General Gaming News and Discussion

Gavinmad said:

Well Mick included proof to back up all his rebuttals, so maybe you're just retarded.

Click to expand...

Even in 2020 Marty's reddit post came across as a bunch of CYA bullshit.

Vorph said:

Even in 2020 Marty's reddit post came across as a bunch of CYA bullshit.

Click to expand...

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during the phone call between Marty and his lawyers after they found out their stalling blew up in their faces and Mick took the whole sordid mess public, with proof.

Oh I briefly browsed the doom sub last night, apparently the mod responsible for restoring Marty's post after it had been taken down deleted his reddit account shortly after Mick's rebuttal was posted.

Zaara said:

Mick Gordon did an interesting if long-winded write-up about the unmitigated fucking disaster of working on DOOM Eternal's soundtrack. Sordid tale of insane contract parameters, lack of payment, sociopathic developers, Reddit drama, six-figure hush payments.

(Link fixt thanks Janx)

Click to expand...

From reading that, Marty seems like a psychopath and Mick seems like a pathetic beta cuck. Fucking got walked all over at every step, worked nearly a year without pay, had his work stolen, had someone who did nothing but butcher his music with edits get credit, never got paid for extra work, etc. only to then after the contract was ended join a call with Marty to be abused some more for absolutely no gain. Then after being lied to and denigrated at every chance, he agrees to not make any public statements. Masterclass in being pathetic.

After all of that, this is the what he says

Why he turned his back on me while misleading me to the contrary, when there was an opportunity to come together and work through the issue, without even seeking an alternative, is something I still don’t understand.

Click to expand...

Reads exactly like working on sound design in the movie industry to me.

You keep quiet and eat a mountain of shit because you don't want your career to end because of one shitty product you have no control over.

Oh sick i had no idea this was coming out, will need to get it

I loved Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal. They were both incredible games. I remember 2016's soundtrack as one of the Stars of the show, whereas Eternal's was simply there. That said, it wasn't bad or anything. I played through the whole Eternal game and never thought the sound track really added to or severely detracted from the experience. It was simply, "as expected".

It is sad that the two parties had such a messy divorce over the whole thing. They came together to create two games that were really something special. There is incredible talent and workmanship on both sides.

Can't we all just get along?

Fight said:

I remember 2016's soundtrack as one of the Stars of the show, whereas Eternal's was simply there.

Click to expand...

Axiel said:

I don't remember the music from Eternal and never thought about buying the OST. I do remember some really good ones from 2016.

Click to expand...

I didn't personally play doom eteneral, or the previous.. But these statements seem wild in the grand scheme of things when you pull back and think of "when the doom music kicks in" meme.. And it's literally the new guile theme goes with everything. While I get it's possible that isn't under everyone's scope; I do want to know how much it effects this whole drama.. These videos rack millions of views, and creations. I've got a few friends who do contract work for various arts, and they've all got stories how studios have fucked them over. Mick just happens to be "legendary" in that sense.


All I know, is thanks to this drama.. I learned Mick is the audio director for Routine, I was already excited and now I'm way more excited.

Doom Eternal is a lesser game in basically every way compared to Doom 2016.

I bet Marty Stratton came up with the idea for the Marauder too.

Bandwagon said:

Can I get a short tl;Dr on this drama? I don't know who any of these people are

Click to expand...

The dude responsible for the amazing Doom 2016 music is an Australian contractor, not an id studio employee. They contracted him again for Doom Eternal then spent the entire project assfucking him through arrogance and incompetence, then the studio director of id software publicly blamed him for the Doom Eternal OST being poorly edited garbage when it wasn't his fault at all. The Zenimax lawyers kept stringing him along for years at this point so he said fuck it and went public with the whole thing, with proof that the studio director of id software is a liar.

Gavinmad said:

Doom Eternal is a lesser game in basically every way compared to Doom 2016.

I bet Marty Stratton came up with the idea for the Marauder too.

Click to expand...

You can't compete with literal perfection though, so I gave it a bit slack. They did go far to hard with the arcady-puzzle shit.

To add to Gavinmad 's good recap.

The way most game sound-tracks work is that they are short, reactive clips that go with the flow of the action. So Mick Gordon, the composer, had produced over 4 hours of music (even though he was only contracted and paid for 2 hours) that they stitched into the game, to make a perfectly fine and reactive sound-track. There were plenty of challenges to even get to that point, but everyone got their work done and it would be all good if that is where the story ended.

Then, about 6 months before the game launched, ID/Bethesda announced at E3 that the collectors edition would also get a full OST soundtrack. Well, as you can see, producing the game music and an OST are two totally different things. It was a surprise to Mick because he hadn't be asked or consulted at all about producing an OST, but it was not too concerning, because they had all that time to get it done.

During that 6 months, Mick was constantly asking Marty Stratton (the game producer) for a contract to get to work on the OST and Marty completely ignored him. Come to find out later, that Marty asked an internal ID Studio guy on the sound design team to take Mick's 4 hours of piecemeal tracks and make an OST out of them.

Two days before the game launches, Mick finally and surprisingly gets a contract from ID/Bethesda/Zenimax to have him deliver the OST. He would have about a month to do it. Mick is totally upset and distraught about it, but tries to deliver it anyways within the timeframe they need it. He gets 10 of the 12 tracks fully produced and runs into a tech issue at the last minute that is going to delay his delivery of the full package by about 5 hours. Marty takes this opportunity to throw out all his work and instead go with the internal studio guy's piecemeal 4 hour soundtrack, call it Mick's shitty work and blame him for everything. This OST was cut and paste work without transitions, beeps, blips, and pings that would destroy your eardrums. To call it amateurish would be kind. And they called it Mick's work.

Marty goes to Reddit and destroys Mick's reputation. Internet trolls start doxing Mick, spamming his email to the point his server crashed, harassing Mick's other clients trying to get him fired, death threats, and 24/7 phone calls with messages threatening him and his family.

Marty and ID/Bethesda/Zenimax lawyer up, and try to pressure Mick to signing a six figure settlement and gag order. Mick declines and instead tells his side of the story.

It is all pretty fucked up.

Are you white knighting Gavinmad !?