Posted Nov 21, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC
I don't get it. Even people trying to deny his claims actually kinda make the case that it's true.
For example, this counter claim: "Wow. Hey @edmundmcmillen, I was the producer of PvZ2 and that story was not even close to the truth. It’s a bummer that something false like this came out second hand. I’m happy to chat offline... Cool. Since this picked up some traction, I should state the facts that I know. I was the lead producer from Jan ‘12 to launch in July ‘13, about 18mo. George was never involved during the time I worked on the project. He was working on a different game, which was super fun! But it never launched. George was unfortunately part of the layoffs in Aug ‘12, but I know none of the details surrounding his departure. In Oct ‘12 there was a change in franchise leadership that mandated a shift to f2p mobile. Despite concerns about the design change, I’m proud of the work me and my team did. George created a great game that we built upon and I was sad to see him go. I’m excited for his new endeavor and wish everyone the best of luck!"
Someone explain to me how they can call him a liar and then proceed to openly admit that he was fired directly before restructuring in a shift to F2P? Like, do they need to both be on the exact same day before it's proof lol? George was openly against the direction EA wanted to go and was fired right before the changes were made. 2+2=?
edit: it's amazing how many people are willing to play devil's advocate and/or go to bat for EA in the interest of being fair. Let's go ahead and assume this story is completely false. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. Fuck EA and fuck anyone willing to defend them just because there's no smoking gun. They do not deserve your fanboyism and they do not deserve to be treated fairly.
He is saying that he was laid off/fired from his job.
He is also saying that he was against the freemium model being in his game
He never said he was fired because he was against the freemium model in his game. At best it's circumstantial.
He is responding to a situation created by a friend who did directly say exactly that and he responded by confirming as much as the story as he legally could (for now).
I think it feels as more of a statement as someone who wants the spotlight taken off him then a legal need to be neutral. Confirming but not 100% so he isn't seen as the tip of the spear on this point.
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because if he makes that causative connection himself i imagine legal allegations could get involved
this is quite a statement considering he could've said nothing - and if it was't true, he would've denied it. this is as close as you get to confirmation without entering legal territory
because if he makes that causative connection himself i imagine legal allegations could get involved
So there is no evidence to support X, therefore X is more likely?
The only reason it would be a problem legally would be if it was a lie.
Which of course means that the two aren't connected.
Lol what? Do you have any idea what jobs are actually like? All it would mean is he can't prove EA fired him exactly because of that- and all that means is EA weren't dumb enough to write a letter saying "You're fired because you refused to help us make PvZ freemium."
Most likely there's an NDA linked to his termination package, and it would cost him a lot of money to admit that was the reason.
Best proof is if it WAS NOT the reason, he would have said so. The fact that he says nothings is a clear sign that he can't legaly do it, so we just have to connect the dots.
At least according to Edmund McMillen, who was the one who told the story that started all of this, there weren't any NDAs that limit what could be said about it. There might have been one that George had that Edmund didn't know about, but part of why Edmund didn't see any problem with sharing the story was because there wasn't an NDA.
The beauty about ndas is you can write them so people can't even acknowledge they exists without breaking them. I know this is an "invisible aliens are doing it" case, but it's actually a common practice
There's no proof at all. It's pure conjecture. If you feel that's the case that's fine, but there's no hard "proof." In order to come to the conclusion you are coming to, you need to make assumptions based on incomplete information.
so kinda like the guy that knows nothing about how the firing happens but is sure something is false?
edit: it's amazing how many people are willing to play devil's advocate and/or go to bat for EA in the interest of being fair. Let's go ahead and assume this story is completely false. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. Fuck EA and fuck anyone willing to defend them just because there's no smoking gun. They do not deserve your fanboyism and they do not deserve to be treated fairly.
Literally nobody is "going to bat" for EA here. I have no idea why your edit is so stand-offish. "Correlation does not imply causation" is being said because that's true. It's entirely possible that there is a reason that Fan and EA know about that we don't. He could have been fired/laid off because he didn't want to get on board with the F2P stuff. He could have also been fired for another reason. I don't know the answer. That's not me "going to bat for EA," that's me not jumping to conclusions based on incomplete information.
Maybe it would be in your best interest to realize that there is a bit of nuance here as opposed to pointing fingers at the "EA fanboys" or whatever.
I was the lead producer from Jan ‘12 to launch in July ‘13, about 18mo. George was never involved during the time I worked on the project. He was working on a different game, which was super fun! But it never launched. George was unfortunately part of the layoffs in Aug ‘12, but I know none of the details surrounding his departure
He wasn't part of the project up to the point he got fired. Seems really strange to take this statement and twist it to mean his opinions on the direction of a completely different project got him laid off with 49 other people.
Nah EA felt the need to fire 50 people and cancel a game to.hide their retribution over someone disagreeing with a decision on a project.
how about ea is bad in general in keeping studios together because they force stupid shit onto them?
This.
He was also let go almost 5 YEARS AGO
Your own post says that George wasn't even working on PvZ2 when he got fired, but ANOTHER GAME. So why would they fire him for objecting to F2P on a game that he wasn't even working on?
Because splitting hairs over objecting to that specific game being F2P and objecting to the direction EA was heading towards regarding mobile gaming as a whole doesn't really matter. Don't forget it was his friend that first told this story, not George.
Because splitting hairs over objecting to that specific game being F2P and objecting to the direction EA was heading towards regarding mobile gaming as a whole doesn't really matter.
But the story wasn't "George was fired because he disagreed with the general direction EA was going", because that happens all the time.
Sounds like a case of chinese whispers/telephone game on the part of Edmund Mcmillen.
2+2=?
Correlation doesn't mean causation.
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If he hasn't worked on the game since at least January, why would they fire him over it in August? They fired him over a game he wasn't involved in 8 months later?
You're leaping to a conclusion to fit a narrative you're pushing 5 years after the actual events.
I think the tweet makes clear that it's because he didn't work on the game? According to the tweet George was working on a different game.
edit: it's amazing how many people are willing to play devil's advocate and/or go to bat for EA in the interest of being fair. Let's go ahead and assume this story is completely false. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. Fuck EA and fuck anyone willing to defend them just because there's no smoking gun. They do not deserve your fanboyism and they do not deserve to be treated fairly.
Is there an opposite to fanboyism? Where you just admit you don't give a shit because you just want to ride the hate-train regardless of anything? Because you're being that kinda guy.
Both stating "not even close to the truth" then "but I know none of the details surrounding his departure".
I don't understand, is he being put up to be PR clean-up like those poor devs in the AMA? EA just throws everyone but the executives out on social media so no one starts looking at higher ups?
"I know nothing about how he was fired" "Your story about how he was fired is false"
He knows nothing but feels confident it was unrelated because the person fired was on a completely different project when he was fired.
it's amazing how many people are willing to play devil's advocate and/or go to bat for EA in the interest of being fair. Let's go ahead and assume this story is completely false. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. Fuck EA and fuck anyone willing to defend them just because there's no smoking gun. They do not deserve your fanboyism and they do not deserve to be treated fairly.
EA social media management is on patrol.
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Hey @edmundmcmillen, I was the producer of PvZ2 and that story was not even close to the truth... but I know none of the details surrounding his departure.
You read one thing, I see another: If you don't know the details surrounding his departure, how can you claim that it's not even close to the truth? At best all you can say is "I know nothing".
So did they lay off all 50 people to cover up this firing of one dude because he was against freemium whatever?
I don't get it either. Maybe they are just in denial because their paychecks come from EA? I really don't know.
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Your move, Allen Murray.
Actually, fuck it, it's so damn obvious. I have no desire to read glib PR statements. George Fan doesn't want to find himself in the middle of more F2P drama and that's understandable. But I don't think there's a way PopCap could convince me they didn't ruin their games with F2P and that they didn't alienate George Fan in the process.
I remeber playing the orignal version of the game waaaay back when it did not contain any microtransactions. Good times.
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The one thing in business that I've learnt over the years (family biz. Lived with it all my life, company started a year after I was born, worked in it most of my adult life) is that when there is a "he says she says" situation, it is usually borne out of gross misunderstandings on both sides of the fence, gross enough that either party may feel like they may have legal grounds to stand on to take to court, or similar.
As for the truth, well that train kind of left the station the moment the mudslinging started. AT this point, its to either party's best interest to push agendas focused on their side of the story, and only their side of the story.
The best you can get is a compromise between both parties. The truth is long since murdered on the railroad in the next town over, and will likely never come to light in any appreciable fashion.
For all we know, they may be both telling the truth, and believe it to their core that it is the truth. The problem here is that they could be both right.
Unless a third party speaks up, but I digress, for I think said third party has far bigger political, legal, and likely economic problems to deal with soon.
I don't have patience for all this teasing of gossip. Game developers are acting like school children sharing the latest hot newz with each other. Get a grip, if you have nothing to say, then say nothing.
Except this wasn't hot news, this happened years ago, and Edmund talked about in for a short 5-10 minutes during a discussion in a 2 hour long gaming podcast. Then that segment of the podcast got talked about on r/TIL, r/games, r/pcgaming, r/gaming, etc. then gaming journalists picked up the story.
Why did Edmund just share this information in public on behalf of another person? Seems kind of unfair to George.
I work in fiction publishing, not games, but I've seen several instances of someone being so upset over the treatment of another writer that they spill the beans in public. It's very easy to feel the need to champion someone else who's been wronged, especially if they're your friend.
However, in almost all cases it sucks if you do it because it forces the other person to have to have a public engagement over it that's not on their own terms. Let people decide when they want to come out about a thing.
Would i be right in assuming the person laid off might be unable to say the reason why under some kind of contract or something to avoid EA getting bad press?
NDAs aren't as common in my field. Protecting the company's image is always a possible reason for requiring an NDA. However, it's not something I can speak on with much experience.
Edmund claimed that the developer didn’t have an NDA. Who knows what the real situation is though
When this does happen, typically it's in exchange for a severance package of some sort. I'm not brushed up on NDAs, but I don't believe that you can be required to, for example, sign an NDA at the time of being hired that binds you not to talk about being fired if that should ever happen.
I agree with you, I'm not sure what the context was in the podcast where he brought it up, maybe it was just talking about EA doing scummy F2P business model things? Either way he should have kept it much more anonymous to protect George from unnecessary drama.
Is there any indication from George that would support the idea that this is what George actually wants? Edmund knows the guy, I'm much more inclined to believe he knows a lot more context on this situation and Georges feelings then we do. This tweet just says he's not saying more, and there could be any number of reasons for that
I'm just talking about the explanation during the podcast he was on where he initially brought it up.
I'm just saying George may not care about there being drama, or may even want others to be speaking about this issue. All his tweet says is that he's not saying more for time time being. We lack the context and I think Edmund has a much higher likelihood to have that context seeing as how they are friends or acquaintances or something like that.
Yeah it was a discussion on the EA lootbox fiasco and he brought it up as an example of EA wanting developers to make p2w games. It was relevant to the discussion but yeah he shouldn’t have publicly outed him like that (imo).
It was right off of talking about EA's business practices, especially Battlefront 2 and microtransactions. It made sense in context, as they had been spending the greater part of 40 minutes talking about the whole ordeal, from the design, to EA's response, etc.
I agree, he probably should have left it as anonymous - I was surprised when he named Fan - but, at the same time, I think leaving it anonymous would have made the story just another hearsay bit that no one would have noticed.
Yeah it was weird because afterwards they asked him for details and he was like “it’s not my place to tell” but...you already just told everyone, so too late for that.
Because he's a dick? He's always been a dick, and he's going to keep being one, whether he intends it or not.
Can you give me some examples of what dickish things he's done?
Edmund is a saint tho
Totally agree, he has a game coming out soon and hasn’t even began to do press/market it. To have this tornado to dodge while trying to promote your game is unnecessary. Edmund thought it’d be good but I’m pretty sure EA will be in contact and won’t take it laying down, (as we’ve already seen) even if they aren’t in the wrong it just makes it difficult for his launch.
I thought it was a pretty dick move but hey that’s one persons opinion on the matter.
Probably to suit a narrative, get some clicks on a fish-in-a-barrel sort of topic for the blog that gave him some attention. Any F2P/P2W/EA/Lootbox article is guaranteed to get 10,000 clicks from r/games.
If you knew Edmnund or listened to the podcast you'd know you were wrong. The guy just speaks his mind and they were talking about EA. They had him on before too so no clickbait there.
Damn straight.
I should have made some shitty YT vids and a AdWords supported WordPress blog.
I missed out on thousands
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