welcome back to the news everyone today
it's actually a deadly serious topic it
really is and it's one that's a little
bit upsetting because the guy in
question Mick Gordon did suffer pretty
damn serious reputational damage and Aid
the developers of Doom and do maternal I
mean they published an open letter which
allegedly is completely full of lies
that tanked this man's reputation and
did pretty damn severe career damage to
him because after the claims that the
like Studio director of ed made about
Mick Gordon who of course did the
legendary soundtrack of Doom 2016 and do
maternal I mean who in their right mind
would work with Gordon again if those
things were true and has however
transpired that there absolutely is
another side to the story now this is a
whole thing that went down in 2020 right
and where it really hit a fever pitch is
when the OST like the actual you know
publication of of the album when it was
delayed
we kind of started to understand that
the thing that it wasn't really Mick
Gordon's actual Creative Vision and the
fever pitch when it all maxed out was
when Marty Stratton who is the studio
director of ed released this open ladder
this open ladder that now Mick Gordon is
heavily calling into question and it is
an open letter that absolutely threw
Gordon under the bus in a way that
potentially we're finding out now may
indeed have been extremely malicious so
we now have quite a big breakdown of
this story even including six figure
hush money so yeah this one really does
have it all as of course does today's
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the show going let's go into the first
thing that Mick Gordon said right Marty
lied about the circumstances regarding
the do maternal soundtrack and use
disinformation and innuendo to blame me
entirely for its failure afterwards he
offered me a six-figure settlement to
never speak about it as far as I'm
concerned the truth is more important
Marty's Reddit post severely impacted my
professional and personal reputation in
releasing this statement I'm exercising
my rights to defend myself it is a
defense not an unprovoked attack issued
with extreme reluctance after all other
attempts resolve of the matter have
failed and then he sort of does the
disclaimer of don't use this to just go
on like hey raids and [ __ ]
because that's not what he would want
what he wants is to actually have this
thing be resolved and for his
professional reputation to actually be
back and be normal perhaps other people
will maybe work with him again now this
takes us into the absolutely hellish
development cycle of Doom Eternal
because the soundtrack was not really
the problem you've got to remember right
in a game like this the soundtrack that
you maybe will get in Spotify that is
something that somebody actually has to
create and that takes a lot of effort
pretty damn different I mean in our case
a lot of our Games music is playing out
driven by uh AF mod within the game
engine so it's a lot of smaller elements
that are then kind of more dynamically
mixed together at certain points even
more so for a game like Doom Eternal so
for an audio designer in this case like
especially for a game like Doom maternal
it's going to be quite uh tightly linked
to the actual gameplay Loop and the
overall state of the game itself and
that's why this game really did start
off with issues because the original
plan was to score two levels per month
around two years before release that's
quite a lot of Music Mick says this was
tight but not impossible now the thing
is he was asked to produce finished
music that would be able to be matched
to gameplay in the Doom 2016 style but
the problem for him is the story didn't
really exist like the narrative wasn't
there the levels themselves didn't fully
exist either so he's being asked to
create this score but it's like a score
to what I need more to go off
but he ends up taking a stab at it
anyway now he ended up suggesting about
two months in and several delays deep
and the delays were actually because of
contract issues and slow Communications
with Bethesda and Ed but he basically
said that they should redesign the
schedule to avoid these problems and
this is the kind of thing you always
want to do you want to get ahead of the
problem try to resolve it proactively
and he essentially suggested a plan that
mirrors a more typical approach which is
to First Define the game's overall
musical identity by writing strong
reusable themes before ramping that up
to full music production for assets
whenever these levels actually exist and
can be play tested and then the audio
can be far more tightly tied into the
gameplay because the audio is being made
to match the gameplay the gameplay has
been made to match the audio you know
it's all kind of happening in one big
happy Confluence instead of just doing
things
per Warden XL Spreadsheet says and
believe me the whole thing in game
production of these massive plans that
get drafted up by people who are not
Frontline staff who don't really
understand all of the particulars of
actually delivering on tasks I mean I'm
sure you've had it too in your own job
that is something that even in local
Indie scene and stuff like that I have
seen like basically tank and kill
projects so it is an absolute killer and
unfortunately one that edin Bethesda
were running straight into so basically
your audio guys coming to you and saying
hey this plan really doesn't suit how
music for a game like this should be
made and the response to that from
Stratton was uh well to uh quote
proceeded to tear me down for having the
audacity to raise the issue in the first
place so the schedule of two a month
just continued now of course this is a
schedule it was pretty damn
ill-conceived it was a way of making
this music that really really just did
not make sense for the game and that did
mean that with the game months later
beginning to take shape
some of his guesswork in making this
music was off so weeks and weeks and
weeks of work were thrown into the bin
and Urgent rewrites had to happen
of course
urgent rewrites for Stuff delivered in
the past even though you're still fully
Scouts a lot for this month and again
that is because of what he identified as
being the problem with the way the audio
was handled and what Stratton just
absolutely refused to budge on now
Gordon doesn't blame individual team
members here he thinks they were
sympathetic but overall they couldn't
really support him because of a bit of
an unwillingness to actually escalate
problems right seemingly to escalate
problems to management at an issue where
the music budget just didn't really line
up with the scope of the game that is a
kind of interesting thing this is a game
that had a lot a lot a lot of crunch and
a pretty troubled development cycle so
clearly not all is actually ship shape
at it in terms of how they well execute
a project now per their budget and
everything large levels were being given
30 seconds of exploration music each
which Gordon then had to you know spend
time convincing people that hey we need
more than 30 seconds of
of your exploration music we need more
budget being put into these now this
sort of thing just continued for a whole
bunch of production with Gordon
essentially just being you know locked
away many time zones apart from the core
team it did not really getting the
support the budget all of that stuff
that he would actually need to do the
job and then there's also the problem
that uh he just wasn't getting paid for
this now this is uh quite an issue we do
of course have some email evidence stuff
here here's uh here's just really nice
you know I haven't been paid since
December 18 2018 eight months ago I've
raised the issue multiple times and
haven't gone anywhere whilst I'm happy
to Crunch away in good faith I'd
certainly appreciate payment for the
work completed
wow what's that people with like lives
and families want to actually get paid
for their job shocking right and for an
example of like this sheer scumminess
here there were two sweets that of music
that were used in the 2018 reveal of
this game but they ended up not being
like uh well essentially being rejected
okay
um now again you've got to remember all
of the audio production issues this game
had had already and how that was
basically just all set up for failure
they then tried to basically not pay him
for them
yeah he just made these you know two
Suites of music that we all heard at the
2018 reveal and it said no we don't like
it we're not going to pay you
even though per the contract they
actually did use the work they used it
to promote the game So eventually that's
one where they were forced to cave and
actually pay him the money that he was
owed again if you're working with a
contractor and you don't get exactly
what you want back and you reject it
that is in fact partially on you if it
turns out that you've not set that
person up for Success right you don't
just get a magical world where you only
pay for Perfection and exactly what you
want that is not how it works but then
the problem is things got even worse
because the original soundtrack that was
announced and I mean another fun little
thing
um
he wasn't paid for the 11 months
following January 2019.
so you know they just seemed not really
be that much of a fan of actually paying
him and now we get to the whole OST
thing because he found out that Mick
Gordon's original do maternal soundtrack
was part of the collector's edition now
the problem is this OST wasn't in fact
in production Gordon had not been
offered a contract to produce it they
didn't talk about the scope the time
frame or any of that he in fact learned
about this work that he had to do via
the media and you might just think but
the music's already in the game it does
not work like that I mean mixing
mastering Arrangement that is actually a
shitload of work and then obviously
there's the artistic side of how you
actually put an album together which is
something that was pretty damn well done
with the Doom 2016 OST so this isn't
really good Gordon's a bit confused he
reaches out to get this all straightened
out because the OST would be quite a lot
of work and then Marty Stratton just
gave him a response that left him being
pretty confused because for reasons I
still don't understand he flatly denied
me the contract and refused to do
anything about the OST saying he didn't
want to cause a distraction
now of course this would have been a
distraction while Mick was continuing to
work on the soundtrack for the game and
it's also just worth knowing here that
for most of 2019 the the core
development team as well were in crunch
for this game
which does mean this is probably a
situation where they just didn't really
have much time for Mick Gordon's
concerns which is understandable but you
if stuff's falling off the rails the
least you can do is be reasonable about
it so as all of this is going up [ __ ]
creek he keeps on being asked to do more
music by management and that's why I'll
sort of legal implications are being
made uh right if if you fail to meet
those commitments now the game was then
delayed from October 2019 to March 2020
and ID rejected then yet more work and
demanded a new music at this at this
point in time Gordon put his tools down
and said I need to be paid for my work
because they they weren't paying him
according to them I was the one being
difficult the word they used was ball
Lake and they urged in no uncertain
terms to carefully consider the
destination my protest would lead to
again his protest over being paid to do
his job
which is a bit ridiculous now he was
eventually paid in November of 2019 and
after that he then relented and carried
out the work
now the aftermath to this is uh then not
great he says that he finished the
project feeling unhappy empty in a state
of anxiety where he basically had to
Crunch for two years because of this
brutal schedule that apparently expected
a finalized score before the game was
even ready for a finalized score which
is just dumb he alleges them that he had
been required to ultimately make almost
double the amount of music like in terms
of minutes of music that he was
originally uh tasked and contracted for
he has still in fact not been contracted
to produce the two maternal OST and then
he actually discovered that the gaming
feature the game featured nearly all of
the music that he had produced
but they only paid for half of it right
rejected tracks mock-ups demos ideas
sketches a massive amount of additional
music well beyond the budget allocated
in the contract Boost at their request
and shared in good faith but they they
included this stuff directly in game in
marketing and updates without paying for
it they still refuse to pay for it so
this is like stuff where they were
rejecting some tracks and
trying to not pay him for it
and then using those tracks anyway
which is ridiculous so overall then he
believes that this cycle of demanding
music and then rejecting it but then
using the music was essentially
tantamount to them just trying to elicit
a massive amount of unpaid work for him
in order to compensate for their
budgeting shortfalls I mean
what that absolute Clan Fiesta but we
now get to the OST in the 2020 situation
so he had still actually heard nothing
about the soundtrack in spite of uh you
know six months of pre-orders for this
product that has his name attached to it
so what he then does is he sidesteps
Marty Stratton the like Studio director
of it and he went straight to Bethesda
right so he does that and he was
actually able to work with Bethesda so
he States then that there is draft terms
between those two parties 12 Songs it
had final approval he would hand over
the source files and the deadline was
April 19th with an agreement that
flexibility could be offered but a bonus
would be there if the deadline was hit
and that he would be paid for a separate
album from 2015 that he produced for
Bethesda that he actually had never been
paid for so that's cool now all this was
in a draft form and it was not a signed
contract so
March 11th that's when we find out that
the OST had been delayed and that it
would no longer ship with the
Collector's Editions then March 18th 48
hours before the release of Doom Eternal
Mick was sent the contract with the
terms and uh we know this because there
is a DocuSign uh later on you know a
DocuSign like screenshot that does
include the date obviously that could be
faked but I imagine that if he was going
around faking this kind of thing uh
that's kind of disprovable pretty easily
and you would get into a great deal of
trouble for that sort of thing so that's
that time stamped and this overall means
that he had 29 days to produce and
master 12 uh pieces of music with no
direction for Mid software per his
claims he tried to press on making the
most of it by April 3rd half the album
was complete and then on that very same
day Marty Stratton emailed that April
16th was now a legal obligation to
prevent refunds being owed under
consumer protection laws because
consumers needed to receive it by April
20th so once again from Gordon's
perspective
and yes due to mismanagement and idiocy
from it uh
things had had then just got worse but
Marty Stratton found another solution a
very bad solution which was another OST
he commissions lead audio designer Chad
to go and make another OST using stuff
that Mick had already submitted and
here's just from uh from Marty's open
letter right where he said as we hit
April we grew increasingly concerned
about Mick delivering the OST to us on
time I personally asked our lead audio
designer at ID to work on ID versions of
the tracks a backup plan should make not
be able to deliver on time now this is
quite funny because this is actually
contradicted by the metadata of the 70
plus tracks that MOS holder had sent to
Gordon for a review right so potentially
unknown to Marty bwf metadata details
the exact creation date time and
software used by whoever made the edits
metadata in Chad's files shows he began
work on their alternative OST as far
back as August 2019 which is six months
before Marty received the contract and
do then remember that the original
release date for Doom Eternal was
November 19th which then would maybe
make people think was their plan to
release this with Gordon's name on it
but for it to not really be an OST that
he mixed and mastered right and to that
you know therefore not live up to his
standards which I don't know if you got
this but do maternal OST complete [ __ ]
so this stage Gordon's not particularly
happy right where this soundtrack is is
just not good it's not a good album so
he then lays out to it a plan where he
would work in his 12 tracks and submit
them in line with their agreement and
then facing a technical issue on the
final day of the deadline he had 10
songs ready for Handover and asked for
four to five hours to fix the remaining
two and Bethesda were actually on board
with this granting him that extension
but Martin Stratton was not on board
right he wasn't really on board with the
OST tracks as produced by Gordon he
asked for for 10 different songs again
we're talking about the day of the
deadline here so on this day of the
deadline four days before uh you know
these things would be legally eligible
or liable for refunds Stratton then
allegedly asks for 10 different songs
Gordon then refuses to do this Stratton
asks Gordon to hand everything over and
says that basically in you know them
that ID would handle the final assembly
of this and that does mean that the OST
released without Mick Gordon hearing a
hearing the damn thing and the results
were not good the response to the
soundtrack was uh pretty brutal all over
the Internet we talked about it I mean
we loved both me and Matt we love the
Doom 2016 soundtrack uh a lot of the
internet did and that is why it just was
absolutely
it was not good stuff it was not good
stuff and that's pretty rough on uh on
Mech as well because it's kind of like
his music being bastardized worst of all
is the inclusion of hours of music and
rejected demos I was not and still have
not been paid to produce as an example
final sin Sandy City track 59 was a
rough idea mocked up in haste for the
ending cutscene this exact ammo file was
immediately rejected in fact Chad was
part of the panel that rejected it but
he included it on the album and listed
himself as a co-artist despite having
absolutely nothing to do with it more
importantly the song is based off a
Melody written by Bobby Prince the
composer of Doom 2 who has not been
credited anywhere on the album It's
software never paid me for this demo
which is produced in good faith and not
meant for public release
cool wow okay so this is all going up
[ __ ] creek so and again this is
soundtrack with Mick Gordon's name on it
that is being trashed all over the
Internet this is bad for him so he
basically uh received a request for a
call with Marty Stratton because Ed
we're also noticing the response to this
soundtrack it went pearly according to
Gordon it opened with frankly we are too
[ __ ] nice Apparently that is what
Stratton snapped at him
so they then discussed the OST the
consumer protection concerns the
production of the OST and the contract
issues that led to problems and Marty
explained he was trying to protect all
of us but by now I had not fallen in
line I was on my own as soon as people
came after us we come after you he said
so that's rough Stratton then asks
Gordon to take full responsibility for
the album
which is a awful move for his career
like that is basically saying hey could
you throw yourself under the bus for my
benefit
that is total scum Behavior so then
Gordon refuses that because he feels
total [ __ ]
supposedly then this call went on for an
hour they cleared their air they began
to make a plan to repair this situation
Stratton then asks Gordon to hold off on
all public statements until they could
jointly discuss a shared statement right
okay all good so the problem happens but
the two grief parties they finally hash
their stuff out and they decide to work
together for a solution all good right
no no not all good because
um seemingly completely unilaterally
Marty Stratton just revives a Reddit
account that had been Dorman for three
years and then published an open letter
on the original soundtrack
yeah
so Gordon and his legal representative
reached out to Ed around this because
and you'll remember at the time that
open letter was brutal and I think most
of us we were inclined to believe it at
the time because it didn't really feel
uh feasible that that they would lie in
such a a sort of a blatant way right and
that didn't really seem feasible to
people and with a lot of those
allegations people just felt that the
shoe fit well in Gordon's view Marty
published a series of false accusations
ID software ships do maternal with twice
the music that they'd actually paid for
after Gordon was able to demonstrate
that the allegations were contradictable
and the music was present in the game
zenimax offered to settle so this is
basically like you know a sort of a
settlement out of court where it's like
all right here's the legal agreement you
do these things we give you this money
and the issue is considered closed right
um okay so these negotiations were
settlement go back and forth Marty
Stratton would be required to take the
Reddit post down but he refused that
Gordon would be paid the money owed but
he was also asked to produce a new OST
he accepted on the basis that you know
he was paid and all of this stuff so the
settlement then gets withdrawn right
Gordon alleges a new letter of response
that claimed that Stratton was willing
to well issue legal proceedings over
times that Gordon had basically publicly
discussed do maternal and the use of
that music in her his his own portfolio
and then uh that's a letter that offers
a new settlement and this is the
settlement that is this is this is the
hush money this is the bribe a
six-figure sum in return for taking full
public responsibility for the failure of
the OST details were absurd Marty would
keep the Reddit post up indefinitely he
would never attract his false
accusations nor clarify his statement
and his story would forever be
considered the truth I could never
discuss do maternal the OST or the
Reddit post if I was asked I had to say
no comment I had to pledge I would never
bad mouth Marty or anyone working under
the zenimax umbrella and I could never
criticize any product developed by a
zany Max studio
ouch and uh yeah so he just had to
accept blame and he'd be given money and
Marty Stratton would be
protected so Meg refuses this on
principle because it's just wrong
he feels that he's being asked to give
up his right to tell the truth for some
money that that's completely
unacceptable and I suppose in the light
of the reputational career damage that
this would have done like yeah
absolutely
it's wild that seemingly they were
completely unwilling to remove this post
even if it seems they maybe know it's
[ __ ] now Gordon then reported the
post to uh some Reddit mods actually and
the post was taken down and then put
back up within 12 hours with stratton's
lawyers uh delivering that removing the
radar post had greatly offended Stratton
he was Furious and made it clear in the
strongest terms that an amicable
resolution would be impossible
and that is what leads us to this
situation then right so he feels
personally aggrieved by this obviously
his artistic process has been fiddled
around with they've not paid him they
seemingly have breached contracts he of
course had to deal with a lot of online
abuse and harassment stuff like that
it's I mean including things like you
can see here a little note from Conor
that's like not sure if we can put this
in because of the monetization and age
rating but you know the worst stuff
basically was said to him people
harassed as other clients he kind of
gets the you know living hell that being
the main character of the internet can
be especially when you know trusted
acclaimed game developer comes and tries
to just stake the shiv in you and I
think like some of the situation with
Stratton as well like if I remember
correctly he was featured in that no
clip documentary which uh you know will
have meant that people kind of will have
been more familiar with him right they
won't have been
sort of primed to
it's a sort of thing like if this all
came out from a Randy Pitchford I think
people would be a little bit more
suspicious but I suppose
it had at least in the public
Consciousness a more clean record
so ultimately Gordon is drained I think
this letter is a very cathartic thing
for him and he ultimately says I never
quit Doom I quit a toxic client
it's time to leave this sad State of
Affairs behind
I'm forever thankful to the truehearted
folks who have continued to put their
faith in me even in the face of Marty's
attempts to damage my reputation I'm
happy to say the projects I've been part
of since have been some of the most
rewarding experiences of my career so it
does seem that things are ending up
turning out okay for him I imagine they
will get significantly better in light
of this post now it could be the case
that the truth may lie somewhere in the
middle between these two different
things that absolutely could be the case
maybe this is the sort of time where we
do need the journalists to hop in to
reach out to their contacts at Bethesda
to see right you know what wanted people
in Bethesda think what did people in ID
think I don't know but this is exactly
when we do need a big old dose of
Journalism so that we can know precisely
what happened now that being said
these are all pretty damn serious claims
he does seem to have evidence for a lot
of them he obviously would be you know
if there's Fabrications here if there
was like a lot of lies and stuff I think
he would obviously be he'd be risking uh
bad legal things happening so he does
have quite a lot to lose when he makes a
statement like this and a lot of people
would take that as being a bit of an
indication of truth right
um because you know what I mean like
there's some things you just don't lie
about but again a lot of people would
have said that about the original post
for Marty Stratton so
I can say that that personally
uh personally I do find myself being
more sympathetic to the mick Gordon side
of things
um I think some of that evidence feels
pretty uh it just does feel pretty
convincing a lot of the timeline stuff
does add up you could say that that
could just be done you know after the
fact to line up but it does actually
genuinely seem uh to to line up you
think about why that soundtrack would
have been a massive cluster [ __ ] that
kind of makes sense and I mean audio is
routinely not treated that well in the
games industry another example
um I've forgotten her surname but Sarah
who she did the soundtrack of Anthem and
you might think oh Anthem LOL but its
soundtrack actually was pretty good it
had some like kind of nice Creative
Flair to it she also did like Assassin's
Creed Origins some of the other recent
Assassin's Creed games
um which have been sonically really
strong Sam actually goes for the modern
warfare games and she has actually left
Modern Warfare 2 kind of left that
project isn't going to work with
Infinity Ward again because of a
breakdown with the audio director at
Infinity Ward and that's just another
example of of things musically not
really going quite well that's
tremendous shame because music really
can make or break a game I mean in terms
of stuff with our studio and this is a
fairly rare thing usually I mean in
Indie Games music is a bit of an
afterthought it's kind of done pretty
late stage whereas for us we've had
full-time music from the very very
beginning we have a humongous amount of
music for our game and it's all I mean
the music has came together as the
scenes have came together in very close
collaboration I would just say like you
cannot treat music badly music is so
core to the experience of a video game
especially one like ours which is why
we've traded music with such reverence
but uh yeah it's uh man it sucks that
absolutely sucks
um and especially
you know
there's a lot of great music that we
didn't get right that sort of you know
Mick didn't get to give to the people
um so hey hopefully there will be uh
more of his music getting out there in
the future if you would like to check
out some really strong Mick Gordon music
actually a fair amount of the stuff from
Killer Instincts is Mick Gordon and it's
really really damn strong so there you
go I mean this man what what a story the
new cycle has been crazy that these last
few days and weeks this is just an
unfortunate one a sad one the sort of
thing you do you just don't want to see
happen to people but
Man games industry
turns out it is an industry full of
humans and sometimes when they get power
humans are not particularly good at
taking responsibility and they're pretty
damn good at blaming so
take from that what you will okay let me
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let me know what you think be back with
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