Good! (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Sunday, September 06, 2015, 16:45 (3365 days ago) @ CyberKN

A few thoughts about Marty:

Given that Marty's firing cannot be undone, this is probably the best possible outcome. I'm happy for Marty. Bungie and Marty will be okay, and we can all move on.

I finally get the joke I heard someone make last week about keeping Marty away from Twitter.

I'm excited to see what comes from Marty and his fantastic new team.

I understand Marty's sensitivity about the music in the trailer given that one of the defining moments of his career was the impact his music made in a three-minute commercial (the Macworld demo).

A few thoughts about business:

Humans are, um, deeply flawed, and so are their institutions.

The higher the stakes and the larger the institution, the more these flaws are magnified.

In most business enterprises, no one is irreplaceable. If you think you are, or, as is often the case, if other people think you think you are, your career is in a special danger zone.

The good graces of management are worth their weight in gold.

Especially where beauracracies are concerned, once the wheel starts turning against you, it's extremely difficult to change the direction.

Gossip is poison. (Applies to more than business, obviously.)

These conflicts are almost always, at root, personal. We don't know what we don't know, and we may never know. What we now know are only the issues that had legal ramifications.

A few thoughts about Bungie:

Bungie lost its way ...

when they started supporting Windows.

when they botched Oni.

when they shook hands with that devil, Microsoft.

when they expected us to play an FPS without a keyboard and mouse.

when they botched the ending of Halo 2, overpriced ODST, and retconned Reach.

when they shook hands with that devil, Activision.

when they added RNG elements to their game.

when so-and-so left.

And yet, they have continued to give me a lot of joy through all of this. When they stop doing that for me personally, I won't be posting here.

A few thoughts about the stories we tell:

Being fired from a company you care about is very much like a romantic breakup. The pain runs deep and the stories around it necessarily serve a psychological need. I'm not saying that anyone's story is inaccurate. I'm saying it's possible for truths that seem to be in conflict to both be accurate.

From reliable sources I've heard things about Bungie's past that, taken at face value, were upsetting, disturbing, and disappointing. Given what I know about how the sausage is made at a big software company, though, nothing I've heard was surprising.

From reliable sources I heard things about the future of Destiny that were tremendously inspiring.

I wish Marty the best. Same for the folks at Bungie.