Personal Ethics and Reviewing / Gaming

[druez]

With Skydogs permission, he said I could start a new thread.

I've been doing reviews for about 2 years now I think. I like playing games as most of you do and I don't mind giving my opinion on things. I've always held myself as a know-it-all and I don't mind getting ripped for my opinions or arguing. "I’m polish ok? "

Anyway, Sometime around September I asked to write previews and reviews of FOF and TPF and I contacted both companies. Jim said no on the preview because release was almost here, but he said I could write a review but asked me if I was part of the marketing crush of .400. I answered no and at the time I wasn't at all.

I entered into the beta test right before I did my review for FOF. I gave FOF a good review and I liked the product again, my biggest problem being bland graphics "in my opinion" but touted everything else highly. I then became more involved with TPF and Joe Stallings. Joe start feeding me rhetoric about how much this board was anti .400 and I bought into it hook line and sinker. He asked me to post things putting down this board and Skydog personally. Well, you all remember the Skydog is a dictator thread don't you?

Anyway, I thought [i] being the dumbass I am, /[i] that is was the right thing to do and you guys meaning the vast majority of FOFC were against .400 for trying to do things differently. I was banned as you all recall. Then TPF was released and I wrote my review of the product, "I based it on what the game could become rather then what it was at the time" I allowed my personal feelings towards the company influence my review of the product. I still stand by the review for what the game is today, but at the time it was to high.

Anyway, so me looking at Skydog as the enemy I entered into a huge flame war with him on the .400 forum and Jim and FOF were dragged into it. I was cutting and pasting things Joe wanted to say in my posts and started pointing out the bugs of FOF to defend TPF. YES IT WAS UNETHICAL OF ME TO DO THIS and I WAS WRONG. I choose my personal friendship with Joe over my ethical morals.

After people on this forum who liked my past reviews questioned my integrity, I at first fought with them, "yabanci for example" and simply didn't want to except the truth about myself and that I fucked up. Well, I wrote Skydog a letter and asked to be let back in and apologized for the way I treated him. Every time someone here wrote something negative about .400 or Joe, he would tell me and I would come here to argue for him. Yes, go ahead say it again, I'm a dumbass.

Anyway, there are many more details that I'm not going into right now, I just want to focus on the ethics involved on these various things and admit I was wrong publicly and apologize to Skydog, Jim and the rest for my past transgressions. I asked HR to review FBCB and I was excited about it. It’s a great game and I loved it. Well, I was discussing this with Joe and told him I liked quite a few things more then TDCB. He said and I quote, "rip his game, say its ok to play but its real amateurish". I said no, I'm not doing that. Arguing on a forum is one thing, but taking a review that is quassi professional and ripping a person’s livelihood is another. I gave FOF a good review as you may recall, but I argued on the boards about it, for some reason to me that seemed ok at the time. To make matters worse he then asked me about OOTP constantly while he was still working with Shaun on Total Pro Baseball. He wanted release dates and private information. I told him over and over again that I signed an NDA and I won’t break it. I finally said “No Joe, I'm not going to give you that crap and I didn’t talk to him since” I came to realize that my personal integrity is much more important then having someone for a friend that just uses you for their own personal gains.

I bring this up now because I couldn't stand to see Joe sit there and gloat knowing what I know about him. There were people patting him on the back for nice screens when they are ripped from the net from others hard work, anyone remember Joe's Diablo/.400 website a while back? There is a word for things like this in the animal world, its called a parasite?

Well they say, “The truth will set you free”. You guys might rip me or flame me, but I think I'm doing the right thing and coming clean. Carry on with the flames or rips of me, I just thought you all might want to know and if you didn't go read another topic

Jason

[SirFozzie]

Umm.. no offense Jason, but I don't believe one word in three.

[druez]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Umm.. no offense Jason, but I don't believe one word in three.

Hey thats ok Fozzie, I didn't expect everyone to believe me. Maybe noone will, I did what I felt was right. Think about this though, I have way to much knownledge of Joe and what he does for this all to be made up don't you think?

[John Galt]

I'd be curious to see any documenation for any of your allegations about Joe and .400.

[Drake]

I'm glad Markus went solo again.

[druez]

Originally Posted by John Galt

I'd be curious to see any documenation for any of your allegations about Joe and .400.

Such as what chat transcripts or emails? This isn't against .400 at all. No other members of that company had any clue what I was doing. This was between me and Joe. I have chats and emails? I didn't record all my phone conversations, why would i?

[JonInMiddleGA]

I reserve the right to form an opinion at a later date/time.

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I hope you can back up your allegations, Druez. That being said, I just don't get a warm fuzzy feeling from .400 software studios which right or wrong makes me less likely to buy their games (I'd still buy one of their games if I felt it was clearly better then the alternatives in that sport.)

[druez]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Umm.. no offense Jason, but I don't believe one word in three.

You know, I knew writing this makes me look as bad or worse then Joe but I'm ok with that. Its no fun living a lie.

[druez]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I hope you can back up your allegations, Druez. That being said, I just don't get a warm fuzzy feeling from .400 software studios which right or wrong makes me less likely to buy their games (I'd still buy one of their games if I felt it was clearly better then the alternatives in that sport.)

Absolutely Eaglesfan

[NoMyths]

The ethical thing to do would be to resign from your game reviewing job, as you claim you were compromised while performing it. If your post is true, you cannot in good faith continue performing that role. If your post is false, you've irreversibly damaged your credibility.

[Subby]

I am disappointed SkyDog let you post something like this...

[sachmo71]

Well, I respect you for trying to patch things up over here. People don't often admit when they are wrong on message board, mostly because there isn't a need to.

[druez]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

The ethical thing to do would be to resign from your game reviewing job, as you claim you were compromised while performing it. If your post is true, you cannot in good faith continue performing that role. If your post is false, you've irreversibly damaged your credibility.

Aye, I said that today to myself before I started all this. I knew I had written my last review. I'm finishing a preview for Markus OOTP 6.0 and it will be up to him if I post it. I should of never gotten involved with the people who make the games, it makes it way to hard to be objectonable.

It is alot easier to write reviews of Sega Sports games or EA Sports games etc.. Its faceless, but this community is so passoinate about the products, I just didn't have the ability such as Bill Abner does to seperate the product from the people.

[druez]

Originally Posted by Subby

I am disappointed SkyDog let you post something like this...

Why subby? He let me post all the bad things I had to say about products and people before? Why shouldn't he let me try and make it right?

[fantastic flying froggies]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

Well, I respect you for trying to patch things up over here.

I second that. Welcome back, Jason.

[Angie]

You can all believe what you will about Joe and about this situation - I'm married to him and I think he's a great guy. It's only human for a man to try and defend himself when attacked so maliciously in a public forum, but you won't be hearing anything else from us on the advice of our attorney until all of this is properly and legally resolved.

Ben - please don't allow a complete character assasination on the forum even though it may rival 'Playmakers' for drama.

[StormcloudCreations]

Originally Posted by druez

Aye, I said that today to myself before I started all this. I knew I had written my last review. I'm finishing a preview for Markus OOTP 6.0 and it will be up to him if I post it. I should of never gotten involved with the people who make the games, it makes it way to hard to be objectonable.

It is alot easier to write reviews of Sega Sports games or EA Sports games etc.. Its faceless, but this community is so passoinate about the products, I just didn't have the ability such as Bill Abner does to seperate the product from the people.

Yep...writing this and admitting it prevents you from doing that job any longer. It's a common failing though; I know after hearing about this thing, if even an a single ounce of it proves true, i'll be much less likely to buy a .400 product again.

[Chubby]

I think that if you let personal feelings influence professional matters then you were wrong and did a very bad thing.

As far as Joe goes, I reserve my judgment til I know more facts.

Having gone through certain stuff, I certainly know that things aren't always as they appear from gaming companies. I certainly wouldn't harbor bad feelings against .400 even if this were all true, just Joe.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Subby

I am disappointed SkyDog let you post something like this...

I agree. If the other thread was locked, why allow this one, particularly when it became clear that Joe was going to let his attorney do the talking from that point forward? What you've got now is a one-sided recitation of facts with no rebuttal, other than from a few people who know so little about this situation that their opinions don't matter.

[SirFozzie]

The thing is..

I've spent quite a few hours talking to Joe and Arlie. This would be COMPLETELY opposite what I know of them. That's why I find this very hard to believe, Jason. Your comments are just to incredulous to be believed.

[Ben E Lou]

For those who are wondering why I allowed this, I made the decision to close the other thread after asking Joe if he had said all he wanted to say, but I didn't extend that same courtesy to Jason. That wasn't fair to him. Now that he has said his piece in the matter, the thread is closed, and there's no need for this to be a public discussion any longer. If any of you want to PM Jason or Joe about any of this, you can of course feel free to do so.

Sorry this all went down this way.

--Ben