throw someone under the bus at a moments notice.
Mental heal of corporate America definitely needs more examination, because with this type of wealth and power, it often ruins lives both big and small.
I think the real sad part is that Mick wasn’t able
to identify Marty’s personality type at the outset
The sociopathic and sociopathy-adjacent people who rise to these positions of power are very good at cloaking behaviors.
They're not obviously creepy jerks hiding in the bushes near a playground wearing filthy clothing, leering at the children and planning an abduction. Nobody wants to work with people like that and they almost never become successful.
The ones who do climb the ranks generally have a lot of positive traits. That's what makes them so dangerous. One minute they're doing something legitimately good. The next minute they're pulling sociopathic moves.
Somebody like Jeffrey Epstein is a great example. Accomplished socialite, donated to great causes and institutions, personable, even had a close female friend so he couldn't be an abuser, right? Except he was, obviously. The lesson for me was not that people were gullible, it was that some of these predators are simply that good at cloaking themselves.
(To be crystal clear, I'm not saying Marty is as bad as Epstein, or directly comparing them in any way whatsoever. I'm just saying: successful jerks are usually a complex mix of good and bad traits. In Marty's defense he's in a high pressure role with a lot of money on the line and lots of crap to navigate and perhaps is trying his best but has come up short. I don't know.)
I blame everything but the lawyers. A functional and just legal system depends on both parties having effective legal representation. Our current system falls far short of that ideal but I never feel that lawyers are the issue.
It's the system itself, as well as the Zenimaxes and Martys of the world, that I blame.
I think we both hate those toxic, bullying behaviors.
But lawyers don't do those things on their own. They're doing it at the express direction of ZeniMax. They may even be direct employees of Zenimax, who knows.
I'm not totally absolving lawyers from blame, but they're much closer to being a symptom than the problem.
It's worth noting as well that the decision to settle is (at least nominally) reserved solely to the client. If Marty/id/Zenimax say no settlement, hold the line then ultimately the outside law firm can't do much to wrap things up. They can drop the client, but that has issues of its own.
I think corporate law uses the rationale about legal representation to shield itself from much soul-searching around bad behavior, but that's another discussion and the underlying principle is certainly true.
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.
The only gut feeling I have is that other people might have took the gag money plus the heavy-handed NDA or don't have the clout of Mr. Gordon to publicly speak out. But other than that, you're right. I hope more people come out and share their stories wrt id.
It's all "who said what" until Mick shows screenshots of timestamps embedded in the audio files - direct proof that Marty outright lied. This could be important if there is any litigation made against Mick for this post if they attempt to destroy him financially by going to court.
> This could be important if there is any litigation made against Mick for this post if they attempt to destroy him financially by going to court.
The problem is, every lawsuit - even if the facts are on your side - still has a chance of going belly-up at least partially and making you responsible for even a part of the opposing party's lawyer costs as judges have quite a bit of leeway in many jurisdictions on distributing cost between parties. Big companies routinely abuse this threat scenario because they know 99% of people can't afford paying big lawyer companies that earn five digits an hour.
I really enjoyed DOOM Eternal, but I rarely follow communities for games online so I didn't realize this was such a thing. Sad that a great game spawned such a nasty situation. It does seem Mick is in the right, here, this didn't have to go this way.
A lot of assholery going on at ID management, but mick did a lot of mistakes himself.
He probably should just have sued them to pay for all the music and to not put his name on the OST...
And why in the world would you trust that marty guy after talking with him on the phone. That just ... Also it would probably helped his reputation, to write some of this (the part about the OST) earlier in the doom reddit as response to marty.
Almost all the biggest subs, or popular subs tied to a commercial product, have shitty moderators. They're either modding dozens of subs or have conflicts of interest with said products.
This is so widespread it really lends to the conspiracy (almost certainly true) that most viral reddit content is astroturfed. Perfect example, one of the premier journalists in esports, Richard Lewis, cannot have his excellent and often-ground-breaking content posted to the LoL subreddit because the mods are in bed with Riot.
It's sad any time I see fellow proletariat or PMC doing free work for billion dollar companies and to the detriment of other people just trying to make a living.
I think it is more of a lobster in the pot situation. Every contractor is used to watching as the business side of an effort fucks everything up and doing their best to deliver despite the best efforts of managers and lawyers everywhere. SOWs not matching the original description? Asking to start work before the ink dries? Actually we dont want to pay for that thing we said we would pay for after all? No b2b transaction goes without at least one of those. In consulting lingo we call it "pricing in some slack" and its a lesson every rookie learns on their first ever contract 100% of the time.
He just didn't notice when it became irredeemable because hey, he's been working with DOOM for decades at this point and it's always worked out.
Pre-OST it sounds like he kept interacting in hopes that they would pay him on time. For the OST, I suppose a combination of professional decency and the fact that his name was already attached to the release kept him going.
Mick Gordon's been a household name thanks to his legendary DOOM(2016) soundtrack, so I'm not surprised he was trying to keep it up. A musician can really live or die by their name recognition and that open letter did a helluva number to his reputation.
I'm not a lawyer, but this is a difficult road. You can't sue merely because somebody wrote mean or untrue things.
You have to prove that they're untrue and that they caused you harm.
In Mick's case, that harm would presumably take the form of lost income in form of work he didn't receive from other companies due to Marty's false claims. That's difficult (read: expensive) to prove in court.
Also, as others have noted, suing iD/Zenimax would also be some level of professional suicide. There are way more talented arts than there are paying artist gigs. That means game companies have hundreds or thousands of artists to choose from, and they consciously or subconsciously filter out the "risky" ones.
Quite possibly, but that's a lot of money to put up against a company (zenimax) known for their legal team. It would also mean never working with id/zenimax/bethesda/possibly even Microsoft game studios in general again.
He had a lot at stake a lot of incentives to work something out with them. Not everyone can afford to just hire lawyers immediately and only talk through lawyers and burn bridges even further than they're already burned.
Reading this account, written from a position of hindsight, absolutely.
But when you're in the thick of it, involved with a project you really want to succeed, and which has an impact on your reputation, it is so, so easy to convince yourself that it's all a misunderstanding and you just need to keep trying. Particularly if you are a good-hearted person yourself. I've certainly suffered from this (and very few people who know me would agree that i need to be more of an arsehole!).
Half of it is that, and half of it is that it is standard procedure for contract artists to not be caught standing in a court of law. Nobody wants to hire people who sue.
Because that gives the studio the reputation of being a deadbeat. All the incentives point towards "keep disputes private and resolve them out of court if possible".
Obviously, if the studios never pay, then nobody agrees to work for them, and the whole system of creative production just collapses.
Related note: iD is going to have a harder time hiring composers now that this is public.
Having worked as a contractor ... sometimes, you hope things will get better or at least tolerable, or you go on because still need to be paid because stopping may mean you get nothing (bad contracts).
It's a pretty common topic for contractors.
Perhaps, but he has provided actual evidence that conflicts with Marty's public open letter (late date of contract finalization; work on soundtrack excluding him far prior to being near the deadline).
IDK "game studio doesn't allot enough time to make game, narcissistic manager works very hard to get anyone else to take the fall" isn't at all hard for me to believe.
This dude has screenshots, file metadata, and a contract to back him up. That contract says 12 songs. Sounds like that's all there is to it.
At the end of the day, this is a bog-standard contract dispute over creative differences, and now these guys have to hash it out in the court of public opinion, because some gamers didn't feel like the soundtrack was good enough for their money, and started making a stink? Good grief. "Social" media is killing society.
>because some gamers didn't feel like the soundtrack was good enough for their money, and started making a stink?
I would compare Mick Gordon's contribution to the Doom game here to that of Howard Shore in Lord of the Rings. The experience is fundamentally limited without the music.
Attempting to remove the Reddit post myself
I’d had enough. I grew tired of having the respect I afforded Marty, and his employer, with attempts to resolve the dispute privately, get turned into a giant waste of time, effort and money. The Reddit post had been up for 15 months and attempts to resolve the dispute with Marty had gotten me nowhere. With my patience stretched to the absolute limit, I decided to take steps to remove the Reddit post myself.
Reddit Moderator: I reached out to one of the r/DOOM moderators. We made contact and arranged a call via Discord.
The moderator introduced himself and spoke about his love for the DOOM franchise and its fanbase. Along with the r/DOOM subreddit, he told me he also moderated the official DOOM Discord server.
I told him how Marty’s Reddit post had affected me deeply, both professionally and personally. It was a source of ongoing stress and harm, and I asked if he’d consider removing it.
Much to my relief, he instantly took it down.
But within 12 hours, the post was reinstated. The moderator blocked me on Discord and didn’t reply to my emails.
A few days later, Marty’s lawyers contacted me and said removing the Reddit post had greatly offended him. He was furious and made it clear in the strongest terms that an amicable resolution would be impossible.
I just read some of the article and that's horrible behavior from ID.
You have my support, Mick.