Mick Gordon gives out a full statement regarding Doom Eternal

[Cacodemon345]

https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full- ... 98266b27ce

The part about being given no money for 11 months, having to live with microwaved food and sleeping in the studio is rather horrifying. Not to mention the alternate OST already being produced by id Software themselves.

[Chris]

Can't say I'm surprised.

Mick has the patience of a saint, being put through all that for the production of the game's music, then being both strong-armed and brick-walled on the OST (strong-armed by having his name attached to a product that they hadn't even started discussing making yet, let alone not having a contract to make, then brick-walled by them not responding to requests to get the process started), having half the game's music basically being stolen from him (by them using it in the final game after saying they had rejected it and didn't pay for it), and being threatened with being on the hook for consumer protection violations for not delivering a product he hadn't been asked to make until the last minute, and still continuing to find an amicable resolution to where he can produce a proper OST for the game, on the condition that Marty simply take down that reddit post that has demonstrably false statements.

I would be surprised if there aren't lawyers now interested in getting in touch with him, though.

[NeuralStunner]

I had been avoiding "picking a side" on this during the initial fallout, but I'm hearing Mick on this one. To start with, because of his attitude toward the rest of the design & dev team — Straight up telling people not to "boycott" DE or harass Id staff (who were not having a great time either). The letter also goes into great detail, particularly with things that can be backed up by legal documents (the contracts themselves).

His reputation has been sunk so hard, I wonder if he'll even be able to keep up his work. That sucks.

[Rachael]

I hate how this has some people (particularly on sites like Reddit) riled up in really unhealthy and toxic ways. For the record I side with Mick on this and I think Marty is full of shit - but that's only from the evidence that I've seen so far on this. (btw Marty, if you have any of that "evidence" it's time to pony up with it because your last statement seems to be nothing more than a "save face") I'm not trying to get involved in this and this seems perfectly well the kind of thing I'd rather keep my hands clean of.

Either way though people are definitely taking sides on this, and some of them take it to such an extreme that it reveals what toxic pieces of garbage they truly are. I've never liked the "you are either 100% with us or you're against us" mentality, I think it's destructive and accomplishes the opposite of whatever you want people to think you are trying to accomplish, and I've seen it with people who've chosen "Team Mick". It's a disgrace and it quite truly degrades your argument to meaninglessness.

I am so sick and tired of seeing the "agree with me or die" crap. It only really comes from people that are so narcissistic and self-hating that they look for even the most meager excuses to hate and abuse people who commit the god-awful heinous crime of not fully agreeing with them, like somehow they're more moral than everyone else - and use that as an excuse to elevate their shitty selves over someone else. No, you're not a better person just because you "agree with Mick" - what makes you a better person is *why* you agree with Mick - and the understanding that not everyone *has* to take your side. If you think it's okay to abuse and attack people for not siding with you - YOU are a piece of shit. And taking the "moral" side does not excuse it, not even 1%, not even one tiny bit.

[sinisterseed]

Indeed, this has been a disaster ever since the Reddit post from Marty, which thanks to Mick making no statements whatsoever apart from the infamous "doubt we'll work together again" chat reply, only did no-one justice. In hindsight I was guilty of that, too, since Marty's record and communication with the community was good, I found no reason to doubt his claims.

Well, not anymore it seems. Bethesda has since made a statement claiming that Mick's is just "hideously one sided" and missing the whole picture, while asking both "teams" to stop taking sides. Whatever the truth may be, I wonder what Bethesda manages to come up next, as Mick's answer very much contains some undeniable facts, such as the delay, id already working on the soundtrack for 6 months, screwing up the deadline, demanding more than what was asked for in the contract, and Mick not getting his money up to this day.

Ah yes, Doom, the gift that keeps on giving. Or not. Whatever the case, truly in this industry you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I guess it was just about time the disease reached id/Bethesda fully.

[KynikossDragonn]

This entire situation makes me glad I gave up my so-called "hopes & dreams" of getting any kind of "job" in game development, or just in general at that point. I'd rather go homeless than deal with all the toxic mentalities and tribalism that goes on in these so called "work environments"... I have enough psychological/neurological illnesses to deal with enough as it is!

I hope Mick gets some well deserved justice somehow, but considering the whole "justice system" revolves around money than doing the right thing I'm not terribly optimistic about a positive outcome. He really deserves better than this even though I wasn't a particular fan of the Doom Reboot music style.

[Darkcrafter]

Doom Eternal soundtrack sounded pretty cool to me. I don't know maybe they didn't want to have more of Mick music. But the contract....hm some people here say West is about making pledges and contracts and it's the only sacred thing left there. Perhaps, this case is more about court proceedings rather fans choosing sides, seriously why are we human so dumb. Emotions contribute a lot to the thinking process.

This entire situation makes me glad I gave up my so-called "hopes & dreams" of getting any kind of "job" in game development, or just in general at that point. I'd rather go homeless than deal with all the toxic mentalities and tribalism that goes on in these so called "work environments"... I have enough psychological/neurological illnesses to deal with enough as it is!

This work tribalism seems to be just another new religion. Here is a sign of someone dealing with a cult: there is always a man who claims to be a god. You could say, hey what if there was no cult of work but was regular old fashion religion. I'd say sometimes these guys are working in even worse conditions blaming all their falls a will of God. In my opinion, the only thing to prevent extremes are labor unions and presence of thinking and educated civil society.

Here is a good question to raise: how to build a reliable labor union on such opaque place like internet/software.

[NeuralStunner]

Bethesda PR's statement is hypocritical chest-beating. They could've easily made a neutral/blameless statement that addresses the problems of harassment and "trial by public opinion", but they chose to double down on the reddit drama. The assertion that Mick's statements "incited" harassment/threats is outright false. Or perhaps by "these statements" they meant that they happily lumped him in with actual bad actors, which is bottom-tier scummy.

Important reminder that this is Bethesda Softworks (the publisher) and not Bethesda Game Studios (the dev studio), the latter has no involvement in the drama and should be left alone to work on Space Skyrim.

[Chris]

Bethesda PR's statement is hypocritical chest-beating.

Particularly since they still refuse to take down the Reddit post that started the harassment against Mick in the first place (and is partly the reason why Mick responded as he did). IMO, once Bethesda was aware Marty made demonstrably false statements in that post, and those statements continued to cause harassment, threats, and other harms to Mick and his career, their refusal to have it taken down (or to at least disown Marty's statements) makes them complicit in what resulted from the Reddit post.