# Mick Gordon makes lengthy statement regarding working with id Software on DOOM Eternal



## CTID (Nov 10, 2022)

This is a hell of a long read (page says about 58 minutes, which is about right) and provides some insight into Mick's experience crunching on Doom Eternal's soundtrack and the hell he's been through in the interim.



I remember seeing Marty Stratton's reddit post about this back in May 2020 and had kind of forgotten about the whole ordeal since then, but reading this is pretty stomach churning to see how poorly he was treated.

tl;dr:

*Summary of Facts*​*DOOM Eternal*​*I haven’t been paid for over half of DOOM Eternal’s music**: *The game includes more than double the music I was contracted to produce. Rejects, mockups, demos, many of which were never meant for public release. I created this music as part of the development process and shared it with id Software in good faith. But id Software used the music in the game, marketing and soundtrack and still refuses to pay me for it.
*The DOOM Eternal OST was a mess*​It was announced, with my name attached, and made available for pre-order *before I was contracted to produce it*. Despite my alarm and constant appeals Marty refused to do anything about the situation, leading to a nine-month delay before I could start work.

After seven months of inaction, I reported my concerns to Bethesda.
Bethesda and I negotiated the DOOM Eternal OST directly, without Marty’s involvement.
I received the contract on March 18, 2020, _just __48 hours__ before DOOM Eternal was released_. The delay was announced a week earlier before I was under contract.
The deadline was April 16 (29 days later) and the contract stipulated id Software had complete creative control and would aquire access to all my source material.
*Marty withheld **crucial details** from me* until 13 days before my deadline, such as:

Potential legal trouble they faced for taking pre-orders before it was under contract.
Details about their internally-produced OST: an alternative edited from my in-game score, which they’d worked on for at least six months without my knowledge or involvement.
*I didn’t approve the release: *In the days leading up to April 16, Marty cut me out of the process and decided to release their alternative version instead, reducing my direct contributions to filler. Both he, and id Software’s Lead Audio Designer, Chad Mossholder, didn’t allow me to hear the final album and didn’t seek my approval; they weren’t contractually required to do so.
*OST release*​*Their **poor-quality release* immediately drew criticism, and a worried Marty personally asked me for assistance in addressing the situation. I made myself entirely available to Marty and committed to satisfying disappointed customers with a better OST. Marty made it clear he wanted me involved, saying he wanted a positive outcome, had no ill intentions and wanted to resolve the issue professionally.

He offered to draft a joint statement addressing the situation and announcing plans to move forward.
He requested I hold off on making further public comments until we could address the public together.
Marty told me to expect the draft within hours, but it never arrived.
*Reddit*​*Instead*, days later, he published a 2500+ word “open letter” on a fan-run Reddit page that singled me out as the sole cause behind the botched OST. The post attracted thousands of comments and news articles and severely damaged my personal and professional reputation. Worst of all, he did it behind my back whilst leading me on with a bullshit story about working together on a professional solution to the problem.
*His statement was full of **lies, disinformation and innuendo*, and when challenged, his company offered me a six-figure sum to shut up about it. When I tried, time and time again, amid a torrent of abuse, harassment and threats, to resolve the matter more amicably, he constantly refused, worried how addressing the Reddit post would damage his own reputation instead.
*But as far as I’m concerned, truth and honesty are more important: *Marty’s words damaged my character and attacked my reputation. I have afforded him ample opportunity to address this issue, but his refusal to do so has left me with no option other than to issue this statement.
*In issuing this statement, I’m exercising my right to defend myself.*​


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## John (Nov 10, 2022)

How to completely destroy a working relationship with a musician: a guide.


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## Crungy (Nov 10, 2022)

Yikes, what a mess. I didn't know there was a bunch of drama and bullshit attached to this.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 10, 2022)

Glad this has finally come out and Mick can tell his side of the story. The gaming industry is such a s**tshow full of countless stories like this.


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## TedEH (Nov 10, 2022)

This article has been making the rounds at work, and I've been fighting back the snark. Makes me really sad for id, not just because I've always been a fan of Doom in all it's incarnations, but also because they were a huge part of the history of the medium.


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## TheBlackBard (Nov 10, 2022)

TedEH said:


> This article has been making the rounds at work, and I've been fighting back the snark. Makes me really sad for id, not just because I've always been a fan of Doom in all it's incarnations, but also because they were a huge part of the history of the medium.



Why you sad for id? They're the ones who fucked him over.


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## MFB (Nov 10, 2022)

TheBlackBard said:


> Why you sad for id? They're the ones who fucked him over.



"Sad for" in the sense of they became the villain after all this time of being the hero, what with DOOM being the origin of the FPS and all


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## TedEH (Nov 10, 2022)

TheBlackBard said:


> Why you sad for id?





MFB said:


> "Sad for" in the sense of they became the villain after all this time of being the hero, what with DOOM being the origin of the FPS and all


MFB's got it.

I also have a hunch that it's less id, and more the Bethesda/Zenimax influence, but I could be wrong. Game companies tend to have a lot of turnover so the id of today is clearly not the id of yesteryear.


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## CTID (Nov 10, 2022)

TedEH said:


> MFB's got it.
> 
> I also have a hunch that it's less id, and more the Bethesda/Zenimax influence, but I could be wrong. Game companies tend to have a lot of turnover so the id of today is clearly not the id of yesteryear.


to be fair, Marty Stratton is a name i remember hearing around Doom 3 times. he's been with id since '97


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## HoneyNut (Nov 10, 2022)

TedEH said:


> MFB's got it.
> 
> I also have a hunch that it's less id, and more the Bethesda/Zenimax influence, but I could be wrong. Game companies tend to have a lot of turnover so the id of today is clearly not the id of yesteryear.


No, it's no idspispopd, iddqd, idkfa, noclip


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## TheBlackBard (Nov 10, 2022)

TedEH said:


> MFB's got it.
> 
> I also have a hunch that it's less id, and more the Bethesda/Zenimax influence, but I could be wrong. Game companies tend to have a lot of turnover so the id of today is clearly not the id of yesteryear.



Ah gotcha... yeah, I get it. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.


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## soul_lip_mike (Nov 10, 2022)

Definitely co-written with legal counsel I'm sure. I can't recall, was this pre-microsoft acquisition of Bethesda?


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## MFB (Nov 10, 2022)

soul_lip_mike said:


> Definitely co-written with legal counsel I'm sure. I can't recall, was this pre-microsoft acquisition of Bethesda?



I think they put out DOOM 2016 before the acquisition, but Eternal is for sure put out under it. I want to say it was 2018 or so that that deal happened.


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## TedEH (Nov 11, 2022)

As I understand it, it's all post-Bethesda, but the MS acquisition happens in the middle of this story. If I had to guess, MS had little influence on this case. I can only guess though.


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## CTID (Nov 11, 2022)

soul_lip_mike said:


> Definitely co-written with legal counsel I'm sure. I can't recall, was this pre-microsoft acquisition of Bethesda?





MFB said:


> I think they put out DOOM 2016 before the acquisition, but Eternal is for sure put out under it. I want to say it was 2018 or so that that deal happened.





TedEH said:


> As I understand it, it's all post-Bethesda, but the MS acquisition happens in the middle of this story. If I had to guess, MS had little influence on this case. I can only guess though.


Bethesda was acquired by Microsoft in March of 2021, so this is all pre MS.

i do wonder if bethesda offering Mick a six-figure gag order was because they didn't want issues like this out in the open while they were courting MS to be bought out, but that's obviously just a guess


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## MFB (Nov 11, 2022)

Holy shit, that was legitimately only LAST YEAR? What the actual FUCK, that feels like an eternity ago.


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## wankerness (Nov 11, 2022)

Welp, by far the main reason I bought both Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal was the music, so guess I won't be buying a potential Doom 3 unless they reconcile with him!


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## TedEH (Nov 11, 2022)

CTID said:


> i do wonder if bethesda offering Mick a six-figure gag order was because they didn't want issues like this out in the open while they were courting MS to be bought out, but that's obviously just a guess


While we're all speculating, I've heard people describe Zenimax as being famously litigious (to the point I've met people who were afraid of working with them), so I wouldn't be shocked if that's just their default mode of conflict resolution.


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## cindarkness (Nov 11, 2022)

Whoa, what an absolute mess. I wish I had the time to read through his letter, but god damn. Been a fan and actually found out of Mick and his work when this released. Wishing him lots of GREAT projects down the road, this man knows how to create the appropriate atmosphere with music. 

A true Hans Zimmer of Metal 

This is why I don't spend my hard earned 70$ on AAA titles anymore. Broken promises, unfinished releases, underpaid (if paid at all) developers and cases like this.


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## TedEH (Nov 11, 2022)

cindarkness said:


> This is why I don't spend my hard earned 70$ on AAA titles anymore.


Keep in mind a AAA title takes hundred of people to make, even if you exclude the people who contribute to things like the engine and middleware and contractors for all kinds of things that don't get credited, etc. On top of that, any organization of that size is going to have a couple of dickheads in the mix - and in the odd unfortunate case, they land in places of authority.


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## Carrion Rocket (Nov 11, 2022)

cindarkness said:


> This is why I don't spend my hard earned 70$ on AAA titles anymore. Broken promises, unfinished releases, underpaid (if paid at all) developers and cases like this.


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## BlackMastodon (Nov 11, 2022)

That's a tough read, even the summarized version @CTID posted (thank you, by the way). This would seem like a dream job for countless musicians, especially metalheads, but getting completely fucked by red tape and corporate bullshit and then told to shut up about it is just heartbreaking. I like that he tweeted out that message and I feel for the grunt workers who worked their assets off in crunch mode to put out 2 highly acclaimed games, but the people in charge should have to answer for shit like this. What's more depressing is that I can only imagine that this is all too common among contractors in the industry in all departments.


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## brector (Nov 11, 2022)

wankerness said:


> Welp, by far the main reason I bought both Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal was the music, so guess I won't be buying a potential Doom 3 unless they reconcile with him!


Well, since it came out in 2004, you would be a little late


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## wankerness (Nov 11, 2022)

brector said:


> Well, since it came out in 2004, you would be a little late


You know what I meant! "New Doom 3"? "Doom 2016 3?" "Doom Eternal 2"?


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## bostjan (Nov 11, 2022)

Wow, this is bringing up lots of flashbacks for me. I've been in almost exactly this situation, except it was with some random guy and not a manager at a billion dollar studio.

I don't think any of these tactics are out of the ordinary, except maybe the reddit post. And I think that the reddit post might potentially be the legal undoing of Marty, if these things are as demonstrably false as they appear to be. But the chance of getting this to court any time soon is probably shaving really close to zero.

I wish Mick all of the best. What a nightmare.


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## brector (Nov 11, 2022)

wankerness said:


> You know what I meant! "New Doom 3"? "Doom 2016 3?" "Doom Eternal 2"?


Don't worry, I am over here waiting for a new Unreal Tournament game, or maybe another Tribes game haha


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## thrsher (Nov 11, 2022)

i hope this viral campaign is successful for mick. this is some BS


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## wankerness (Nov 11, 2022)

brector said:


> Don't worry, I am over here waiting for a new Unreal Tournament game, or maybe another Tribes game haha


Unreal Tournament 1 was probably the best FPS of all time. I have no doubt that a new entry would be multiplayer only and would have the ability to only hold 2 weapons at once, totally ruining it.


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## TedEH (Nov 11, 2022)

brector said:


> I am over here waiting for a new Unreal Tournament game


I'm not hopeful for this, given how other most other old shooter franchises have turned into your standard live-service skinner-boxes. See: Quake Champions.


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## nickgray (Nov 11, 2022)

brector said:


> Don't worry, I am over here waiting for a new Unreal Tournament game


They tried and failed miserably, UT4 was supposed to be some weird community-driven thing, but nobody really bothered.

I'd rather not a see Unreal Tournament game. We've already had UT99, 2003/2004, and UT3. It's more than enough, and the first one was the most solid one, 2004 mostly brought Onslaught and a fresh coat of paint. UT3 looked great technically, but also had that Gears of War washed out look, and it brought nothing new to the table, same mistake as they did when releasing 2003.

What I'd very much like to see is a new multiplayer arena shooter with as much creativity as UT99 had shown back in the day (don't forget about the original Unreal where most of UT99's weapons first appeared). It's a huge problem with sequels and reboots - they're always derivative, it's just a question to which degree, and how much they extend and improve upon the original game. I honestly don't want to see another Deus Ex, XCOM, Quake, Doom, whatever. I want something new that advances upon what came before it, not a rehash.


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## Kaura (Nov 11, 2022)

Edit: Nvm


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## brector (Nov 11, 2022)

nickgray said:


> They tried and failed miserably, UT4 was supposed to be some weird community-driven thing, but nobody really bothered.
> 
> I'd rather not a see Unreal Tournament game. We've already had UT99, 2003/2004, and UT3. It's more than enough, and the first one was the most solid one, 2004 mostly brought Onslaught and a fresh coat of paint. UT3 looked great technically, but also had that Gears of War washed out look, and it brought nothing new to the table, same mistake as they did when releasing 2003.
> 
> What I'd very much like to see is a new multiplayer arena shooter with as much creativity as UT99 had shown back in the day (don't forget about the original Unreal where most of UT99's weapons first appeared). It's a huge problem with sequels and reboots - they're always derivative, it's just a question to which degree, and how much they extend and improve upon the original game. I honestly don't want to see another Deus Ex, XCOM, Quake, Doom, whatever. I want something new that advances upon what came before it, not a rehash.


I didn't play many after the original UT. At the time, I worked for a community college in their IT dept. We would all gather in whatever computer lab was not in use and play for hours. Had many games "hidden" on the lab machines - what a time haha


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## wankerness (Nov 11, 2022)

nickgray said:


> They tried and failed miserably, UT4 was supposed to be some weird community-driven thing, but nobody really bothered.
> 
> I'd rather not a see Unreal Tournament game. We've already had UT99, 2003/2004, and UT3. It's more than enough, and the first one was the most solid one, 2004 mostly brought Onslaught and a fresh coat of paint. UT3 looked great technically, but also had that Gears of War washed out look, and it brought nothing new to the table, same mistake as they did when releasing 2003.
> 
> What I'd very much like to see is a new multiplayer arena shooter with as much creativity as UT99 had shown back in the day (don't forget about the original Unreal where most of UT99's weapons first appeared). It's a huge problem with sequels and reboots - they're always derivative, it's just a question to which degree, and how much they extend and improve upon the original game. I honestly don't want to see another Deus Ex, XCOM, Quake, Doom, whatever. I want something new that advances upon what came before it, not a rehash.


2004 was great, we played it a ton. 2003 was pretty much pointless, 2004 took all the graphical enhancements from that and added actual fun back to it with the vehicles. We had so much fun in onslaught mode in that game. I still think the first is the best, but 2004's very close thanks to the vehicles.

Saying "it's more than enough" isn't exactly true with something that's primarily multiplayer cause unless they release a new remaster (at minimum) you're not going to have enough player base to really experience it again. Though the original played just fine with all bot opponents IMO.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 11, 2022)

brector said:


> Don't worry, I am over here waiting for a new Unreal Tournament game, or maybe another Tribes game haha



I’m hopelessly waiting for a modern Hexen/Heretic game. They touched on some of the monsters and level designs in DOOM eternal.


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## nickgray (Nov 11, 2022)

Lorcan Ward said:


> I’m hopelessly waiting for a modern Hexen/Heretic game


Hexen and Heretic are really different though. Amid Evil is a bit relevant, it's a fantasy old-school FPS, but it's a bit wonky, I tried really hard to like it, but there's just something off about it. But there are some other good modern old school shooters, check out Dusk and Ion Fury. Dusk is a sort of a what if Quake 2 was more of a Quake 1, with the emphasis on Lovecraftian weird shit instead of Strogg and brown corridors (though to be fair, Quake 1 was very brown too). Ion Fury is a new Build Engine game, on an actual Build Engine. It's closer to Shadow Warrior in gameplay style than to Duke Nukem or Blood, and the levels are ridiculously intricate, detailed, and non-linear, it genuinely has one of the best level design in shooters, period.

Hexen style game with hubs and switch hunting with an emphasis on exploration... yeah, that would be awesome. I don't remember any other game taking this approach aside from Hexen 2, which was a bit half baked and not as good. Hexen basically a first person Metroidvania, but without upgrading tons of different abilities throughout the game, and the hub level design is more closed.


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## soul_lip_mike (Nov 12, 2022)

If you're gonna listen to the Doom Eternal OST listen to this version.


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## bostjan (Nov 12, 2022)

Lorcan Ward said:


> I’m hopelessly waiting for a modern Hexen/Heretic game. They touched on some of the monsters and level designs in DOOM eternal.


Heretic was my jam as a teenager. I have no idea how a modern version would work, but I'd love a retro re-release on modern consoles.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 12, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Heretic was my jam as a teenager. I have no idea how a modern version would work, but I'd love a retro re-release on modern consoles.



They were beta testing console ports last year and released the PC versions on the Xbox store but no word on console releases.

I think a modern version like DOOM 2016 meets Skyrim with lots of magic, puzzle and fantasy enemies would work great. It would be a hard sell using Heretic or Hexen as the title though.


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## brector (Nov 14, 2022)

Lorcan Ward said:


> I’m hopelessly waiting for a modern Hexen/Heretic game. They touched on some of the monsters and level designs in DOOM eternal.


Have you played Project Warlock?


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## bostjan (Nov 14, 2022)

brector said:


> Have you played Project Warlock?


I tried it. I thought it was pretty good, but there was just something about it that didn't jibe with me.

Honestly, that's more like they tried to take a modern game and give it retro graphics than the other way around, though.


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## TedEH (Nov 14, 2022)

brector said:


> Project Warlock?


Decent game. Can recommend. 



bostjan said:


> Honestly, that's more like they tried to take a modern game and give it retro graphics than the other way around, though.


I landed in the same place with that one. I like it, but I can sort of "feel" the "indie game made by a tiny team in Unity with retro-influences" all over it. It's fun in it's own way though. IMO there's a sort of uncanny-valley thing that happens with a lot of retro-styled games because they're taking an aesthetic that was inherent to the limitations of the time and jamming them into a context where those limitations don't exist anymore, so things feel out of place. Like when you have an enemy sprite made up of 8 whole pixels blown up to 4k and smoothly interpolating over the screen, the choice to make the art that way becomes really transparent.

I've always said that I think retro-styled games could remedy this by using tiny render targets so your output is actually the same as it would have been at the time, but I've yet to see many people go this route.


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## wankerness (Nov 14, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Heretic was my jam as a teenager. I have no idea how a modern version would work, but I'd love a retro re-release on modern consoles.


I think the game's basically abandonware so I dunno how likely that is. The source code all got dumped to the wider internet, and the license seems dead. They did put them on steam a while back so you can still get them for PC, but I don't really see console ports coming. It's too bad. I always liked what I played of Heretic. Never played more than a level or two of Hexen I and II. I still mainly associate it with the disastrous N64 port that was famously one of the worst games on the system, at least for the first couple years.

I still have vivid memories of going to department stores and seeing demo videos of Hexen II (and Dark Forces 2) and being like WOW HOLY SHIT HOW COULD GRAPHICS EVER GET BETTER THAN THIS!?!


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## TedEH (Nov 14, 2022)

This thread does make me want to give Doom Eternal a proper playthrough at some point though.


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## bostjan (Nov 14, 2022)

wankerness said:


> I think the game's basically abandonware so I dunno how likely that is. The source code all got dumped. They did put them on steam a while back so you can still get them for PC, but I don't really see console ports coming. It's too bad. I always liked what I played of Heretic. Never played Hexen, though. I still mainly associate it with the disastrous N64 port that was famously one of the worst games on the system, at least for the first couple years.


I played through Heretic when it was new. I bought the Shadow of the Serpent Riders expansion pack for it. I played every level. I hacked the wad files and made ridiculous mods and maps for it. (For example, my favourite was, when the mummy enemy dies, his bandages unwrap and it spawns a sprite of a ghost that fades into the air, but it is a very easy mod to instead spawn another mummy, making the mummy like an everlasting gobstopper enemy that just keeps respawning when you kill it) I downloaded the demo version of Hexen off of a bulletin board, simply because the tagline was "Beyond Heretic." I spent hours playing Hexen on PC. To me, Heretic, even though it was on a much more primitive engine, was just more fun. There were more weapons, more powerups, enemies had a better variety of behaviour, the story was easier to follow, and the maps were, IDK, more saturated, I'd say. Hexen had great maps, too, but there was a lot of open space, so it felt more sparse, especially with the more open world and nonlinear exploration. I felt like there were also a lot of cheap deaths in Hexen- stuff like deep pits in pitch-black caves, environmental hazards that randomly pop out of the ground to kill you at irregular intervals, etc. I still really enjoyed Hexen, but I just prefer Heretic.

A couple years ago, I obtained the source files for Heretic, but there are bits and pieces missing, like the main menu. I have compiled it and played it on Raspberry Pi. 

But the other thing, in light of this thread, is that if id software is treating their employees this horribly, I don't really want to support them anymore. I've seen the documentaries about how horrible the scheduling was around the release of Doom II, but, being told from a perspective that it was a small company at the time and that the people pulling multiple consecutive all-nighters were doing it for glory or whatever, makes it seem like a totally different story than it'd be from the perspective of a junior programmer or whatever, who might have been pressured into just as much sacrifice with little promise of reward.

And now this whole idea of "you'll make us the music we want, but we won't tell you what we want, and the music we don't want, we are not going to pay for, but we might still use it in the game anyway, and still not pay you for it" is really scummy, and I've seen that enough now, both secondhand and firsthand, that I fully believe that to be a regular practice in the industry and not just an isolated incident or a mistake.

I guess the truth is that there are enough scummy game development studios out there that you could almost assume any random studio is scummy. And that is really sad. But, as long as consumers flock to unfinished releases and pay $60-70 for games that are broken upon release and may or may not get adequate patches to fix them at any later date, or whatever, I think it'll just keep encouraging bad behaviour from the ones who pull this crap and get away with it. I had always hoped id was on the up-and-up, but this post from Gordon really torpedoes my faith in them.


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## wankerness (Nov 14, 2022)

bostjan said:


> I played through Heretic when it was new. I bought the Shadow of the Serpent Riders expansion pack for it. I played every level. I hacked the wad files and made ridiculous mods and maps for it. (For example, my favourite was, when the mummy enemy dies, his bandages unwrap and it spawns a sprite of a ghost that fades into the air, but it is a very easy mod to instead spawn another mummy, making the mummy like an everlasting gobstopper enemy that just keeps respawning when you kill it) I downloaded the demo version of Hexen off of a bulletin board, simply because the tagline was "Beyond Heretic." I spent hours playing Hexen on PC. To me, Heretic, even though it was on a much more primitive engine, was just more fun. There were more weapons, more powerups, enemies had a better variety of behaviour, the story was easier to follow, and the maps were, IDK, more saturated, I'd say. Hexen had great maps, too, but there was a lot of open space, so it felt more sparse, especially with the more open world and nonlinear exploration. I felt like there were also a lot of cheap deaths in Hexen- stuff like deep pits in pitch-black caves, environmental hazards that randomly pop out of the ground to kill you at irregular intervals, etc. I still really enjoyed Hexen, but I just prefer Heretic.
> 
> A couple years ago, I obtained the source files for Heretic, but there are bits and pieces missing, like the main menu. I have compiled it and played it on Raspberry Pi.
> 
> ...


My memory of Hexen, which isn't much, was that I was disappointed in comparison to Heretic. I didn't like the more class-based system, I liked Heretic where you just could get everything and do everything.

I think in general any large, established company is going to be at least partially headed by assholes that rip people off, cause that's just kind of what capitalism rewards. So like, I totally would get boycotting them for this, but if you boycott them for this, you're not left with many companies that DON'T have this kind of thing or worse (Activision/Blizzard !!!) on their record. I guess I prefer to make post-hoc justifications that if I don't buy this it's more likely that the hundreds of totally blameless developers, composers, etc that worked on the game are going to suffer before any higher-ups see any punishment. I mean, they're generally not getting any royalties anyway, but they're more likely to get slashed by the company if their games stop being profitable, as opposed to the company slashing their shitty management and keeping the developers. But at the same time, I dunno, there's some line you should draw. It's all tough and a mess. I just wish there was like, any accountability for the rich and powerful. Maybe someday we'll bring back guillotines.

My bankrupt moral system is that if a game is from a company I like and I'm really excited about it (ex Elden Ring, or some Nintendo game that I'm hyped for like the upcoming Zelda game) comes out, I'll pay 60-70 bucks. If a game either isn't super hype level for me OR the company is run by people I know to be really egregious assholes, I'm waiting for discounts.


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## TedEH (Nov 14, 2022)

bostjan said:


> if id software is treating their employees this horribly


He wasn't an employee - he was a contractor. Which might sound irrelevant - but the attitude towards internal vs. external contributors can be VERY different. Some big companies can get pretty big headed about who is "reaaally one of them", and I can vouch that sometimes being the contractor means you get the short end of the stick by default. That's not an id problem, it's IMO an industry problem. I'd be willing to bet most people have zero idea who most of the contractors who worked on their favorite games are.



bostjan said:


> people pulling multiple consecutive all-nighters were doing it for glory or whatever, makes it seem like a totally different story


It's not really a different story though. This attitude remained and has been wielded as a motivator to make people crunch. If you're unlucky enough to be part of one of the big companies that's been around long enough to have some "traditional" (for the industry) values, then to not go above and beyond (aka crunch, use your personal time and hobbies to do things that benefit the company etc) - then you're _just not passionate enough and don't deserve the job._ I've had so many arguments with people about throwing the word "passion" around, because it's used as a weapon. Fuck "passion". It's a job. I have a lot of respect for people who really are passionate about what they do - there's no problem with that. Loving your work is great - but people are not infinite resources. And this attitude is not as "old school" as you might think. It never went away.



bostjan said:


> I guess the truth is that there are enough scummy game development studios out there that you could almost assume any random studio is scummy.


It's not the studio as a whole. Any large enough company is going to have bad apples in it. That's no excuse, they absolutely deserve the bad press, but it's not the whole studio's fault. It's the fault of the individuals who made the decisions in question. The real meat of most dev teams are just as bothered by the state of things like this, since they're the ones who suffer for it.

In my experience, some companies like this are VERY compartmentalized. If you don't NEED to know, then you don't know. The whole idea of announcing something and having even your own staff learn about it in the news is unfortunately not unheard of. I'd be willing to bet that only the small handful of people brought up in the story had any idea that anything was going wrong until they learned about it the same way we did.


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## bostjan (Nov 14, 2022)

TedEH said:


> He wasn't an employee - he was a contractor. Which might sound irrelevant - but the attitude towards internal vs. external contributors can be VERY different. Some big companies can get pretty big headed about who is "reaaally one of them", and I can vouch that sometimes being the contractor means you get the short end of the stick by default. That's not an id problem, it's IMO an industry problem. I'd be willing to bet most people have zero idea who most of the contractors who worked on their favorite games are.


Ok, it's a fair distinction. But, I guess we don't know if they treat their regular employees any better than this and won't unless someone complains. Technically, though, a contract employee is a sort of employee. But maybe they treat their other employees better than this. IME, though, if the management of a company is shitty towards their contract employees, it's usually only a matter of time before they start mistreating their full time employees.



TedEH said:


> It's not really a different story though. This attitude remained and has been wielded as a motivator to make people crunch. If you're unlucky enough to be part of one of the big companies that's been around long enough to have some "traditional" (for the industry) values, then to not go above and beyond (aka crunch, use your personal time and hobbies to do things that benefit the company etc) - then you're _just not passionate enough and don't deserve the job._ I've had so many arguments with people about throwing the word "passion" around, because it's used as a weapon. Fuck "passion". It's a job. I have a lot of respect for people who really are passionate about what they do - there's no problem with that. Loving your work is great - but people are not infinite resources. And this attitude is not as "old school" as you might think. It never went away.


I guess as long as your employer expects it and you expect that your employer will just replace you with someone else who puts up with it if you complain, there's no way for this to ever change. For the people at the top, it's a little more motivation for them to be passionate, since it's money lining their pockets and not the employees'. But this isn't right.



TedEH said:


> It's not the studio as a whole. Any large enough company is going to have bad apples in it. That's no excuse, they absolutely deserve the bad press, but it's not the whole studio's fault. It's the fault of the individuals who made the decisions in question. The real meat of most dev teams are just as bothered by the state of things like this, since they're the ones who suffer for it.
> 
> In my experience, some companies like this are VERY compartmentalized. If you don't NEED to know, then you don't know. The whole idea of announcing something and having even your own staff learn about it in the news is unfortunately not unheard of. I'd be willing to bet that only the small handful of people brought up in the story had any idea that anything was going wrong until they learned about it the same way we did.


Hmm. I never meant it as a dis against the employees of the studio. I thought that it was understood that if I was complaining about decisions made by the studio, that I was directing that at the management team who makes those decisions and profit from them. Same as if I complain about North Korea, how I'm complaining about Kim Jong Un, and not Soldier #05027 peeling the potatoes in the mess hall.

Most companies, in general, I believe, are like that. If there is something that is seen as great for morale, they'll post a bulletin, like "Congrats to so-n-so who just signed a contract for us with Big Company X, for $45 gazillion worth of product over the next 28 1/2 years!" but not stuff that is bad news, like "oops, we forgot to deliver the first two installments for Big Company X, so we lost our contract and are now trying to weasel out of getting sued."

So, probably, everything with Mick Gordon that was seen by id employees was similar to whatever the public saw as announcements meant for good publicity.


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## TedEH (Nov 14, 2022)

bostjan said:


> I guess as long as your employer expects it and you expect that your employer will just replace you with someone else who puts up with it if you complain, there's no way for this to ever change. For the people at the top, it's a little more motivation for them to be passionate, since it's money lining their pockets and not the employees'. But this isn't right.


It is changing slowly! And it's in no small part because of a combination of employees pushing back, and companies slowly understanding the value of retaining their talent. The company I left recently was what I would call "one of the good ones" but even they had a retention problem - and, being primarily a contractor-type studio, they were usually under the whims of clients. Having a policy that says "we will protect you from clients that try to make you crunch" becomes a huge selling point / retention tactic when you're hemorrhaging talent.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 19, 2022)

bostjan said:


> I played through Heretic when it was new. I bought the Shadow of the Serpent Riders expansion pack for it. I played every level. I hacked the wad files and made ridiculous mods and maps for it. (For example, my favourite was, when the mummy enemy dies, his bandages unwrap and it spawns a sprite of a ghost that fades into the air, but it is a very easy mod to instead spawn another mummy, making the mummy like an everlasting gobstopper enemy that just keeps respawning when you kill it) I downloaded the demo version of Hexen off of a bulletin board, simply because the tagline was "Beyond Heretic." I spent hours playing Hexen on PC. To me, Heretic, even though it was on a much more primitive engine, was just more fun. There were more weapons, more powerups, enemies had a better variety of behaviour, the story was easier to follow, and the maps were, IDK, more saturated, I'd say. Hexen had great maps, too, but there was a lot of open space, so it felt more sparse, especially with the more open world and nonlinear exploration.  I felt like there were also a lot of cheap deaths in Hexen- stuff like deep pits in pitch-black caves, environmental hazards that randomly pop out of the ground to kill you at irregular intervals, etc. I still really enjoyed Hexen, but I just prefer Heretic.
> 
> A couple years ago, I obtained the source files for Heretic, but there are bits and pieces missing, like the main menu. I have compiled it and played it on Raspberry Pi.
> 
> ...



I loved both games when I was younger. DOOM but in a fantasy setting with an inventory captivated me instantly. I loved how creative the names for weapons and levels were. 

Both had their pros and cons like you said. Heretic had more enemy varieties and more weapons which offered more playstyles with a faster pace where Hexen’s class gameplay made the game repetitive and the enemies weren’t as varied. 

Hexen could get very tedious when you had to backtrack looking for switches but I loved the introduction of puzzle mechanics instead of the 1-3 coloured keys to finish every level from most FPS games. I also loved the atmosphere from all the different settings like castles, swamps, caves, monasteries etc something DOOM never got across as well. 

The traps and falls padded out the game too much. A lot was just based on trial & error getting to know where you would get crushed so you reload and know to run through that room. Many of the new features like revolving walls, projectiles, changing environments were a cool addition though.

I always felt if you took the strengths of both games you could have made an incredible FPS. Maybe someday a company will make a spiritual successor.


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## sakeido (Dec 15, 2022)

cindarkness said:


> Whoa, what an absolute mess. I wish I had the time to read through his letter, but god damn. Been a fan and actually found out of Mick and his work when this released. Wishing him lots of GREAT projects down the road, this man knows how to create the appropriate atmosphere with music.
> 
> A true Hans Zimmer of Metal
> 
> This is why I don't spend my hard earned 70$ on AAA titles anymore. Broken promises, unfinished releases, underpaid (if paid at all) developers and cases like this.


your loss in this case, Doom Eternal was outrageously good and worth every penny. Runs like a dream even though the graphics are cutting edge, fun and varied gameplay, quite a long campaign for a FPS, great tunes. It's the polar opposite of everything you said.

also everyone developing video games is badly underpaid. Half because its something people do for passion, not money, but they also don't charge enough for games


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## TedEH (Dec 15, 2022)

sakeido said:


> everyone developing video games is badly underpaid


I wouldn't go that far. There's a lot of variance, and the industry is still in a state where talking about salary is taboo, so nobody really knows. Some game devs do very well for themselves, others don't. Even many of the "arguably underpaid" ones, in my experience, do much better for themselves than, say, the average person in the same city in other industries. The only exception I would agree with at face-value is outsourced QA (which is a lot of QA). QA is so horribly under-valued.



sakeido said:


> Half because its something people do for passion, not money


^ This one gets me riled up. It's like this industry's version of "doing it for exposure", except that we fell for it hard. There are still people around who say things like "I would never hire someone who isn't passionate and dedicated to what we do" - which sounds "nice" on the surface, but it's wielded as a weapon. The implication is that your job basically owns you. Job is priority #1. And it's really not. This is the kind of attitude that leads to crunch and burn out and delays and drama and high turn-over, etc etc etc. And it's a hill I'll gladly die on.



sakeido said:


> they also don't charge enough for games


Can you elaborate? I don't understand what people mean when they say this. Games make an ungodly amount of money, and are generally successful or not based on the volume moved, not so much the unit price. I'd think that raising prices would just motivate people to wait for sales more than they already do, which would end up being a loss.

I could see an argument that steep sales have been damaging to the health of the industry in some ways maybe.


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## CTID (Dec 15, 2022)

TedEH said:


> Can you elaborate? I don't understand what people mean when they say this. Games make an ungodly amount of money, and are generally successful or not based on the volume moved, not so much the unit price. I'd think that raising prices would just motivate people to wait for sales more than they already do, which would end up being a loss.
> 
> I could see an argument that steep sales have been damaging to the health of the industry in some ways maybe.


Ocarina of Time was $60 in 1998, which today would be $109. Game prices being static for so long has had inflation realistically add a lot of value to the buyer, but the seller has been losing money to it. Not that i'm complaining, i'm happy that we're not dropping a cool $100-120 for each game, i'm honestly just surprised it's taken this long to start happening


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## spudmunkey (Dec 15, 2022)

CTID said:


> Ocarina of Time was $60 in 1998, which today would be $109. Game prices being static for so long has had inflation realistically add a lot of value to the buyer, but the seller has been losing money to it. Not that i'm complaining, i'm happy that we're not dropping a cool $100-120 for each game, i'm honestly just surprised it's taken this long to start happening


NES Battletoads Double Dragon MSRP was $59.99 in 1993, which would be something like $125 in today's money.


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## TedEH (Dec 15, 2022)

CTID said:


> the seller has been losing money to it


Technically yes, but the number of units moved has exploded so dramatically since then, and the products themselves have evolved so significantly both in terms of what they are and how they're produced, that I don't think it's directly comparable in that way. IMO. But also, the phrasing implies that this discrepancy is a problem in particular - I don't think it is. I would think the value of a "single unit of video games" is held down by an abundance of games. There's so much supply that anyone raising prices risks losing out to the bajjilions of other games people could chose to pass the time with instead.

If gaming has a pricing problem, it would be in a lot of other areas - how mobile games, gacha games, microtransactions, deep sales, market saturation, etc., have severely devalued the software itself. Think about how a lot of communities talk about and review games: "This isn't worth full price." "This would be a great game if it was $10." "It's just ok, wait for a sale."

Then again, if the big players have their way, you'll eventually just pay monthly for a library, and every game will just be a service rather than a discrete product. I'm not excited for that future.


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## BlackMastodon (Dec 15, 2022)

You also gotta remember that every game before the 2010's was only physical, so companies had to pay costs to ship cartridges/discs to stores who were also taking a cut. The $80 for a new digital download game now probably sees a better return for the companies putting them out there, along with the volumes that Ted mentioned. 

Deep sales have definitely impacted how I buy games, in that I can't justify paying full price for a game knowing that it'll be available for 50% off in a few months. Unless they're Nintendo games. And unless I really want to play the game shortly after release, which rarely happens anymore.


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## cindarkness (Dec 16, 2022)

sakeido said:


> your loss in this case, Doom Eternal was outrageously good and worth every penny. Runs like a dream even though the graphics are cutting edge, fun and varied gameplay, quite a long campaign for a FPS, great tunes. It's the polar opposite of everything you said.
> 
> also everyone developing video games is badly underpaid. Half because its something people do for passion, not money, but they also don't charge enough for games


I agree to disagree. I might just be getting old though, interests change after all


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## TedEH (Dec 16, 2022)

I guess there's been no real news about the original Mick Gordon drama. I'm a bit curious what happened after all the very-public bickering.

in very-tangential news - I ended up watching that hbomberguy video about the Roblox "oof" sound - the title is a bit misleading 'cause it's a 2 hour breakdown of all of the nonsense surrounding Tommy Tallarico, but it's also a bunch of video-game-audio drama. Worth watching IMO if you've got some time to kill.

I also read a book a while back that was from 2003, written by a guy who calls himself "The Fat Man", and it's an interesting (historical?) look at how the audio side of things kinda runs a little different than everything else. As much as it's old info - it still kinda tracks. I've found that audio teams tend to have a very different attitude and work style than regular devs.


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## CanserDYI (Dec 16, 2022)

Yeah, I found an old Kmart catalog from late 90's. The video game section had my jaw drop, as the expectations of developers and cost of living both skyrocketing, it would make perfect sense to see a completely identical curve, but it's actually technically decreased in ways? Do I want to pay more for games? Not at all, but I would _totally _understand it if they went up in price.


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## soul_lip_mike (Dec 16, 2022)

TedEH said:


> This thread does make me want to give Doom Eternal a proper playthrough at some point though.


I loved this and the 2016 doom. Doom Eternal came out right as covid lockdowns hit so it was a great time to play a single player game for me, highly recommend you play it through.


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## TedEH (Dec 16, 2022)

I had a great time with the 2016 Doom, and I've started up Eternal, but never got very deep into it before getting distracted by something else. Strikes me as good, but more of the same. Maybe the novelty has just worn off on me for now.


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## thrsher (Dec 16, 2022)

games today have micro transactions, paid DLC and other additional revenue streams im not thinking of to add on to the cost of a game i think is being overlooked here making comparisions to cost of games in the 90s


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## wankerness (Dec 16, 2022)

CanserDYI said:


> Yeah, I found an old Kmart catalog from late 90's. The video game section had my jaw drop, as the expectations of developers and cost of living both skyrocketing, it would make perfect sense to see a completely identical curve, but it's actually technically decreased in ways? Do I want to pay more for games? Not at all, but I would _totally _understand it if they went up in price.


The thing was back then the bulk of the cost of games was due to the expense of the actual physical production of them. Nowadays most stuff is digitally distributed and discs are infinitely cheaper to mass-produce than cartridges. So in effect, the cost SHOULD have gone down massively since the cost of production has gone through the floor in comparison. 

Increasing costs of games is purely capitalism on display. Companies have to keep increasing profits, forever, or their company dies, cause end-stage capitalism makes no sense and is awful. So basically they have to keep coming up with more and more ways to squeeze customers and rip-off the people that actually do work (aka, everyone's salaries get kept low apart from people like Bobby Kotick who have nothing to do with the production of the games, and they farm everything out to contractors that they can pay less money), or else the shareholders get mad. DLC, battlepasses, lootboxes, all that crap is already tacking on big costs, and now they've hoodwinked many people into thinking that games themselves should have their base costs increased too.


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## TedEH (Dec 16, 2022)

wankerness said:


> end-stage


I like how people keep saying "late-stage" and "end-stage" as if they expect capitalism as a whole is going away any time soon. I can appreciate the optimism, but we have no way to know we're not in a relatively-early stage of something that's going to stay basically the same for a long time, or potentially get worse. It seems more likely to me it'll evolve into some kind of capitalism-lite.


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## wankerness (Dec 16, 2022)

TedEH said:


> I like how people keep saying "late-stage" and "end-stage" as if they expect capitalism as a whole is going away any time soon. I can appreciate the optimism, but we have no way to know we're not in a relatively-early stage of something that's going to stay basically the same for a long time, or potentially get worse. It seems more likely to me it'll evolve into some kind of capitalism-lite.


It is called late stage cause there's basically nowhere else for it to go, we're already in basically in Robocop. They can continue squeezing customers more and more money can keep getting funneled from people to shareholders, but other than that it's late-stage cause the vast majority of small businesses and whatnot have already been squished and have a hard time surviving without being bought out or run out of business in short order.

Early and midstage were back when there was like, actual competition and the companies hadn't all merged and formed mega corps, and the corps hadn't also been declared to have rights as if they were private citizens by the supreme court, allowing them to totally take over the government. I'm not thinking it's going away, just that at this point we're in the end stage of it. We probably will be indefinitely. The way I see it the most likely "positive" outcome is a cataclysmic depression which might reset things back to mid-stage when the voting population finally takes note of just how much the likes of Amazon, MS, Koch Bros, Disney, etc are stomping on everyone and demands action, and the most likely negative outcome is "things will continue this way."


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## bostjan (Dec 16, 2022)

TedEH said:


> I guess there's been no real news about the original Mick Gordon drama. I'm a bit curious what happened after all the very-public bickering.
> 
> in very-tangential news - I ended up watching that hbomberguy video about the Roblox "oof" sound - the title is a bit misleading 'cause it's a 2 hour breakdown of all of the nonsense surrounding Tommy Tallarico, but it's also a bunch of video-game-audio drama. Worth watching IMO if you've got some time to kill.
> 
> I also read a book a while back that was from 2003, written by a guy who calls himself "The Fat Man", and it's an interesting (historical?) look at how the audio side of things kinda runs a little different than everything else. As much as it's old info - it still kinda tracks. I've found that audio teams tend to have a very different attitude and work style than regular devs.



Pretty sure I saw that, it's been around a while, right?

I saw another deep-dive on the Doom (1993) sound effects library. Someone managed to find the public domain sound library from which 99% of the game's sounds were sourced - some were sped up or slowed down, pitch shifted, or blended with others, but very very few were done from scratch for the game. I know that every once in a while, I'll be watching some low-budget horror film or dumb television programme and I'll hear a demon sound or a barrel explosion, and now I know that it's because those sounds are all public domain from 1980's sound libraries people could copy and share.

Nowadays, there seem to be tons of free sound libraries online, so I'm sure the same sort of thing happens, just with those sounds instead of the 80's ones. Years ago, I messed around with doing the same sort of thing myself, recording sound clips of doors slamming and different crunches and slaps and squishes and stuff, but the cost of hosting them, at the time, was pretty steep, and it would have been something that would have ultimately netted me nothing. So I gave up on it.



wankerness said:


> It is called late stage cause there's basically nowhere else for it to go, we're already in basically in Robocop. They can continue squeezing customers more and more money can keep getting funneled from people to shareholders, but other than that it's late-stage cause the vast majority of small businesses and whatnot have already been squished and have a hard time surviving without being bought out or run out of business in short order.
> 
> Early and midstage were back when there was like, actual competition and the companies hadn't all merged and formed mega corps, and the corps hadn't also been declared to have rights as if they were private citizens by the supreme court, allowing them to totally take over the government. I'm not thinking it's going away, just that at this point we're in the end stage of it. We probably will be indefinitely. The way I see it the most likely "positive" outcome is a cataclysmic depression which might reset things back to mid-stage when the voting population finally takes note of just how much the likes of Amazon, MS, Koch Bros, Disney, etc are stomping on everyone and demands action, and the most likely negative outcome is "things will continue this way."



No where else to go as opposed to what? You realize that folks were making this exact argument about the economy in the very late 19th and early 20th century, right? It's just that instead of Amazon, Microsoft, Coke, and Disney, it was Standard Oil, AT&T, US Steel, etc. But railways gave way to roads and the companies who made their fortunes off of the rail industry faded away and the automotive industry rose up in its place. Telegraphs became useless, but telephones took their place. The same shit had just happened again with department stores crumbling away whilst online retailers exploded. Phones are now almost all cellular. High sugar soft drinks are hanging on for dear life as people are now drinking more bottled water and kombucha. It's nothing new, but it never was anything new, fundamentally, but we keep getting a new coat of paint on it.

So yeah, capitalism sucks, but it's always sucked just the same. The only reason there is a perception that there is suddenly more of a problem with it is because we are coming off of an all-time high in economic prosperity. People'd be just as sour about it if our economic model was more socialist-leaning, because, either way, there is less prosperity to go around.


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## wankerness (Dec 16, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Pretty sure I saw that, it's been around a while, right?
> 
> I saw another deep-dive on the Doom (1993) sound effects library. Someone managed to find the public domain sound library from which 99% of the game's sounds were sourced - some were sped up or slowed down, pitch shifted, or blended with others, but very very few were done from scratch for the game. I know that every once in a while, I'll be watching some low-budget horror film or dumb television programme and I'll hear a demon sound or a barrel explosion, and now I know that it's because those sounds are all public domain from 1980's sound libraries people could copy and share.
> 
> ...



I think it’s always sucked, it’s just there’s periods where it’s freer market with more smaller companies and actual social mobility, and periods where it’s worse. I think the period before the Great Depression was comparable to what we’re seeing now. And at that time it was late stage, and ended up getting reset when the mega corps screwed up the economy so badly that people voted in change and we got the new deal and all those antitrust laws and whatnot. Seems like a cycle.

Re: sound effects, yeah. I love/hate that I recognize things like that. The worst example for me was The Babadook, where it’s going along seeming like a really well-made legit movie, and all of a sudden the monster makes the exact sound used for the dragons in one of the old Warcraft games. Completely took me out of it! If my sound memory was worse I think I could enjoy more things. That’s pretty rare though. The other usual culprits for me are those platform and door noises used in old video games or doom monster sounds.


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## bostjan (Dec 17, 2022)

Was it the Warcraft dragon or was is the Heretic Sabreclaw?


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## wankerness (Dec 19, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Was it the Warcraft dragon or was is the Heretic Sabreclaw?


Probably both. I remembered hearing it somewhere else but couldn't remember what. I played heretic like three times when I was about 12.


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## sakeido (Dec 20, 2022)

TedEH said:


> I wouldn't go that far. There's a lot of variance, and the industry is still in a state where talking about salary is taboo, so nobody really knows. Some game devs do very well for themselves, others don't. Even many of the "arguably underpaid" ones, in my experience, do much better for themselves than, say, the average person in the same city in other industries. The only exception I would agree with at face-value is outsourced QA (which is a lot of QA). QA is so horribly under-valued.
> 
> 
> ^ This one gets me riled up. It's like this industry's version of "doing it for exposure", except that we fell for it hard. There are still people around who say things like "I would never hire someone who isn't passionate and dedicated to what we do" - which sounds "nice" on the surface, but it's wielded as a weapon. The implication is that your job basically owns you. Job is priority #1. And it's really not. This is the kind of attitude that leads to crunch and burn out and delays and drama and high turn-over, etc etc etc. And it's a hill I'll gladly die on.
> ...


Games haven't kept pace with inflation, not even close.. like the other guys said. Games should be well clear of $100, especially considering the hours of enjoyment one game can provide. I would much rather pay more up front to get an actually complete game than all this microtransaction, daily chore battle pass fucking nonsense that has taken over every multiplayer game. I would probably still be playing Destiny if I could just pay a monthly subscription and have a lot of dope stuff that was feasible to grind for, instead of having to blow 20 hours a week just to get to the minimum level to run a raid because their entire financial model depends on dangling things just out of my reach.

Sure big games make a ton of money but we're (imo) seeing the same thing happening with video games that's happened with movies. There's big budget, AAA games/tentpole Disney movies that depend on huge sales volumes to generate returns, and indie games/movies with fewer and fewer interesting mid-budget things in between. With a better financial model, maybe that wouldn't continue to happen.


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## TedEH (Dec 20, 2022)

sakeido said:


> Games should be well clear of $100


I generally agree with most of your post, I just disagree that inflation on it's own is any metric for what something "should be" priced and I don't think higher prices solve any of the things wrong with gaming. Predatory f2p / gacha / etc aren't going away because they work too well. Price doesn't fix anything about how we don't own any of the software we pay for. Turning games into more of a luxury item than they already are isn't suddenly going to stop people from equating the "value" of a game to "willingness to pay a full price". It's more likely to make piracy worse vs. better. Games have problems, and pricing models are a part of that - but I don't see how any of that is solved by just raising prices.

But consider also that we sort of _do_ have games values at over $100 already - granted I'm used to CAD prices rather than USD, so I don't know how that compares - but pretty much every game now comes out with the "base game" at "full price", plus a season pass, and separate DLC, and definitive editions, collectors boxes, next-gen upgrade, and a cosmetics shop, and associated merch, and the expectation that you'll buy the re-make in 5 years after they've pulled the servers down to make the original unplayable, or extra copies that have been ported to every console and phones and smart fridges and whatever else. That $60 or whatever (it's $80 CAD standard here) doesn't actually buy you the whole product anymore.


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## bostjan (Dec 21, 2022)

Honestly, in business economics, the price is solely determined by what people are willing to pay for the thing.

Anyone who thinks that the overhead costs have _anything to do directly with_ the selling price are thinking about it the wrong way. If the overhead/production price is too high compared to the selling price, then you just don't get into the business of selling the thing in the first place.


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## wankerness (Dec 21, 2022)

Considering game companies' profits have skyrocketed since the 90s when games cost radically more (relatively) than they do now, I don't think they have any excuse for "needing" to raise the price no matter how many excuses one wants to make for the poor rich companies that need to raise prices on all the kids and nerds buying their stuff so Bobby Kotick et al can continue adding to their yacht fleets.


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