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UC4 Game Director Justin Richmond Leaves ND (And famousmortimer leaves GAF #1393)

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T

TheLostBigBoss

Banned
Chobel said:
Mort is perma banned?
Click to expand...

sandlot-forever-o_zps0265233b.gif
 
K

KoopaTheCasual

Junior Member
Tamanon said:
Hmm? The Titanfall launch show with Geoff Keighley happened didn't it?

Or are you talking about the Xbox division being sold off. Considering it's only been a month and Microsoft's restructuring hasn't even really begun, I'd hold off on judging that.
Click to expand...
Yea... I hardly see how those series of tweets are his biggest offenses, when he still could be right about all of it? Not saying I think it's gonna happen, but it's better to make your point clear with things he's already missed.
 
L

licktheenvelope

Member
Col_Rodgers said:
Hello, all.

This is my first post on NeoGAF, and whilst I'm not generally one to deal in internet speculation, I have to put the record straight with regard to Pete Dodd's comments above.

Everything he has said with regard to myself and Driveclub is incorrect. It's also libellous.

As Putty (who is a personal friend of mine, and has been for about 25 years) suggests, I left Evo in February for personal reasons. The personal reasons being that my son, who is 4 years old, has been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a potentially life threatening condition. I live 220 miles (4 hours drive) away from Evolution Studios, and was away from home 5.5 days a week. Given the circumstances, I could not continue to work there.

Driveclub is a great game, and the direction hasn't changed since my departure. This has been confirmed by SONY in various press releases over recent days.

I have no problem in dealing with very large projects, as I've been working in the games industry for the last 19 years, and have worked on some very prestigious titles, so there is genuinely no truth to anything posted by Mr Dodds at all. My departure (and indeed the setup of my 'indie' operation, BigRedSwitch) is 100% driven by family necessity, not some professional failing on my part.

I left SONY on very good terms. There is no animosity there, and I was absolutely nothing to do with the recent redundancies - in fact, the news of those redundancies was probably linked on here before I knew about them.

The games industry is a tough place at the moment. My circumstances with my son mean that I've had to leave secure work in order to try to make my own way in the world. This may entail getting another job. With people who obviously know nothing about the situation blackening my reputation for the sake of internet 'fame', this could be made much more difficult. It's nothing less than trolling.

I've contacted Mr. Dodd on his email address on his site. Due to the factual inaccuracy of his statements, I've informed him that he needs to remove the statements and apologise for the damage they have caused, as posting incorrect information and claiming it's true is quite simply libel.

I'm sure you can all appreciate just how difficult things are for myself and my family at the moment. I'd genuinely appreciate it if you can take my statements as word from the origin, and realise that there has been no big cover-up when it comes to my departure from SONY/Evo.

Thanks, all.

Col.
Click to expand...

Hope your son gets well :(
 
D

dude819

Member
KoopaTheCasual said:
Yea... I hardly see how those series of tweets are his biggest offenses, when he still could be right about all of it? Not saying I think it's gonna happen, but it's better to make your point clear with things he's already missed.
Click to expand...

Titanfall show never happened.

Amazon is working on a streaming box/dongle that will be announced Wednesday.

He was 100% wrong. Bookmark it.
 
I

Impeccable

Member
Between all the lay-offs at Sony and all the insiders dropping like flies I think this proves Demonite to be a demi-god for surviving two apocolypses.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
DieH@rd said:
Sigh... such a bad attitude after clearly making a serious mistake.
Click to expand...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that "mort", after drinking the attention that he racked up on GAF spearheading the "rebellion" that some may believe saw Sony backtrack on intended DRM policies, sought to capitalise on his 15 minutes of fame. His proposal for a website was embarrassingly self-aggrandising and a poor yet oddly somewhat successful attempt at securing money from those who, for whatever reason, believed that "a man of ideas" could make a noteworthy difference in the world of video game journalism -- sorry, folks, but he just took the "lol video game journalism" narrative that had been building up and ran with it in a partially successful attempt to exploit your ignorance. If you believe that he set up the project on Indie GoGo rather than Kickstarter for any reason other than being able to receive the pledged funds even if the goal was fallen short of, I have a very long bridge to sell you.

The kicker, from my outside perspective, because I honestly don't care enough about games in general to follow all the "insider" drama, was him ignoring GAF for a week following his tag being changed that itself was quickly followed by having it removed altogether -- he was heavily active on Twitter and continued to lurk but said nothing. Why? Because he was waiting for somebody to notice his absence, and when that didn't happen he returned to tease that he knew about the PS4 release of the Last of Us.

Pete can act like a martyr all he wants. But he was just another "insider" whose sense of self-worth grew too large to the point that it became his undoing.
 
J

jschreier

Member
remnant said:
We do? No one even tried to vet his bullshit. Hell a mod replied to him in the same page. Same with Cboat. They had to be proven wrong, in Cboats case multiple times.

FM should have stuck to shitting on MS or making vague statements about a game's success. A lot more diffucult for someone to come in and squash them.
Click to expand...
Well, the difference between this and, say, CBOAT being wrong about Prince of Persia being shown at E3 or the PS4 coming out in October, is that this is actively harmful to someone's life and career. I imagine that's why the mods took this one more seriously. I hope Pete has learned from the lesson and won't repeat this sort of mistake if he chooses to go forward with his website.
 
D

Dreamgazer

Member
I hope we all learned a lesson that it's stupid to speculate on people's private lives and career decisions.

not going to happen
 
K

Kissenkopf

Banned
Everything here is not relevant...I only hope Cols son will get well soon.

Mort didnt follow the rules so he should deal with the consequences.
 
Jinfash

Jinfash

needs 2 extra inches
Now that famousmortimer is banned and his credibility retroactively questioned, it's interesting to see how some of you really felt about him. So much pent up emotions.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
By the way, I always thought "insider" was a questionable way to describe him. Like, wouldn't that imply he's actually a part of the industry? Because there's the gaming industry, and then there's soaking up rumors on twitter. The title wasn't exactly deserved. That's a parasitic relationship at best.
 
M

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Col_Rodgers said:
Hello, all.

This is my first post on NeoGAF, and whilst I'm not generally one to deal in internet speculation, I have to put the record straight with regard to Pete Dodd's comments above.

Everything he has said with regard to myself and Driveclub is incorrect. It's also libellous.

As Putty (who is a personal friend of mine, and has been for about 25 years) suggests, I left Evo in February for personal reasons. The personal reasons being that my son, who is 4 years old, has been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a potentially life threatening condition. I live 220 miles (4 hours drive) away from Evolution Studios, and was away from home 5.5 days a week. Given the circumstances, I could not continue to work there.

Driveclub is a great game, and the direction hasn't changed since my departure. This has been confirmed by SONY in various press releases over recent days.

I have no problem in dealing with very large projects, as I've been working in the games industry for the last 19 years, and have worked on some very prestigious titles, so there is genuinely no truth to anything posted by Mr Dodds at all. My departure (and indeed the setup of my 'indie' operation, BigRedSwitch) is 100% driven by family necessity, not some professional failing on my part.

I left SONY on very good terms. There is no animosity there, and I was absolutely nothing to do with the recent redundancies - in fact, the news of those redundancies was probably linked on here before I knew about them.

The games industry is a tough place at the moment. My circumstances with my son mean that I've had to leave secure work in order to try to make my own way in the world. This may entail getting another job. With people who obviously know nothing about the situation blackening my reputation for the sake of internet 'fame', this could be made much more difficult. It's nothing less than trolling.

I've contacted Mr. Dodd on his email address on his site. Due to the factual inaccuracy of his statements, I've informed him that he needs to remove the statements and apologise for the damage they have caused, as posting incorrect information and claiming it's true is quite simply libel.

I'm sure you can all appreciate just how difficult things are for myself and my family at the moment. I'd genuinely appreciate it if you can take my statements as word from the origin, and realise that there has been no big cover-up when it comes to my departure from SONY/Evo.

Thanks, all.

Col.
Click to expand...

Ok, that's enough.

I thought Mort was a nice guy, always with the good behaviour, with many of the infos he received becoming truth...and I was one who paid big attention to his words, to his rumours. Because it was possible they were the real deal. Still rumours obviously (and some places took them too seriously, and in the recent past I took them a bit too seriously as well, I'm sorry for that...after E3 2013 and launch periods, I jumped on the "insider-fan" train - sorry for the definition, I know it sucks :lol - since it seemed, most of the times, they were correct ), but with a good reliability. But...this is something I can't accept.

This is not just "spreading bullsh*t" on some events. Oh no no no no, if only. This is spreading bullsh*t by blatantly lying about someone by telling he was incompetent in what he was doing when, in the real world, he is just a father who cares for his son...diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which could be fatal. I can't accept it, it's not...human. We're not talking about moral ethic, we're dealing with actual humanity. You can be the best insider in the world, but there are times you should just stop and don't cross the line. Probably, I'm just a too-kind-person for this worls, but I become angry when I hear stories like this, because there's no justification. Mort didn't just lie, he hurt a family who is living a very, very difficult period.

I mean...THERE'S A BOY WHO COULD DIE, AND YOU JUST THINK TO SHIT ON HIS FATHER JUST TO INCREASE YOUR POPULARITY, WHILE, IN REALITY, HE'S A FATHER CARING FOR HIS SON?

...NO! I just can't stand it.

I'm angry because I wouldn't have ever thought something like this could have happened, and I'm also feeling a bit stupid because I thought he could be trusted enough, more or less. This is a lesson for me as well.

I'm so sorry for you, Col, and I wish the best for you and your family. Seriously, you deserve it. I'm not a father and I'm still a student, so I can't exactly say I know what you're feeling now, but I can try to comprehend it, and I can get, even if just supercicially, how hard it is. Again I wish you the best.

Sorry to you all for the rant, but there are things I can't accept, and this is one of them.
 
J

johnny956

Member
Impeccable said:
Between all the lay-offs at Sony and all the insiders dropping like flies I think this proves Demonite to be a demi-god for surviving two apocolypses.
Click to expand...

Demonite is smart. He is purposefully vague so he doesn't get in trouble but leaves everyone guessing. He also claims he leaves hints all the time but no one ever figure them out :)
 
D

DerZuhälter

Member
Tamanon said:
Or are you talking about the Xbox division being sold off. Considering it's only been a month and Microsoft's restructuring hasn't even really begun, I'd hold off on judging that.
Click to expand...

While Amazon is in prepartion of launching/revealing it's own console? Yeah at a different time than "last month" believable. But now? No.
 
N

No Love

Banned
Col_Rodgers said:
Hello, all.

This is my first post on NeoGAF, and whilst I'm not generally one to deal in internet speculation, I have to put the record straight with regard to Pete Dodd's comments above.

Everything he has said with regard to myself and Driveclub is incorrect. It's also libellous.

As Putty (who is a personal friend of mine, and has been for about 25 years) suggests, I left Evo in February for personal reasons. The personal reasons being that my son, who is 4 years old, has been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a potentially life threatening condition. I live 220 miles (4 hours drive) away from Evolution Studios, and was away from home 5.5 days a week. Given the circumstances, I could not continue to work there.

Driveclub is a great game, and the direction hasn't changed since my departure. This has been confirmed by SONY in various press releases over recent days.

I have no problem in dealing with very large projects, as I've been working in the games industry for the last 19 years, and have worked on some very prestigious titles, so there is genuinely no truth to anything posted by Mr Dodds at all. My departure (and indeed the setup of my 'indie' operation, BigRedSwitch) is 100% driven by family necessity, not some professional failing on my part.

I left SONY on very good terms. There is no animosity there, and I was absolutely nothing to do with the recent redundancies - in fact, the news of those redundancies was probably linked on here before I knew about them.

The games industry is a tough place at the moment. My circumstances with my son mean that I've had to leave secure work in order to try to make my own way in the world. This may entail getting another job. With people who obviously know nothing about the situation blackening my reputation for the sake of internet 'fame', this could be made much more difficult. It's nothing less than trolling.

I've contacted Mr. Dodd on his email address on his site. Due to the factual inaccuracy of his statements, I've informed him that he needs to remove the statements and apologise for the damage they have caused, as posting incorrect information and claiming it's true is quite simply libel.

I'm sure you can all appreciate just how difficult things are for myself and my family at the moment. I'd genuinely appreciate it if you can take my statements as word from the origin, and realise that there has been no big cover-up when it comes to my departure from SONY/Evo.

Thanks, all.

Col.
Click to expand...

Wow. This post literally changed Famousmortimer to InfamousMortimer in one fell swoop.

I wish you and your son the best, Mr Rodgers. And thank you for clearing up the slander and lies spread by Mr. Infamous. LOL @ people claiming Mortimer was a good guy... the truth hurts.
 
A

antitrop

Member
http://doddscientifics.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/a-bit-of-clarity/

I fucked up. There’s no two ways around that. I fucked up in multiple ways. It wasn’t just one fuckup – it was a series of them, some because I’m stupid and some because I didn’t know what was going on.

When I posted yesterday at GAF about the various happenings within Sony the point of what I was trying to write is that they weren’t connected or part of a bigger conspiracy. The mistake I made was that I was loose with gossip in trying to make my point. I wasn’t focused on that, I was focused on my larger point and as such I failed as writer/poster. Late last night I talked with a friend of Col Rodgers and we cleared things up.

When i woke up this morning I didn’t go to gaf. I had no idea the post was still going. I had no idea that Col had posted there. I had no idea about anything, really. I did some stuff on the site. I was feeling awful about how big that post had blown up (mostly from the conversation with col’s friend which made it far more personal and gave me a much better understanding of how my irresponsibility could hurt someone). I made a tweet, that was intentionally cheeky, about resigning as a “GAF Insider.” The reason it was cheeky was because I’ve always thought of the entire notion of being a “GAF Insider” was silly and to make some sort of official announcement that was very serious would just make me look like a stuck up fuck. So that’s fuck up number 2. Or 3. I don’t know how many I was at this point. What I had no clue is that Col Rodgers had posted on GAF. That people were waiting for a response from me. So my cheeky tweet became the response…. and I had no idea.

At this point, still completely oblivious, I’m going through my email and I see an email from Col Rodgers. He explained why he left. He explained his situation with his son (something that was never even mentioned to me by anyone I talked to). He gave me what I now believe to be the facts of the situation. I wrote him back and apologized to him. I told him I didn’t mean to smear him, I wish him and his son well. He wrote back explaining how what I wrote could potentially hurt him so I responded (paraphrased, i don’t have the email in front of me) “Well I was planning on apologizing on my podcast since that would be video, voice, body language, etc and would hopefully express that it was sincere. ” But decided to also appologize on twitter now since I’m not sure if Rich and I are doing a show tonight, tomorrow, sunday… or possibly later. So I tweeted the apology and someone responded “Too late, Evilore already danced on your grave.”

Curious to what he meant I went to GAF. I got a message saying I had a lifetime ban for being a “faux insider” who handled himself poorly when proven wrong. I can’t argue with that. I totally handled myself poorly after being proven wrong on GAF. What I can say, in my defense, is I had *ZERO* idea that I had been proven wrong on GAF so my actions afterwards like my cheeky tweet was not in any way a response to GAF. I had no idea of anything that was happening at GAF.

This isn’t a plea to get my GAF account back – my cheeky tweet was me making the decision that I need to stop making posts like I did. I enjoy talking about videogames – a lot, and sometimes have info to offer that is pertinent to the topic at hand. That info by and large has been correct – hence my not getting banned once before now. This time it was not. I feel awful. I’ve felt awful since yesterday. It was that awful feeling that made me decide that I need to stop posting shit like that on GAF. It isn’t helpful. People will bend truth, rumors, things that are completely false, and whatever else to fit their narrative. And when I’m not careful I can seriously fuck with people’s lives and I don’t like that. So the GAF ban is fine. I’m better off as a lurker. I did want to clarify the order in which things happened though. Because I can be an asshole, but I wouldn’t make that cheeky post as a response to someone like Col on GAF. Col seems like a great guy and I really feel for him and his son. I apologize again for any harm I caused.



-Pete Dodd
Click to expand...
 
R

Ran Ran

Member
How about we just stop attacking people (including Pete) and blowing things out of proportion that we don't understand (such as reasons why so and so left this and that company)?
 
L

LowEndTorque

Member
Now that Col has started the ball rolling, I wonder if Stig and everyone else implicated in that post are going to start chiming to clear things up.
 
P

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
jschreier said:
Well, the difference between this and, say, CBOAT being wrong about Prince of Persia being shown at E3 or the PS4 coming out in October, is that this is actively harmful to someone's life and career. I imagine that's why the mods took this one more seriously. I hope Pete has learned from the lesson and won't repeat this sort of mistake if he chooses to go forward with his website.
Click to expand...

I also think that's the difference between some of the stuff cboat was wrong about, and the one that actually got him a slap on the wrist. When he was talking about Titanfall textures, resolution, etc it was denied quickly by multiple Respawn employees. Then he later doubled down on it, which had the implications that we were being lied to by the company. Takes it too far when it all ended up being wrong.
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
jschreier said:
Well, the difference between this and, say, CBOAT being wrong about Prince of Persia being shown at E3 or the PS4 coming out in October, is that this is actively harmful to someone's life and career. I imagine that's why the mods took this one more seriously. I hope Pete has learned from the lesson and won't repeat this sort of mistake if he chooses to go forward with his website.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If CBOAT had made some false, borderline-libelous allegation about, say, the real reason Jason West left Respawn and not merely Titanfall's rendering and texture resolution, the mods would have been entirely in the right to permaban him.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
Whoa, this a some scandal.
I knew when I read that initial post from mortimer this journey was about to reach a breaking point. Unfortunate. But really what did he expect to happen? You can't just go around saying that type of shit. Even if you're 120% its the real truth and nothing but the truth you don't make that post.

Playin' with fire.
 
R

RadarScope1

Member
I know Mort has positioned himself as an insider, but wasn't his post just pure speculation and clearly positioned as such?

Are we really banning people for speculating on GAF??????????? Aren't speculation and opinion the fuel that feeds the fire of this whole site? What the hell is going on here?
 
mysteriousmage09

mysteriousmage09

Member
m0dus said:
It's all about consequences. As was stated earlier, depending on the context of the information 'leaked,' the ramifications can have a profound effect on someone's (in this case) career. Especially given the nature of the news, some of the damage may be irreversible, so vetting said information before you leak it is of paramount importance. I don't think the 'pile on' here is the result of the initial slight, but rather, the poor way he handled the fallout. We are all human beings, and we all make mistakes. People will usually cut you some slack if you can handle a misstep with some measure of grace. It does not seem that was entirely the case here, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Yep. The initial response he made regarding the situation was as piss poor as you can get. Apologizing after the fact has far less meaning than it would have if it was the first thing he did.
 
C

ClearData

Member
Dreamgazer said:
I hope we all learned a lesson that it's stupid to speculate on people's private lives and career decisions.

not going to happen
Click to expand...

It happens all the time though. Every major departure is speculated upon on GAF and enthusiast sites. I can recall Richmond, Hennig, Stig, Rodgers, and Corrine Yu off the top of my head. Even without the facts people like to talk. As you said it's always going to be that way.
 
G

Gestault

Member
May I just use this opportunity to vent about the degree to which I had to explain to others why this situation looked so bad when it first came up?

Famousemortimer was in the discussion at this point, and sure didn't make any effort to clarify.
 
K

KissVibes

Banned
Hagi said:
We need a better kind of Insider, one who doesn't spread fictitious rumors and won't stray to the side of tabloid journalism with libelous claims. Luckily I've been working on an Indiegogo campaign for this very reason.
Click to expand...

I'm interested in this campaign of yours:

1) Are you a business guy or an ideas guy?
2) Do you plan on having unpaid contributors even though you're gettin' paid?
3) Is the site named after you?
4) How do you feel about Minor Threat?
 
R

RadarScope1

Member
Father_Brain said:
Exactly. If CBOAT had made some false, borderline-libelous allegation about, say, the real reason Jason West left Respawn and not merely Titanfall's rendering and texture resolution, the mods would have been entirely in the right to permaban him.
Click to expand...

I think it's highly worth noting that the definition of what's libelous in the UK and in the US are vastly different. And I don't even know where the law stands when it's posted online.
 
R3TRODYCE

R3TRODYCE

Member
Hagi said:
We need a better kind of Insider, one who doesn't spread fictitious rumors and won't stray to the side of tabloid journalism with libelous claims. Luckily I've been working on an Indiegogo campaign for this very reason.
Click to expand...

lol, ok this got me.
 
D

djblackice

Member
These dreeeeeammmsss go on when I close my eyes...every second of the niggghhhtttt...

Oh sorry thought this was a Heart concert.
 
Dr. Kitty Muffins

Dr. Kitty Muffins

Member
I'm not going to pile on to anyone but this is why people can misinform people about this message board. We aren't here to spread misinformation or to hate. We just want to know more about our hobby and also to be informed consumers. So long as what is posted is true, there should be no problem. I think all of us, insider or not need to hold back a bit and not act as if we know definitively what is what. It is okay to talk as if you have a theory or just want to float something but make sure your putting it out there for the right reasons. If we truly pride ourselves on being a group dedicated to tthe truth, and we aren't full of shit, we need to police ourselves better as individuals. The reputation of this board is its lifeblood.
 
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