The other day Microsoft Studios’ Creative Director, Adam Orth, had what appeared to be a heated argument with a BioWare Senior Designer, Manveer Heir, over Twitter. The “always-on” debate in the gaming world, as it turns out, gets people pretty hot under the collar. A NeoGAF thread posted a batch of screenshots of the Twitter debate, and legions of gamers went damn near rabid. Here’s just a few of them:
Like probably all of you, I don’t know Adam Orth personally, and I don’t follow him on Twitter. Based only on these screenshots of Orth’s tweets, he appears to be just the worst kind of elitist jackass. (Let’s put an emphasis on the word “appears” before we move on.) Orth appears to represent those much-maligned suits of the gaming world who totally fumbled the recent SimCity launch, as just one example, those bigwig decision-makers who seem to be more concerned with their pirates than with their customers.
Worst of all, Orth appears to represent the people atop the ivory tower of gaming big-business who are so disconnected from the rest of life that their response to “always-on” complaints amounts to: deal with it, you country rubes. Also: if you don’t live in a big city, that’s your choice and you should quit being such a country rube.
On one hand, I can’t blame people for going all flame-brigade on Orth, he does a remarkably effective job of being completely infuriating. I’m sure the whole “elitist cityfolk” angle didn’t win him any admirers.
But as with many such cases of internet-outrage, the reality is far less interesting than the uproar.
Granted, Orth and Microsoft have really dropped the ball on parrying this PR disaster. Orth’s twitter feed went on lock-down–it had probably become a communal flamepit, so you can’t blame him for that–then Microsoft lobbed a press release that basically said: “He doesn’t speak for Microsoft.” They failed to mention the part where he claims he was totally joking, and messing with Heir. But the thing is, if the internet folks who got so angry would have looked into it before calling in the Wolverines, they would have found this also-tweeted explanation from Orth (as retweeted by Manveer Heir):
“Orthy: Just the normal daily back and forth I have with Manveer. Apologies for offending non-cities. I was trolling him personally.
Heir: oh in fairness, he had me going at first, and then I was like WAIT A MINUTE HE’S TROLLING MY ASS. MOTHERFUCKER”
As well as these responses from Heir:
“Heir: A dear friend of mine @adam_orth is getting a lot of flak, some unfairly. Let me say he’s one of the good guys and cut him some slack please”
“Heir: So @adam_orth got NeoGAFed. You should know we are good friends who joke around with one another. Don’t read too much into our back & forth.
All those tweets you are seeing about the city being superior. That’s him just trolling me. And I fell for it. Don’t bust his balls on that.
If anyone wants to post my last two tweets up on NeoGAF up [sic] for context for the GAFers it would be appreciated. Just want to provide context.”
Now, it is hard to tell where the absolute truth of this story lies, but it seems to be somewhere between total candor and total trolling. Which really narrows it down. The fact we can be sure of, is that Adam Orth didn’t deserve quite the deluge of hatred he got. Maybe a slew of irked tweets, sure, but the masses acted like he defecated on every one of their childhood teddy bears and blankies and puppies and kitties, all at once.
So an entire community of internet folks with related interests incited themselves into a big ol’ angry mob over something which it turns out was either nothing, or way ginned up?
No, way.
While the actual story here seems to be a non-event. It was revealed recently that Adam Orth was let go from Microsoft Studios. This should serve as a warning to anyone with a name and a voice in the gaming development world, the gaming community is a fickle mistress. I’m sure Adam Orth didn’t deserve to get canned over his comments–and I can say, with all sincerity, that he has my sympathies–but at very least we can try to learn something from this, let’s call it a “kerfuffle.” Pretty sure that is the right word.
Lesson the first, watch your mouth.
If you have a title like “Creative Director at Microsoft Studios”–and especially so if that title displays prominently beneath your Twitter avatar–you should realize that your words carry weight, and maybe you should think twice before you get your trollolols in such a public forum. Easy to say in hindsight, of course, but worth remembering.
Second, that “Always-on” thing.
People take this always-on debate really, really seriously (and intrusive DRM more generally). Yes, there is almost certainly an over-sensitivity on this point, but instead of dismissing it as merely that, I think it’s worth examining the reason behind it. The disconnect, as far as I can tell, is this:
On one side, people say, “What’s the big deal? If you’re not pirating a game, it shouldn’t affect you.” That’s a fair point until restrictive DRM prevents honest consumers from enjoying the games they just shelled out their hard-earned money for. And honestly, it is ridiculous to think I might come home with a game (or finish downloading one, as is more likely these days) and not even be able to play the single-player mode because the DRM malfunctioned or my Comcast internet crapped out on me. For the consumers, this is the only side that gets attention, which is not not entirely unfair. If DRM works the way it should, it should be invisible.
It’s also that gamers possess a type of brand loyalty which is particular to the gaming world. When it feels like these companies, to whom gamers have given so much time and money, turn around and act like they don’t give the slightest of shits about their customer base, I think these gamers feel personally betrayed.
These are legitimate feelings.
Third: despite the above-stated, gamers really need to lighten up.
I only need one piece of evidence for my argument: EA has been voted the “Worst Company in America” for the second year in a row. Okay, granted, gamers almost certainly voted in numbers that completely skewed the results considering the fact that geek community sites regularly have “Let’s throw the results of this poll” parties. But that only further serves my point.
(Warning: gross oversimplification incoming.) We are currently clawing our way out of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, caused almost single-handedly by the unethical and risky practices of banks afterward deemed “too big to fail.” Companies who took government money to save themselves, then turned around and continued to do the exact same thing that got us into this mess in the first place. None of these people are in jail.
This is a country where the very people in charge of regulating out-of-control organizations walk out of their government office and stroll directly into the company they were supposedly regulating for the past however-many years (or vice versa). We live in a country where Monsanto and the FDA are god damned pen pals. Where countless companies outsource production jobs to what are essentially slave-labor factories. This is merely scratching the surface and I don’t have the patience or heart to look up all of the other stuff you should actually be pissed off about.
And y’all nerds go and vote EA the worst company in America because they botched the SimCity launch?
Get, the fuck, over it.
They make video games. Video games you dislike. Maybe they treat their employees like crap, too, but do you think they can hold a candle to any number of other companies in that respect?
Our hobby/passion of choice is still excellent, and awesome, and the most exciting narrative and experiential medium currently evolving, but they’re still video games.