RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[Chris Avellone]

#if you cant detect the heavy stench of sarcasm especially considering what i posted itt so far, the problem lies with you

I thought it was very well-written sarcasm - because I did a double-take while reading it, which is one of the best reactions to crafted sarcasm. Thank you.

This post is not sarcastic.

 

[Mustawd]

This one has drunk deep of the Kool-Aid.

Yes, a guy who used to work in high tech and was laid off due to a shitty company "restructuring" to save its shitty decisions is drinking the kool-aid.

GTFO here.

Real talk? If my shitty company hadn't made shitty decisions in the first place "restructuring" , aka massive layoffs, would never have happened. Which goes specifically to MCA's point: That shitty management is making it worse for everyone.

Like Morgan Freeman in se7en once said, "You can't afford to be this naive":.

 

[Prime Junta]

Also, the opinions of people who actually lived under communist rule are null and void, because that wasn't REAL communism.

The majority of Eastern Europeans feel they were better off under Communism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2gpfmp/polls_show_eastern_europeans_miss_communism/

Between 50 and 60% of Russians miss the USSR.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-union/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9ead284b6913

 

[Mustawd]

Can't tell if ur serious VoD.

if you cant detect the heavy stench of sarcasm especially considering what i posted itt so far, the problem lies with you

You're right. Sorry.

I'm caught up in the ecstasy where my accounting and business knowledge actually are relevant on a prestigious gaming forum.

 

[Jinn]

I would occasionally read comments saying “you were upper management” and “he must have gotten a big payout” and “he signed an NDA, got severance, etc.” and it made me realize most people didn’t know how that all shook out, so I answered it. It wasn’t a great time in my life to deal with all that bullshit with everything else going on, so when I hear something to the contrary, I correct it....

Everyone needs to read this post, as it seems to be the most concise reason as to why Chris has decided to come forward in this way. I think it also clarifies that it was not an action taken in malice or spite, but one in which he hoped would not only show the truth of the matter, but help the situation as a whole in general.

 

[Alienman]

Oh no. Another cold war incoming.

 

[Mustawd]

I feel weird that Jinn has changed his avatar. Is it just me?

 

[Imoens pet]

I would occasionally read comments saying “you were upper management” and “he must have gotten a big payout” and “he signed an NDA, got severance, etc.” and it made me realize most people didn’t know how that all shook out, so I answered it. It wasn’t a great time in my life to deal with all that bullshit with everything else going on, so when I hear something to the contrary, I correct it....

Everyone needs to read this post, as it seems to be the most concise reason as to why Chris has decided to come forward in this way. I think it also clarifies that it was not an action taken in malice or spite, but one in which he hoped would not only show the truth of the matter, but help the situation as a whole in general.

Surely you jest, right? Unless this makes it to the mainstream, such revelations wont go anywhere, save for the niche communities who keep reposting Chris's statements.

 

[Prime Junta]

I will break your bones repeatedly until they lose the ability to store fucking calcium and glue the fractures with shit mixed with minced Dollars American if you dare say 'Eastern Europeans' enjoyed 'Communism' ever again

I'm not saying it. You are. If you didn't like it better under Communism why do you keep telling the pollsters you did? I mean 66% of Romanians would vote for Ceausescu, and he was the fuckedest-up of a club of fucked-up geriatrics by the time he was deposed. If even horribly executed dictatorial socialism imposed from the outside is preferable to capitalism, then capitalism must really suck.

Spoiler

It does. It does really suck.

 

[Blaine]

Also, the opinions of people who actually lived under communist rule are null and void, because that wasn't REAL communism.

The majority of Eastern Europeans feel they were better off under Communism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2gpfmp/polls_show_eastern_europeans_miss_communism/

Between 50 and 60% of Russians miss the USSR.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-union/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9ead284b6913

Most of the links in that Reddit post are deformed and the rest are very old. Still, I found this:

By saying that life was better in socialism than it is now, the Serbian citizens primarily refer to better economic situation and standard of living, but the majority of them would not go back to that period.

Mihailović said that similar results were obtained in other post-communist countries, as well as in some post-dictatorship regimes, adding that there are various reasons for this.

Also, polls aren't perfect and definitely aren't the be-all and end-all of properly gauging public opinion. See: The 2016 US Presidential election.

And really, using a years-old Reddit post collating links to even older polls to prove your point... that's uh... that's special.

 

[Tom Selleck]

I think it would be super cool to drink a beer on a patio with MCA. Wearing sunglasses, and maybe shorts.

 

[Prime Junta]

Walk carefully at night

you seem upset

 

[Glaucon]

Also, the opinions of people who actually lived under communist rule are null and void, because that wasn't REAL communism.

The majority of Eastern Europeans feel they were better off under Communism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2gpfmp/polls_show_eastern_europeans_miss_communism/

Between 50 and 60% of Russians miss the USSR.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-union/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9ead284b6913

"False Consciousness", but real this time.

But I seriously don't understand how anyone can take seriously Marxist rhetoric in the context of white collar, bourgeois work.

 

[Phanax]

When I joined the Codex I wasn't expecting communism for fuck's sake.

 

[Mustawd]

I think it would be super cool to drink a beer on a patio with MCA. Wearing sunglasses, and maybe shorts.

What kind of beer?

If you say IPA ima have to fight you.

*unbuttons top button of pants*

 

[Jinn]

Surely you jest, right? Unless this makes it to the mainstream, such revelations wont go anywhere, save for the niche communities who keep reposting Chris's statements.

This information existing here is enough to create some amount of change, even if it's a small amount. It also allows for the possibility to spread, which is a precious thing for a truth nowadays.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I might have said this before I don’t think defending Obsidian’s upper management translates into helping Obsidian employees, either financially or job security wise.

This, friends, is the crux of the matter. One of the most pernicious things in capitalist culture is the fiction that what is good for the corporation is good for the worker.

Companies can be more or less fair, the management can think in the long term or not, they can value their workers to a greater or lesser extent -- and especially in knowledge- and creativity-intensive industries valuing your workers more than the next guy does often translate to success in the marketplace -- but when the rubber meets the road, the interests of the owners and the workers are irreconcilably opposed. The owners want to extract value out of the workers, and the workers want -- or should want! -- to retain as much of the value of their work as they can. The most effective way to keep the workers docile is to hoodwink them into believing that they are the corporation. They're not. All they are is a means of production.

Or, as Bill Haywood put it, "if one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."

Unionise now. Alone, you beg. United, you bargain.

This is exactly the kind of attitude that would make me determined never to seek work at a given company.

I think Communist frameworks of thinking about employer-employee relations lead to much worse when the management subscribes to them, as opposed to just some employees. The closer the cancer has spread to the central nerve system, the worse.

 

[Mustawd]

Surely you jest, right? Unless this makes it to the mainstream, such revelations wont go anywhere, save for the niche communities who keep reposting Chris's statements.

This information existing here is enough to create some amount of change, even if it's a small amount. It also allows for the possibility to spread, which is a precious thing for a truth nowadays.

I mean let's get serious here for a second. If MCA's audience is anyone, it's Obsidian employees IMO.

 

[Prime Junta]

But I seriously don't understand how anyone can take seriously Marxist rhetoric in the context of white collar, bourgeois work.

The colour of your collar doesn't matter if you're working 90-hour weeks with no paid overtime and are a slave to the whims of a majority owner who can "de-ownerise" you on a whim. Industrial production is mostly automated so blue-collar workers are a much smaller and less powerful contingent than they used to be, but the economic dynamics of capitalist exploitation haven't changed one whit. The Communist Manifesto is truer now than it was in 1848.

(N.b., just in case you were wondering, my agitation is sometimes a bit on the ironic side but I am being deadly serious now.)

 

[Blaine]

Walk carefully at night

you seem upset

Yeah, I'd be upset too if I lived in Eastern Europe and had to watch dipshit Western hipsters extolling the virtues of communism.

 

[Imoens pet]

Surely you jest, right? Unless this makes it to the mainstream, such revelations wont go anywhere, save for the niche communities who keep reposting Chris's statements.

This information existing here is enough to create some amount of change, even if it's a small amount. It also allows for the possibility to spread, which is a precious thing for a truth nowadays.

Perhaps, but most users' who have commented on Chris's statements either don't care or are apathetic to the circumstance. That is ignoring the ones' who are defending Obsidian and attacking Chris.

whether or not this will cause change, I don't know. Most people are apathetic to what's going on.

Just take a glance or two at steam and Obsidian forums.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yeah, I'd be upset too if I lived in Eastern Europe and had to watch dipshit Western hipsters extolling the virtues of communism.

A lot of fascists went and stayed underground when the Soviets liberated their countries, so I've no doubt that what you're saying is true. You, personally, that is.

 

[Daedalos]

Oh wow.jpg

Seriously, if this holds up, Feargus has the economic competence and intelligence of a 5 year old. How on earth he got himself in that position, absolutely boggles my mind. And as a CFO at that point... holy hell.
How Feargus amassed this much power over everything is truly mind boggling. Blatantly ignoring advice and commands of other co-owners, whilst doing absolutely diddly-shit, tanking the company because he's a incompetent moron.

Nepotism, de-ownering, black mail. Smells like a felony case to me. You should sue their fucking asses (I know you don't wanna hurt the developers and other good forces in the company)

 

[Latro]

The problem is when we did have a lot of money in the bank, Feargus tended to spend it freely and rarely checked with other owners before doing so

Mind going into this a bit more? He didn't rent out an entire cheesecake factory for release parties did he?

 

[Mustawd]

Hey retards. Take it to politics subforum. FFS.

It's sad when a mexican tells you to stfu. We're trying to siesta here, you morons.