I would love to know how many sweet sweet TFLO dollars Level 5 took from Microsoft and spent on other projects.
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Denis Dyack Addresses Kotaku Allegations [Silicon Knights]
- Thread starter Shiggy
- Start date
I would love to know how many sweet sweet TFLO dollars Level 5 took from Microsoft and spent on other projects.
Cult of personality.
Maybe they're waiting for a slow news day so they can use it to get more clicks.
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I'm not sure I would do a very good job of deciding that either.
"Honey, we're big and successful now. You're fired."
I'm still waiting for 8 anonymous Timegate ex-employees to step forward. They know who to call.
http://kotaku.com/denis-dyack-finally-sounds-off-on-our-article-about-sil-508948428
Kotaku comments. The answer is basically, "we checked things and we are satisfied with our own due diligence." Okay. Can you specifically describe what changed between the Wired-rejected draft and the one that was published? I remain willing to believe the Kotaku article, but at this point it is becoming "yes you did" vs. "no I didn't".
Edit - Additionally, labor allocations should leave a paper trail in their database system and may have email associated with them as well. If any of these sources were producing such materials, I would have greater confidence. I don't need to see them personally, but I'd like to know if they were involved.
Kotaku comments. The answer is basically, "we checked things and we are satisfied with our own due diligence." Okay. Can you specifically describe what changed between the Wired-rejected draft and the one that was published? I remain willing to believe the Kotaku article, but at this point it is becoming "yes you did" vs. "no I didn't".
Edit - Additionally, labor allocations should leave a paper trail in their database system and may have email associated with them as well. If any of these sources were producing such materials, I would have greater confidence. I don't need to see them personally, but I'd like to know if they were involved.
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
Their response basically tells me that Totillo failed to come back to the NeoGAF thread or do any research and see that the video included responses from this thread on their forum:
http://www.precursorgames.com/forums/index.php?threads/denis-dyack-addresses-kotaku-allegations-vlog-plus-notes-references-posts-email.1465/unread
So he wastes a bunch of time complaining about responses that aren't directed to him, and then basically blames Dyack for staying silent in response to requests to weigh in on the piece of character assassination, which he has no idea why Wired passed on.
Stellar.
Yeah, this is boiling down to whose word you trust more. I was expecting Totilo to offer up some new evidence or something but all the article is saying is basically, "Nuh-uh, that's not what our guys said."
I just find it silly that the article includes completely unverifiable stuff like what Dyack privately thought about Nintendo's influence. But then most of the allegations are unverifiable. Funny that Dyack includes Activision in his response, in points that could be very much verifiable if anyone bothered to do some checking up.
stephentotilo
Behind The Games
Sorry, but no new details that I can share on the record. Andrew and I both checked back in with sources on this and have just heard more of the same. If we'd had documentation to add, it'd be there. If Activision ever decides to comment, we will note that. And if any of the anonymous sources we've talked to ever comes forward, that'll help, too. That's the risk we took running a piece with just anonymous sources. It will inherently generate more skepticism. I get that.
Were there people who were still bringing up the X-Men Destiny article?
I know there currently is drama over the kickstarter stuff, and there's a long list of bad publicity involving SK but why a video on X-Men Destiny?
Or is this just an attempt at getting the media spotlight?
I know there currently is drama over the kickstarter stuff, and there's a long list of bad publicity involving SK but why a video on X-Men Destiny?
Or is this just an attempt at getting the media spotlight?
Wouldn't you agree, though, that Dyack's assertion that Activision had the ability to check up on the project remotely at any point during development is a verifiable claim? That if he's lying he could very quickly be shot down, whereas if one or more of your sources are lying, it's a matter of hearsay? It's one thing to say that the company was funneling money towards its own projects, and another to say that's impossible and here's a specific reason why.
To me the idea that Silicon Knights could pull the wool over the eyes of the producers at Activision is incredibly far-fetched, and the word of anonymous sources can't really bear the weight of such a serious allegation.
stephentotilo
Behind The Games
I'm not that comfortable going into the editing process especially for a story that I think is ultimately coming down to one group of ex-SK people's account vs. another's but the piece I posted does mention that the embezzlement part didn't make it into the piece. I don't know how much of that was in Wired's, if any, but we were never able to feel solid about money matters. Andrew did a lot of reporting in late 2012 while I was editing him. A lot of it involved re-visiting his sources, teasing out new details, dismissing others as generic or perhaps coming from a blinkered point of view. I did reporting/fact-checking as well with some of my own sources. I doubt that helps much, but hopefully a little. Thanks for asking.
Takamura-San
Member
Would you think that a piece as damming as this would require some kind of hard proof before being published. This is no story about an unannounced game that has little consequence besides disrupting publisher announcement plans. You and andrew decided to accuse a developer of stealing publishing money, yet no proof to be found.
If one of your peers accused you or any of the manager's of cooking the books... you would hope they would have the decency to provide proof of their allegations besides "these x amount of ex-employees told us so".
Eric the Red
Member
Mael said:
Imbarkus said:
See it's stuff like this that makes having a conversation hard. You have to go back and correct these statements that inject misleading intent and then run with it. Having your wife work at the company is fine; it's whatever. Having her head HR is like a conflict of interest. That supposedly in this case, employees couldn't tell her anything confidentially without it going back to Dyack. What a suffocating atmosphere that would be.
Sean said:
Well it's the entire situation that I find fascinating; including this whole Precursor Games thing and the recent resurgence of the Dyack. For example, reading the article originally, the idea that SK was now only Dyack, his wife, with no employees and existed only on paper was bewildering.
Cerebral Assassin said:
Well Kotaku received one anonymous email from the "whistle-blower", and if they decided to write a piece solely on that, I would agree with you. But instead they spent months trying to verify the claim with dozens of former employees and secured interviews with eight. With that you can compare and contrast all their stories and put together a piece that stands on it's own for readers without having to default to, "loltaku, must be contrived."
stephentotilo
Behind The Games
Good question, but Activision won't comment and developers I've spoken to say that Hansoft is not a foolproof way of tracking this. So, yes, it's the word of multiple ex-SK people saying that they watched people get pulled off of XMD to be put on an ED2 demo vs. Dyack saying Activision would have noticed this in Hansoft.
Uh, Stephen addresses in his new post that the article never said this.
If these sources weren't in management positions or team lead positions I don't know how credible I would feel. Working in an office and going for a smoke with a few people or water cooler talk can lead to rumors within the office.
Dyack said that SK put 2 million of their own money into XMD and if that is true in their software, even if they did move some people off XMD onto the prototype it might have been with their own funds which in that case would be perfectly reasonable. And if that did happen it could look like something totally different to a few lower level employees who were putting in long hours on the project.
This whole thing is never gonna be completely answered. I do wish Precursor the best of luck and think everyone deserves another chance to renew themselves and learn from lessons. Its a shame more than likely they aren't going to get that chance, at least not through crowd sourcing.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Apparently there were 2 more HR people the employees could talk to...
Being pulled off the project doesn't necessarily mean that the XMD budget was paying for that prototype though, does it? I mean, companies pull team members to work on prototypes all the time; it's the Cerny Method! Unless your sources were privy to the budget numbers (and maybe they were), I don't think that's evidence of nefarious deeds on its own.
Anyway, I do think this article was a pretty measured response on your part, and went out of its way to not make things personal. So kudos for that.
To be clear then, are the anonymous sources saying that SK falsified Hansoft records?
brianmcdoogle
Member
It's sad since Kotaku posted this when they have such low credibility that people default to pessimism about the site, but ignoring the article completely, I still don't quite understand why people would support Dyack or this game. To me, the analogy I have in my head is the careers of Francis Ford Coppola and M. Night Shyamalan.
Coppola made some amazing movies is the 70s, but the 80s were a disaster for him creatively and financially. So, for those who were alive at the time, when he announced The Godfather, Part III, it wasn't coming from the guy who made The Conversation, The Godfather Parts I and II, and Apocalypse Now, but the guy who made The Cotton Club, Gardens of Stone, Tucker, and Peggy Sue Got Married. Yeah, Godfather I and II are some of my favorite films, but there was no logical sense to get excited by the run-up to Part III (and, lo and behold, the movie was poor).
And, for Shyamalan, he made two great movies, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, but then did The Village, Lady in the Water, The Happening, and The Last Airbender. So, if he announced Unbreakable 2, would people suddenly get excited and want to fund the project? Maybe, but it would make little sense to me.
And, for the comparisons, Eternal Darkness isn't as good of a game as The first two Godfathers, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now are as movies, nor are Coppola's low points anywhere as bad as Too Human or the X-Men game.
If people want to get their hopes up and waste their money, that's fine, but the attitude of "I liked Eternal Darkness, so I'll ignore nearly every other game that the company has made that is poor or incredibly mediocre and pretend that their one good game is the norm and not the anomaly" seems so blindingly optimistic and delusional.
So, back to the article, it's kind of a doomed proposition on both parties right now. Kotaku doesn't have the track record to pull this heated and negative of an article off with any authenticity, and Dyack is loathed by some in the community for the Canadian tax stuff, the failed lawsuit, and the poor games.
And, is this site accurate in estimating Kickstarter successes? If so, this game has a long way to go to get funded:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/617502838/shadow-of-the-eternals/
Coppola made some amazing movies is the 70s, but the 80s were a disaster for him creatively and financially. So, for those who were alive at the time, when he announced The Godfather, Part III, it wasn't coming from the guy who made The Conversation, The Godfather Parts I and II, and Apocalypse Now, but the guy who made The Cotton Club, Gardens of Stone, Tucker, and Peggy Sue Got Married. Yeah, Godfather I and II are some of my favorite films, but there was no logical sense to get excited by the run-up to Part III (and, lo and behold, the movie was poor).
And, for Shyamalan, he made two great movies, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, but then did The Village, Lady in the Water, The Happening, and The Last Airbender. So, if he announced Unbreakable 2, would people suddenly get excited and want to fund the project? Maybe, but it would make little sense to me.
And, for the comparisons, Eternal Darkness isn't as good of a game as The first two Godfathers, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now are as movies, nor are Coppola's low points anywhere as bad as Too Human or the X-Men game.
If people want to get their hopes up and waste their money, that's fine, but the attitude of "I liked Eternal Darkness, so I'll ignore nearly every other game that the company has made that is poor or incredibly mediocre and pretend that their one good game is the norm and not the anomaly" seems so blindingly optimistic and delusional.
So, back to the article, it's kind of a doomed proposition on both parties right now. Kotaku doesn't have the track record to pull this heated and negative of an article off with any authenticity, and Dyack is loathed by some in the community for the Canadian tax stuff, the failed lawsuit, and the poor games.
And, is this site accurate in estimating Kickstarter successes? If so, this game has a long way to go to get funded:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/617502838/shadow-of-the-eternals/
Francis Ford Coppola is making some of his most interesting movies these days, actually. To me the idea that an artist is doomed to failure for the rest of his career because of a string of misses is hopelessly cynical and depressing. I like to think that anyone can regain that spark that they once lost.
Also, I think you will find far more defenders of Too Human than you will of Coppola's Jack.
Also, I think you will find far more defenders of Too Human than you will of Coppola's Jack.
Wouldn't the more analogous game be X-Men Destiny? My understanding was Jack was pure work-for-hire...
That's not Denis, just a member of #TeamReciprocity.
brianmcdoogle
Member
No, I completely agree with you; I'm speaking more of the expectation of things. I hope Dyack makes a great game because I hope all games are great, but I see little to no reason to presume that it will be great.
Eric the Red
Member
@ brianmcdoogle and Mifune
At the end of your posts, if you could tack on some insult sword fighting quips to each other as an aside, I would have a nice chuckle. That is all.
At the end of your posts, if you could tack on some insult sword fighting quips to each other as an aside, I would have a nice chuckle. That is all.
I definitely don't presume. But I have faith. I think Dyack is a terrible manager but a creative and idiosyncratic writer/director/designer. I think Too Human is hugely flawed but also hugely fascinating. X-Men Destiny is an unmitigated failure, though, I agree. Still, I think if Coppola could come back from Jack, then Dyack could come back from his missteps.
But then I think M. Night is poised to make a comeback, too, so I'm probably just a blind optimist.
And how appropriate...you fight like a cow. (for Eric the Red)
RoombaDance
Member
Good of Totilo to attempt to bury the hatchet with the semi-endorsement of the Kickstarter. Hopefully they'll end it here instead of engaging in another public Twitter war.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
This, very much so.
So this boils down to kotaku saying "we believe our 8 unnamable sources! But we have no proof, and we told you we have no proof, so it's Ok. "
That's gross. Sorry. People misinterpret things in a work environment. Rumors happen. If you are goingto make such serious allegations you morally need proof. There is a reason in the jurisdictional system you need proof to declare someone guilty.
This whole thing ends up being just a huge case of hearsay. Not very profesional, even if there where some truth to it. Without proof it just shouldn't have been published.
That's gross. Sorry. People misinterpret things in a work environment. Rumors happen. If you are goingto make such serious allegations you morally need proof. There is a reason in the jurisdictional system you need proof to declare someone guilty.
This whole thing ends up being just a huge case of hearsay. Not very profesional, even if there where some truth to it. Without proof it just shouldn't have been published.
Axispowers
Member
Listened to the whole thing and I back Dyack. He wants to move on and I'm right there with him. I wish the best for his newest project.
brianmcdoogle
Member
You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee!
You're the ugliest monster ever created!
This gives me more confidence in Dyack rather than kotaku.
I hope his next game ends up being good.
tekumseh
a mass of phermones, hormones and adrenaline just waiting to explode
While this barely related, I thought SK had to recall all unsold copies of XMen: Destiny and destroy them, based on the Unreal Engine settlement. Is that actually the case, or am I completely wrong about that, because I still see new copies of is available for sale at a number of places online?
ProfessorMoran
Member
Let's be real, Dyack is more Uwe Boll than Francis Ford Coppola.
scytheavatar
Member
This boils down to what Kotaku wrote in the last 2 paragraphs:
X-Men Destiny was undeniably a terrible game and nothing in Kotaku's article is an unusual or unbelievable explanation for why a game failed. Dyack never tried to give an alternative explanation and for him to put in 2 million of his own money into the game but still produce a piece of crap is something to be ashamed of, not to boast.
The bottom line is that Dyack is focusing on creative design now and leaving the running of a project to others. It that's true there's reasons to believe that the new game wouldn't flop like X-Men Destiny and Too Human did.
As I understand it, this wasn't a case of going out and finding eight people with an axe to grind. More than one hundred people were apparently getting their names removed from a game they worked on, so Andrew McMillen reached out to past and present SK employees and asked them to talk about it, and they overwhelmingly told him "Thanks but no thanks, I'd like to keep my career."
McMillen was only able to get eight people to say anything about SK, and they started to tell stories. These eight people apparently told stories that sometimes matched, and apparently nobody told stories that conflicted (until Dyack, the ninth person to say anything).
If these eight people were just disgruntled employees who were bullshitting, it should be easy to find a hundred former SK people willing to go on record to call them out, shouldn't it?
I believe that was Too Human only.
runnin_blue
Banned
This has been bothering me. If Andrew could only get 8 people out of over 100 to badmouth SK & Dyack, then I lean towards those 8 just being shitty with the company for their own personal reasons.
It leads me to think their claims are exaggerated and ultimately unbelievable.
Kotaku has been my go-to site for gaming news on a daily basis for years now because I like their style but after this and the Patricia Hernandez sensationalist bullshit, I am seriously reconsidering where I go to for my gaming fix from now on.
If you are reading Stephen, I'd take this into consideration because I bet I am not the only one.
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
Read the rest of his post. He's not agreeing with you.
runnin_blue
Banned
I didn't say he was, I was pointing out that it was bothering me.
I live in a country where the public bank that lend money to companies for funds has a CEO who got the job only because she fucked the president in the past.
I live in a shitty country.
And seriously in a company that hires people by the hundreds you'll always find people who will tell you the worst stories ever.
SK is no exception in that, that's how the work environment is for most people out there.
Work is not all rose and rainbows.
I feel like the debate about the seriousness of the Kotaku article is overshadowing the larger issue. There's no debate about what SK tried to do to Epic. That should tell you everything you need to know about the character of these people. You don't need the Kotaku article to be true in order to distrust these people, IMO.
It's like a person killed someone in the past, and maybe killed someone recently, and we're debating the recent killing to try and determine if that person is a bad dude or not. We already know the answer.
It's like a person killed someone in the past, and maybe killed someone recently, and we're debating the recent killing to try and determine if that person is a bad dude or not. We already know the answer.
We can look at Kotaku's history as the tabloid of gaming too if you want to go that way.
Quite right, I have no love of Kotaku either.
Then we're back to square 1, the only winning move is not to play here.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
One thing I find really concerning about this topic is the way that some really dodgy impressions are being implied about how external development works.
First of all, if a project turns out bad, its highly unlikely for anyone involved to be happy with that outcome. There is no upside for anyone, particularly the developer, in this. Games are a business where track-record is crucially important when it comes to future funding, recruitment, and general business well-being. To suggest that a company would sabotage a project, a PAYING project with a behemoth like Activision no less, is simply not plausible.
Secondly, the importance of staffing levels is being massively overstated in terms of project success. The fact is that throwing more bodies at a troubled project rarely has much impact because ultimately all those man-hours of effort in the end must be funnelled into a single code-base. Its easy to get bottle-necked due to design revisions/shifts in creative direction rendering completed work unneccessary, and new work mandatory for progress.
Lastly, the publisher has a major role in all the above. Agreed milestones need to be met to their satisfaction throughout the development process, often with clauses that should any of the first few fail to be met the project may be unilaterally cancelled. As an external developer you absolutely have to keep your publisher happy throughout a project; exposing Perforce/Hansoft whatever won't help if you keep missing milestones... the money will simply dry up.
This is basic stuff, that anyone who has spent any time in or with dev(s) should know, and it absolutely proves that claims of "embezzlement" in such a situation are ludicrous - the downsides outweigh the benefits to such a degree.
I'd also add that doing this to Activision, a company with a reputation for bullying litigousness and an unforgiving attitude with developers, is the icing on the cake. If something untoward had occurred, you can bet that they would be seeking legal recourse.
First of all, if a project turns out bad, its highly unlikely for anyone involved to be happy with that outcome. There is no upside for anyone, particularly the developer, in this. Games are a business where track-record is crucially important when it comes to future funding, recruitment, and general business well-being. To suggest that a company would sabotage a project, a PAYING project with a behemoth like Activision no less, is simply not plausible.
Secondly, the importance of staffing levels is being massively overstated in terms of project success. The fact is that throwing more bodies at a troubled project rarely has much impact because ultimately all those man-hours of effort in the end must be funnelled into a single code-base. Its easy to get bottle-necked due to design revisions/shifts in creative direction rendering completed work unneccessary, and new work mandatory for progress.
Lastly, the publisher has a major role in all the above. Agreed milestones need to be met to their satisfaction throughout the development process, often with clauses that should any of the first few fail to be met the project may be unilaterally cancelled. As an external developer you absolutely have to keep your publisher happy throughout a project; exposing Perforce/Hansoft whatever won't help if you keep missing milestones... the money will simply dry up.
This is basic stuff, that anyone who has spent any time in or with dev(s) should know, and it absolutely proves that claims of "embezzlement" in such a situation are ludicrous - the downsides outweigh the benefits to such a degree.
I'd also add that doing this to Activision, a company with a reputation for bullying litigousness and an unforgiving attitude with developers, is the icing on the cake. If something untoward had occurred, you can bet that they would be seeking legal recourse.
Since they have a kickstarter in the balance where they're asking people to pay for their next game, I think it's relevant to the discussion the horrible misdeeds of their past, rather than making everything ride on this kotaku article. It's not merely an academic discussion; there are stakes here.
For anyone wanting to call neogaf haters, I think it's rare that neogaf collectively hates something without a good reason.
Regarding Activision's indifference towards the game's quality and status up to a certain point: I have no doubt they have had the means to check up on the progress, but you don't need to look further than the current Walking Dead shooter to see that apparently it doesn't matter too much to Activision to put too much effort in every license they have.