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Adam Orth no longer with Microsoft

B

Broder Salsa

Banned
mentalfloss said:
Also, here's some industry quotes from people who can be just egregious, but they kept their jobs!


"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
- Bobby Kotick (not fired)

"The Wii is a piece of $#&%!"
- Chris Hecker (not fired)

"Things break."
- Peter Moore (not fired)

"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
- Peter Molyneux (not fired)

..

Oh and here is a special one for GAF:

"And your contribution to society is?"
- Jeff Bell (not fired)
Click to expand...

So developers (and hell even a CEO lol) with high status and more important positions than this guy gets too keep their job, after saying dumb shit? Not sure how that's surprising or what the point is. It's wildly different situations and not about a new console launch, which is a much bigger deal than all of these quotes, of where at least a few of them got a lot of attention on here too.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
If on Sunday he had come out and said he had been misinterpreted, clarified, and explained what he meant, or genuinely apologised for the whole thing, I would have sympathy for him. As it is, I have none.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
Cat in the Hat said:
Please don't pretend either that GAF didn't get this man fired either. You absolutely did.
Click to expand...
GAF just pointed it out because we love gaming and everyone's twitter account or Facebook account or every single video or interview is a piece of news for us. We will create threads about them and to be quite honest we have done equal amounts of good and bad to whatever information there is. We will make a big freaking deal out of it because we are passionate. When developers, publishers, analysts or journalists/bloggers say anything positive, we will stand by it. When they say anything negative, we will point out the absurdity and laugh at it. What happened to him later was his doing.

Adam screwed Adam. In the position that he was in, he should've kept his 'personal opinions' aside, especially when talking about something that doesn't exist. You can throw jabs at the competition but you cannot throw jabs at the consumer.

We've reign shit terror on Michael Pacther's forecasts, analysis and predictions; on journalists working for companies and writing reviews for them; on those that pass off anything negative that can affect the game industry as a norm; on shitty DRM practices; on publisher's constant closures of great companies and cancellations of prospective games; on people exploiting services like Kickstarter.

While we do all this, we also praise practices such as DRM-free games; such as companies helping indie developers; such as developers and publishers being open and honest in twitter or blogs or GAF explaining what their opinion is without bashing the consumer for being senile; such as publishers and developers with great track record and constant deliverance of promises, and if they do end up releasing a shit game we will understand; such as helping promote games that require promoting because they are worth it and they have not seen any media coverage lately; such as giving away games, beta keys, and goodies for free; such as being selfless and spotlighting any deals, contests or giveaways.

It's called "Gaming Discussion" for a reason. We discuss the good and the bad of the industry.

As stated before: Adam screwed Adam. We have had dozens and dozens of incidents in every industry and medium about how twitter and facebook posts cost you your job because you were to naive to think that no one is paying attention. Go to a bar and chitchat if you like. Go chitchat within the office space. You don't see me spewing about my industry (aerospace) openly even though I know all the goods and the bads of it. I have friends all over the aerospace industry working for different major (MAJOR) companies and we all respect the fact that whatever discussion happens over a beer stays within that ficinity. Trade secrets and upcoming products are gossiped about. We laugh and make fun of some shitty moves, and get excited about the good moves. The only difference between us and what Adam did is you don't spill the beans on something that is not publicly known, and you don't provide your personal opinion without any kind of disclaimer (Only if you think your opinion is very positive for the company or industry you work in, but it may result in one or two pissed off people which is reasonable), ESPECIALLY over Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or more.

You are in the spotlight. Your virtual self represents you. People get fired over it any day. Stay anonymous if you have any dicksause bloodspilling thing to say and you personally believe you are correct. One thing is for sure: we got Microsoft's attention and every gaming media's attention over this issue. Everyone is starving to hear things about the successor to Xbox 360 and these bits and pieces is not helping Microsoft at all.
 
M

mentalfloss

Banned
WoodenLung said:
So developers (and hell even a CEO lol) with high status and more important positions than this guy gets too keep their job, after saying dumb shit? Not sure how that's surprising or what the point is.
Click to expand...

Point is that they could get away with it because it probably didn't significantly affect the company.

And that's what should be the focal point here. Not simply the comments, but whether or not they really had a negative impact on Microsoft.

Dead Man said:
If on Sunday he had come out and said he had been misinterpreted, clarified, and explained what he meant, or genuinely apologised for the whole thing, I would have sympathy for him. As it is, I have none.
Click to expand...

He did genuinely apologize. At least for the "home" comment as far as I understand.

shagg_187 said:
As stated before: Adam screwed Adam. We have had dozens and dozens of incidents in every industry and medium about how twitter and facebook posts cost you your job because you were to naive to think that no one is paying attention.
Click to expand...

Were you calling for his termination before it (supposedly) happened?
 
V

Village

Member
EatChildren said:
The "boo, boo GAF!" agenda is so transparent and dull. Like this place is some organised, militant group of degenerate internet heathens out to ruin lives. It's a public form. Like Twitter. Like Facebook. Like the rest. Expose and make a poor example of yourself and people will pick up on it, and it will probably spread, especially if you're a celebrity name of any sort, or are speaking in association with a well known organisation.

Maybe one day people will wake up and realise this before behaving poorly on the most accessible, connected, and wide spread information sharing network in human history. Stop treating the internet as your personal safe haven soapbox. Stop disassociating yourself from your own behavior and blaming others for the way it spirals out of control. How many people have a sense of pride over their hundreds, if not thousands, of Twitter and Facebook followers, then refuse to be held accountable when these followers pick up on poor behavior?

Make yourself public, and everything you say becomes public. There's no other spin. You are single handedly responsible for your behavior. If you don't want this shit to happen, lock your profiles down to private access, or don't use the internet as a platform for your rants, arguments, and debates.

It's sad when shit like this happens. It's sad when people are bullied online. But at the end of the day, you should have known better.
Click to expand...

I think that is an entire other monster, but bravo for the rest of it.
 
P

publicpwnerer

Member
MehsterChief said:
Of course I am a nerd. As are you and probably everyone on this board.
However, there's a difference between being interested in a hobby and reading about it/participating in a community and expressing your immense schadenfreude based on the firing of a man who has said something that you dislike about a console launch.

Big difference.
We are all emotionally involved in our hobby and rightly so. But the comments of some of the people in this thread are horrible. As in: no moral compass at all.
Click to expand...

The overwhelming majority here aren't jumping for joy..but they're not upset either, considering that working in the corporate world requires some semblance of tact and forethought.

This is doubly so if your company is currently getting a lot of heat in the media.

Seems like nerds have a lack of empathy after all.
Click to expand...
They'll cry into their anime pillows like crazy...
Click to expand...

If you disagree with peoples opinions, you should respectfully restrain yourself, rather than lashing out and throwing about generalisations as well as having a hissy fit.
 
D

DragonSworne

Banned
mentalfloss said:
I would only give credence to these people if we really knew that he lost his job because it was significantly affecting MS.

Can't see that being the case here.

Also, we don't really know if he was fired or if he voluntarily left.

Also, here's some industry quotes from people who can be just egregious, but they kept their jobs!


"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
- Bobby Kotick (not fired)

"The Wii is a piece of $#&%!"
- Chris Hecker (not fired)

"Things break."
- Peter Moore (not fired)

"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
- Peter Molyneux (not fired)

..

Oh and here is a special one for GAF:

"And your contribution to society is?"
- Jeff Bell (not fired)
Click to expand...


The biggest difference is those people didn't break NDAs by revealing secret information.
 
S

syllogism

Member
It's not a binary question of whether Orth or some posters behaved poorly, irrationally or immaturely. Stop attempting to frame it that way. Stating correctly that he is solely responsible for his comments and that he probably deserved to be fired does not mean some of the posters in the thread can not be judged for their own behavior.
 
B

Bowler

Member
how is the blame now put back on Gaf members? dafuq?

The Forced resignation is the issue. He shouldn't have lost his job. 2 week administrative leave at the worst.

Look everybody makes mistakes, and this one, whether true or not, was a colossal fuck up for stating his opinions in public on a subject, im sure he signed NDA's for.

flip side of that coin, there was no race card, sex card, gender card, political card, that adam played. Those are the cards that should get you fired. Sadly he could of talked about how big his secretary's tits are on twitter, get called into his boss's office and got the 2 week, administrative leave, then right back to work. But No MS thinks this is worse.... IMO its BS with the MS coats put public image over everything else, on what some are calling false info anyways.
 
S

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
mentalfloss said:
Point is that they could get away with it because it probably didn't significantly affect the company.

And that's what should be the focal point here. Not simply the comments, but whether or not they really had a negative impact on Microsoft.
Click to expand...
If he got fired, I think the main reason is that he was commenting on a rumor and caused people to believe it was true, with stories going up on tons of news outlets about what this MS employee said regarding Microsoft's unannounced console. He tried being coy and not mentioning Durango, but clearly he was responding to the Kotaku story that had hit earlier.

Regarding whether or not he was fired, my theory is that MS doesn't want to look like assholes for firing him so abruptly so they made an agreement with Orth to call it a "resignation" and keep the details confidential similar to what happened with Gerstmann.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
mentalfloss said:
Were you calling for his termination before it (supposedly) happened?
Click to expand...

I know a lot of people called it (I don't think I did), but the fact that hundreds other have lost their job over their irrational personal opinions is a remind to all to keep shit to yourself unless told to do so. It's part of being an anonymous user on the internet; you will get attacked on irrationally, and I don't personally believe GAF wasn't the only place to bash this "always online" bullshit:

shinra-bansho said:
Wow. 20+ more pages. Updated list, that you can replace the OP one with if you want shinobi.

Oh and yes, eventually even:

nothing_stops_this_train-9763.gif


Microsoft Press Release:
"We are aware of the comments made by an employee on Twitter. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views are not reflective of those of the company. We have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter."
Click to expand...
 
C

Captain Tuttle

Member
mentalfloss said:
Sure, but direct termination should be a last resort.

His comments were pretty mild.
Click to expand...

Taken by themselves they were pretty mild, in the atmosphere of a console launch and MS's marketing plan they were pretty bad. If someone had hacked his personal e-mail where he said this off the record and posted it then, yeah, I would feel bad. These comments were made on one of the most public and viral platforms out there. He showed incredibly poor judgement for an upper level manager and frankly MS should have let him go based on that alone.

I feel bad for the guy like I do with anyone who makes a poor choice that has negative consequences but that's life. I do hope he lands on his feet though, I have no malice towards the guy or MS.
 
P

publicpwnerer

Member
shagg_187 said:
GAF provide moneyhats to Microsoft, who in return provide it to developers, who in return create console-exclusive content that GAF so dearly hates.

We are screwing ourselves!! We should all get fired.
Click to expand...

I loved that big list of articles reporting the tweets.



How did the blame train come full circle to somehow become GAF's fault?
 
B

blitzcloud

Banned
WanderingWind said:
The ego is amazing. I mean, it's always other "GAFers" doing all this shit. Never the person putting themselves above the fray. You know, while posting on GAF.
Click to expand...

I recommend you don't walk this path. This thread already had casualties.

Dead Man said:
You think GAF has enough sway over MS to get people fired? LOL
Click to expand...

Wasn't "GAF" the first website that displayed some pictures out of context making it public to the rest of the gaming related internet/media?
 
S

syllogism

Member
"It's the internet, everyone else does that too" does not excuse anything. No one is blaming "gaf", just suggesting that some posters in that thread were acting irrationally, emotionally and immaturely. You are needlessly obfuscating the issue.
 
S

spiderman123

Member
WanderingWind said:
The ego is amazing. I mean, it's always other "GAFers" doing all this shit. Never the person putting themselves above the fray. You know, while posting on GAF.
Click to expand...

One time I posted, Mcdonalds should bring back the McRib. Same day they made the announcement that they were.


In all seriousness, the guy handled it wrongly and lost his job. Nothing to debate about IMO
 
M

mentalfloss

Banned
Dead Man said:
You think GAF has enough sway over MS to get people fired? LOL
Click to expand...

When did I say that?

shagg_187 said:
I know a lot of people called it (I don't think I did)..
Click to expand...

I guess what I was getting at was that you didn't have the vehement opinion that he should be fired until after he was (supposedly) fired. Or at least it appears that way.

I would expect that anyone who is busting out the pitchfork now, should have also done so just after the commentary to at least appear to have a consistent ethical standard.

But that's just me trying to get a feel for what your reaction was and what a majority consensus would be like here.

shagg_187 said:
..but the fact that hundreds other have lost their job over their irrational personal opinions is a remind to all to keep shit to yourself unless told to do so.
Click to expand...

It should depend on exactly what you say and if it really has a significant impact on the company.
 
F

Fantastical

Death Prophet
EatChildren said:
The "boo, boo GAF!" agenda is so transparent and dull. Like this place is some organised, militant group of degenerate internet heathens out to ruin lives. It's a public form. Like Twitter. Like Facebook. Like the rest. Expose and make a poor example of yourself and people will pick up on it, and it will probably spread, especially if you're a celebrity name of any sort, or are speaking in association with a well known organisation.

Maybe one day people will wake up and realise this before behaving poorly on the most accessible, connected, and wide spread information sharing network in human history. Stop treating the internet as your personal safe haven soapbox. Stop disassociating yourself from your own behavior and blaming others for the way it spirals out of control. How many people have a sense of pride over their hundreds, if not thousands, of Twitter and Facebook followers, then refuse to be held accountable when these followers pick up on poor behavior?

Make yourself public, and everything you say becomes public. There's no other spin. You are single handedly responsible for your behavior. If you don't want this shit to happen, lock your profiles down to private access, or don't use the internet as a platform for your rants, arguments, and debates.

It's sad when shit like this happens. It's sad when people are bullied online. But at the end of the day, you should have known better.
Click to expand...

You're mostly right, I think, but I don't like the idea that because you are an asshole on the internet in a fairly limited scope, it's okay to receive a hugely disproportionate amount of bullying and mocking. I think the internet reaction is okay up to the point that he got fired, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed (for something as relatively harmless as this, at least to the consumer).

I'm not trying to be holier than thou or think that I am above the majority of GAF, but personally while it may be clever, I don't find the image of him staring at a Monster page funny in the slightest or these memes of him referencing him losing his job. If he was racist or sexist or something that was actively harmful to humanity I would disagree, but in the large scope this is pretty minor and it just feels like dog piling. Making fun of his logic or statements is okay to me, but enjoying his misery in losing his job feels wrong.

I think you're mostly addressing people that think GAF got him fired or he didn't deserve to be fired, but I thought I would say this anyways.

I think the "internet makes you asshole" phenomenon happened both ways. Orth was rude on Twitter, maybe even in jest, but I think that individuals on the internet were much ruder and to only one victim. So it kind of goes both ways, but in the end Orth got fucked over a lot worse, and in the end I do feel bad for him. If he had just lost his job, I wouldn't, but he was mocked, then got fired, then got mocked for being fired.

It feels like this is a dead horse and people are trying to rape the dead horse for any amount of humor and added misery to Orth they can get before it's taken away and we move onto to something else.
 
S

syllogism

Member
Zabka said:
Tech blogs and enthusiast sites aren't responsible for their actions. GAF wills it and journalists must bend. It's physics.
Click to expand...
Blogs/sites were mainly motivated by traffic and the comments had newsworthy elements to them. The issue isn't discussing the comments, but the tone and substance of said discussion.
 
G

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
It sucks for Orth, but he should have known better. Practice some restraint and know your boundaries in the context of your business communications.

And GAF is not to blame for this.
 
R

ragincajun77

Banned
iSnakeTk said:
Congratulations. The witch hunt was a succes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I feel bad for the dude. I hope he finds employment soon as the market out there is pretty damn tough.

I thought his comments were beyond stupid, but I hate to see anybody lose a job. Been there, done that and never want to go back.

Hmm, maybe I should get off GAF and go back to work.
 
B

blitzcloud

Banned
Fantastical said:
You're mostly right, I think, but I don't like the idea that because you are an asshole on the internet in a fairly limited scope, it's okay to receive a hugely disproportionate amount of bullying and mocking. I think the internet reaction is okay up to the point that he got fired, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed (for something as relatively harmless as this, at least to the consumer).

I'm not trying to be holier than thou or think that I am above the majority of GAF, but personally while it may be clever, I don't find the image of him staring at a Monster page funny in the slightest or these memes of him referencing him losing his job. If he was racist or sexist or something that was actively harmful to humanity I would disagree, but in the large scope this is pretty minor and it just feels like dog piling. Making fun of his logic or statements is okay to me, but enjoying his misery in losing his job feels wrong.

I think you're mostly addressing people that think GAF got him fired or he didn't deserve to be fired, but I thought I would say this anyways.

I think the "internet makes you asshole" phenomenon happened both ways. Orth was rude on Twitter, maybe even in jest, but I think that individuals on the internet were much ruder and to only one victim. So it kind of goes both ways, but in the end Orth got fucked over a lot worse, and in the end I do feel bad for him. If he had just lost his job, I wouldn't, but he was mocked, then got fired, then got mocked for being fired.

It feels like this is a dead horse and people are trying to rape the dead horse for any amount of humor and added misery to Orth they can get before it's taken away and we move onto to something else.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this.

Side from the fact that I would have stopped with the sunni gif that gave us a chuckle. Mocking his bad analogies was justified, even making memes about bad analogy Orth would be proportionate. what happened beyond there is crowd pressure that I do not condone.
 
Z

Zabka

Member
syllogism said:
Blogs/sites were mainly motivated by traffic and the comments had newsworthy elements to them. The issue isn't discussing the comments, but the tone and substance of said discussion.
Click to expand...

Sooooo not their fault, they needed advertising money. Makes sense.
 
M

monome

Member
guy talked about a "touchy" "corporaty" subject on twitter
at a time where leaks are so sought after, so many and so bad many on GAF think the MS ship is sinking
and acted like a douche

MS had no fucking choice. maybe they came to a mutual agreement. but MS had to ask him to reconsider his MS career.
 
F

Fantastical

Death Prophet
blitzcloud said:
Pretty much this.

Side from the fact that I would have stopped with the sunni gif that gave us a chuckle. Mocking his bad analogies was justified, even making memes about bad analogy Orth would be proportionate. what happened beyond there is crowd pressure that I do not condone.
Click to expand...

I don't think I saw this?
 
O

Omegasquash

Member
GuardianE said:
It sucks for Orth, but he should have known better. Practice some restraint and know your boundaries in the context of your business communications.

And GAF is not to blame for this.
Click to expand...

And that's that. He made a mistake and it's between him and his ex-employer. I don't know enough about him aside from here say, so I'll just default to wishing him the best of luck in a new job search.
 
K

Kikujiro

Member
Nibel said:
Defense force, bruh

It's hilarious
Click to expand...

What a childish attitude, defense force of what? The first thing I said in this matter was that he deserved to be fired, I only explained why I don't agree with the schadenfreude and the piling on after he lost his job, how is this a "defense force"? It's really like some of you lack any sort of empathy and just shout stupid one liners.

It's hilarious.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
mentalfloss said:
When did I say that?
Click to expand...

That is the only possible reason for asking that question, that you think the poster had some influence on the guy being fired (or resigning, or whatever) with a comment on a message board. Otherwise you cherry picked from a very well written post to engage in snark. Either way, it's funny.
 
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