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[Interview] General: Jason Appleton Responds to Controversy
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Last week, a bit of a kerfuffle rose up on our forums as Greed Monger, a recently funded Kickstarter project, came under the scrutiny of players wondering about the status of the game. GM's Executive Producer, Jason Appleton, didn't take well to the accusations floating his game's way, and heated words were exchanged between he and forum poster here at MMORPG.com. We caught up with Jason to hear his side of the story, and hopefully shed some light on the whole situation as well as the status of Greed Monger's development.
MMORPG.com: Looking back at the events of the past few days, would you still react the same way if given the chance now?
Jason Appleton: Who knows? Look, I just call things how I see them and I don't tend to pull punches. People think that because you are a developer that you have to act like a priest. I'm not a priest. I'm an indie game developer and I speak my mind.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Greed Monger: Jason Appleton Responds to Controversy.
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Jason Appleton: Who knows? Look, I just call things how I see them and I don't tend to pull punches. People think that because you are a developer that you have to act like a priest. I'm not a priest. I'm an indie game developer and I speak my mind.
I would say that you have to act professionally as it's a company, possibly one with investors who want to see their money in good hands and they are there to ultimately sell a product and make their customers confident in the product and creators.
Not to mention.you want to always put on a good face. We have to do this in interviews, with clients, maybe meeting our new relationship's parents, etc.
It's part of making first and lasting impressions.
If I was an employer and I found his remarks, I wouldn't hire him.
I don't see being "an indy" developer as a free pass to act like a hurt kid. Then again, I have worked in a lot of professional ciurcumstances and I'm a bit older so maybe that's just me.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Of course a developer would pull out of MMORPG.com's tear down community, there are people here with 10 pages of forum posts that are nothing but hopping from one game to another talking about how bad it is.
Maybe it is the feature that pops threads up to the front page, maybe they just take the gaming mentality into every part of life, but whatever reason they seem to travel around the landscape and attack, most of them have never even played the games they are attacking they just recycle something they heard somewhere else.
Even if you enjoy a game posting something that you enjoyed here is bound to attract this crowd, you will be accused of being a payed spokeman because you had fun in a dungeon or liked feature x. I am sure it is worse when you actually have a hand in the making of the project just to have this collection of trolls roll out and defecate on top of it.
In today society, we are surrounded by information. Why does a person with a mission/goal have to appease to everyone. In this country, making money isn't a crime. Now, why does he need to act in a specific manner? If he acts the way he does(as unique individual) people most likely respect him or if they think hes too much of an idiot (unprofessional etc) will just ignore/troll and be about there day. The remarks about being employer....He is the CEO. Deal with it. I still am confused about why everyone wants to start drama about GreedMonger. If you don’t want to read about it, think its a scam or whatever; just don’t read it? Jesus, I feel this site is National Enquirer
Gonna agree with this one. His problem is he puts his face and ego before the company's image . That could spell disasterous down the line. I think he's taken the MMA testosterone-induced experience too closely to heart. This is MMO nerdland he's in now. Take it down a notch.
Love the game concept, hope it comes alive, but he should not be the face of the company. Either that or take a few basic courses in corporate PR/branding.
Well to be honest all i can say is.. welcome to the internet mr Appleton.
But to me he looks like many indie-devs, he lack all forms of media traning and thinks he can out-joust people while missing the point that most major devs have take to heart and that is that you can not win against "haters".
My friendly advice (beyond get some proper media traning) is to simply ignore the people who are trying to get a rise out of you, because right now you just come off as rather paranoid and whiney since we do not share your knowledge or position.
This have been a good conversation
You don't have to do anything but there are repercussions for allowing "all your info and all your thoughts out so that they can be scrutinized".
Case in point: We had someone apply to a job and they underwent a phone interview. We were on the fence but thought his answers were decent so decided to bring him into the office for an onsite.
The manager decided to go out on the interwebz and do a search on his name.
oh boy, and what we found.
We canceled the interview.
Many employers do this and it's why you will see warnings for having your facebook twitter and "whatever else" sites accessible by everyone.
So sure, please feel free to act however you would like and just know that some people will call you on it, some people will hesitate to hire you, do business with you or will use what you say/how you say it to their advantage.
A few years ago I was actively hiring musicians for several projects and if I found out that they were troublesome or edgy or seemed unstable due to how they acted at concerts or by way of mouth, I would pass them over.
I want reliable and good to work with. Not issues. Why, as an investor, would I feel confident in this company and its leadership? Well "I" wouldn't. Some might.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The reason people are attacking GM is because of his attitude towards some people here.
As well as the flip-flopping on their KS project.
Originally there were gonna be only 3000 plots available, that could be purchased thru KS, then they added more and gave some excuse.
At first, the only cost was going to be buying a plot, or selling a plot they would take a % of that sale, now they are covering it up by blaming Hero, or Unity or whoever else they can. Now they might have to have a cash shop and/or subscription.
Here's an idea for future developers, find this stuff out AHEAD OF TIME, not after your KS project, not after you make all these announcements. They should have known all this stuff before they came up with the pricing policy.
This game at once showed potential, imo now its gonna be vaporware, or an under 1000 people type game
as a person who has worked not only in online game CS but in hospitality fields as well, i can honestly say if a person regardless of title/rank/job walked up to me and had a pissing contest with me over a post i made about their company/game. it wouldnt impress me at all.
you walk in to mcdonalds and the guy at the tile picks his nose and tells you to choke on your burger while spitting on it, would you still eat it? or even go back??
same is true if a dev regardless of company success has a pow wow against posts of their game. it only makes the game/company look worse.
if people posted about how horrible EA is and then EA pipped in that the user is an egotistical peice of poop... do you honestly thing EA would come out a heavenly angel?? LOLOL that is why instead of having pow wows on the forums against people who bash the game or deflame it, they should instead thank them for their feedback and point of view. calmly provide a counter point and go back to finishing their game. as the only way to shutup the haters or prove the devs are right in their game, is to actually finish it and provide it to people. until then pissing contests are pointless and only boost the the points people post against the game.
While it is good PR to act "professional" (subjective), I also agree with what he has to say about the forums on this site. It's one thing to look at an idea or concept and debate it like we do. It's a complete other thing for users on this site to start a personal vendetta against another human being, and have it played out here on the forums. It is slander, much of the time.
MMORPG should be looking into this a bit further. If I launch into an attack of another user, I get warned/banned. MMORPG.com also polices discussion of Emulators and games under NDA. I think they should add slander and personal attacks of people across the board, especially game developers.
Put up real solid proof of wrong doing, or shut up. There's way too much garbage theory-crafting about game developers here. If I listened to some of the more vocal idiots here, I would have to assume every induy game in development is a scam of some kind.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Well, that's great and if people have a personal vendetta to invest in then anyone who is being the public face of a company or organization should prepare themselves accordingly. People aren't perfect, I think we all know that. But how you comport yourself can mean the difference in being successful or being looked at as a fool.
He is not the first person to be attacked in a public forum, whether it's on the internet or in "real life".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
My advice to Appleton- If you want to fix the issue you've now caused, hire a pr pro, issue an apology for your behavior, then stop talking. Let someone who can actually behave themselves, and express ideas without resorting to namecalling and threats be the face of the company.
I guarantee that Hero will look at your behavior when considering a relationship witlh your company. So will any potential investors. YOU poisoned the well, damaged your company and hurt your employees. Now hire someone to fix YOUR mistakes.
He's hardly the first businessmen to defend himself in the public eye. It may have been a futile effort, but I understand why he did it. This site is full of people who have nothing better to do than tear people and things down. Frankly, I'm finding myself avoiding MMORPG.com more and more these days because of the gross culture growing here. The best thing he and other developers can do for themselves is just avoid contact with these forums, unfortunately for all of us.
Alas, this is happening all over the internet though, and it's the reason why companies like Google are trying to do away with anonymity on their social sites like YouTube. Apparently when you give people something to hide behind, many are perfectly content to be as disgusting as they can to each other.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Now if I direct these comments at one of the MMORPG.com users, I will be warned or banned (and by the way, he *IS* a forum user). Why should Quailman get a free pass to bash on a developer with his opinions? If they are going to allow this, then let's just go full PvP on the forums and go all the way.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Sorry, but if you think less of this guy because he got in an argument here with one of the forum warriors, you're the biggest fool of all.
He makes mistakes. Jesus had his flirations with Mary Magdalane. MLK Jr plagarized , etc etc.
People make mistakes. He acknowledges that he shouldn't have engaged in an argument with the forum warriors, but doesn't regret the things that he said.
The world would be a lot better place today, if you all, and everyone around you had this same amount of personal integrity.
I read that entire interview and what I got out of it was Jason is combative and he danced arround the questions while apearing to have a chip on his shoulder. What I just read made him look like an arogant punk.
I'm sorry you feel that way Mr Appleton.
While I agree that people calling your project a scam wasn't really warrented and for the most part those threads stuck scam in them to basicly attract attention I still don't think you will actually deliver.
I mean your history is one of jumping from one project to another. You do relise that developing evan a bad MMO takes at least 3 years of full time development and right now what you have is several part time staff, some Unity assets and the Hero engine. Heck you couldn't evan stick to the one engine to develop your game for 3 months.
It's this kind of thing that makes me leary of throwing money at you. Now I am sure your not doing it on purpose and right now you have every intention on actually producing a game but in 6 months time when the novelty of it all wears off your history suggests it will all be scrapped and you will move onto something else.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
There is nothing more dangerous than a true believer.
I have stated my opinion(backed with facts) more than a few times on Youtube. I will keep it tame though as I don't poo where I chew, and I'm just tired of it. I believe at this point there is enough evidence to argue both sides(Appleton's side is still mostly words). It will take a vastly improved and more complete product with -`*ORIGINAL*`- work from the dev team to convince me of anything however.
Jason Appleton if anything take all of this and let it hone you into an steely tempered MMO developer and/or warrior. Don't give up if your intentions and efforts are honest. PS internet fights don't work the same as in MMA, those who swing fists and go crazy are usually the loser. Think like a politician since you're becoming so public.
*Anonymous, potentially slanderous, grumpy internet dude sits and waits*
"The manager decided to go out on the interwebz and do a search on his name.
oh boy, and what we found.
We canceled the interview."
It's pretty common practice in the workplace. It's also dispicable.
"Don't tell me what to do! , you're not my mod"
Saying invented by me.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
I think the thing that hit me the most was his constant assurance that the people bashing him are those he rejected for job offers. I don't know that they aren't, but it seems a little sweeping to assume they are. I mean, I've known this community for several years now...the people on here that like to rage against a game don't exactly NEED a good reason. It feels like he is trying to validate himself by tossing all opposing thought as vengence.
Its not, though. But lets take a moment to assume it IS. I'm a very logical person, structured heavily in reason. In a search for facts and truth, motive isn't an absolute modifier for it. It can bend a fact or truth, but it often does not cloud it completely. Even if they ARE angry at losing a job opportunity, that doesn't mean that there aren't points they are making which have merit. Any discussion, especially considering that this was an interview meant to totally clear the air, that revolves around absolute fact should address the point on its own merit. By saying that everyone is a jealous hater, it avoids the contested point entirely. I realize that in some of his posts on that thread, (which I've read, but not extensively) he did address some of the material brought up.
But that was in a forum post. One riddled with flames and hate. The time to really put all feet forward on each and every last thing would have been the interview, where he wouldn't be shot down at every word. He talked about the Hero engine change, but that was only one of the things being brought up attacking him. Even then he still came off as an angry teen, lashing out at the very site offering him this uncontested medium for spreading information. He could have taken a deep breath, took a step back, and really evaluated what this interview could be for him. Instead, it honestly feels like he is speaking in the forum post again. Its as though he forgot, entirely, that he was speaking to a neutral party...one composed of people who have been inside this market, and this medium, for years professionally.
As another neutral bystander, I can say that its has not shaped my view of this game, or its merits, in a positive light. It nearly confirms what the core of the worry about this game is...in that its being helmed by a person with no sense of adult business or maturity. In the world of movers and shakers...having a great ideal is not enough. Its sad, but its true. You have got to be so much more than a creative person to make a game and sell it on a broad scale. With ever word he is supporting the ideal that he does not have the other characteristics of a successful businessman and entrepenuer.