Adam Orth To Give Speech On Online Toxicity

Aardvaarkman

I am the one who eats ants!
Jul 14, 2011
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Formica Archonis said:
I didn't like this guy before but I did feel a bit sorry for him, as no one deserves to lose their job for being a jerk on the Internet.
Why not? Being a jerk on the internet is no different to being a jerk in meatspace, Why should jerks be employed, when there are plenty of non-jerks who need jobs, and would probably do them better?

It appears that he was tweeting as part of his job, anyway.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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BloodSquirrel said:
Adam Orth destoryed Adam Orth's career. No amount of "toxicity" from gamers would have cost Orth his job- it was him deciding to sling mud at gamers that cost him his job.
If that's all it took, half of Microsoft would be on skid row. Face it, that's nonsense.

LordLundar said:
Wouldn't work. They were using promo vids and dev kits at E3. You know, the stuff running off of Windows 7 and doesn't have kinect hooked up.
Nobody even tried.

Which was the point in and of itself.

SkarKrow said:
Ineed I hope so, and I meant to say what they want, hence the striked out you...

Hopefully so because mass customer feedback is hardly a bad thing, it's only bad if you do things the customer doesn't want.
Hopefully, people go up against CliffyD next.

Smilomaniac said:
They both got heavily critisized for what they said, both went to do a speech about it and both ignored any and all reasonable opposing viewpoints.
I have a feeling you're one of those people who's never watched a single FF video or read anything she wrote, but rather had it paraphrased to you by some histrionic teenage boy who is afraid he's going to lose boobies in games because some mean feminazi made a video.

If you want to pretend that talking about rape and death threats is for suggesting games might be sexist is on the same level as getting yelled at for actively insulting your customer base, I guess I can't stop you.
 

Genericjim101

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Jan 7, 2011
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I now want to see a speech called "How to act in an unprofessional manner with your consumer base then deny responsibility for your failings". This reeks of a sad man trying to justify his poor behaviour, and the following consumer feeback as "toxic" unruly overreacting. When even his own employer told him to "GTFO" you think he'd see that as him having done wrong and especially now that they have backtracked also.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Nimzabaat said:
It's also just a coincidence that Valve is going "what a great idea, we should think about doingthat". And people are getting excited for it because it's Valve and not Microsoft.
I hate it when I have to defend Valve.

Look, Valve and Steam do have problems, and their fanboys can be ridiculously over-the-top. However, your comparison is ridiculous in itself. You're comparing the removal of a standard model and replacement with a more limited one with the addition of a more liberal model.

Not to mention, the library sharing was the one element people really WANTED, so I don't see why the one part people liked not being surrounded by Microsoft's bullshit wouldn't be met with praise.

It's natural to want more over less. Do you not understand this concept?

Reeve said:
I think Mr Orth might be a professional troll. He's doing all the things one would do if one were hellbent on pissing off as many people as possible. :D
It's weird that I find the internet to be too cynical, since I make Dari Morgendorffer look downright optimistic.

Elijin said:
Didnt the context of his comments take place between him and someone he regularly bantered with, and then got picked up and broadcast everywhere, without context, due to the nature of public information on twitter?

I think him giving a speech on it would be worthwhile, seeing as he fell victim to saying something stupid to a friend, in a scenario where everyone could see it and run with it.
He's a major figure for a company in the middle of serious contentions on that very subject. If he wants to talk about the nature of the internet and how you shouldn't say stupid things thinking nobody is watching you, that's one thing.

AC10 said:
So opinion and online communities having power is... bad?
*whines* consumers aren't supposed to have SPINES!
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Smilomaniac said:
Of course I'm ignoring it, because it's worthless drivel written by idiots who have nothing better to do than lash out at others.
Be honest. It's because it's grossly inconvenient to your argument to treat the rreaction to Anita Sarkeesian as an actual toxic one.

Fact is, I used to argue with Anita on YouTube before she shut down comments. She didn't ignore criticism, even if she could be rather thick-headed on points. You see, I'm a feminist, but that does not man I believe wholesale in what Anita is talking about. Her focus on the Bechdel test (which Twilight passes) and retconning old content to be more inclusive (especially since she was talking Star Trek, the irony) annoy me to no end. Yes, we exist. We are not some collective.

She shut down comments and stopped responding to people because of the rape and death threats which you are dismissing. In other words, she stopped engaging in reasonable discussion when it stopped being a reasonable discussion.

Maybe you should be angry at the dickweeds who caused her to change her policy rather than pretending she's never addressed critcism or reasonable points.
 

Nimzabaat

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Feb 1, 2010
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Nimzabaat said:
It's also just a coincidence that Valve is going "what a great idea, we should think about doingthat". And people are getting excited for it because it's Valve and not Microsoft.
I hate it when I have to defend Valve.

Look, Valve and Steam do have problems, and their fanboys can be ridiculously over-the-top. However, your comparison is ridiculous in itself. You're comparing the removal of a standard model and replacement with a more limited one with the addition of a more liberal model.

Not to mention, the library sharing was the one element people really WANTED, so I don't see why the one part people liked not being surrounded by Microsoft's bullshit wouldn't be met with praise.

It's natural to want more over less. Do you not understand this concept?
I do. I really, really do. That's exactly the problem I've got with people right now. We've traded more for less. Microsoft went "do you want to be able to share your games with more people?" The answer was "no". So now we've got less instead of more and the people who chose less are trying to rationalize it by saying that we never could have gotten more and more was just a smoke screen.

By the way, If people wanted the the library sharing so badly, why did they fight so hard against it that they actually "won"? Seriously, the FSL required it to be region locked and required a regular check in so that it wasn't being abused. It was probably a hard sell from Microsoft to the game publishers to begin with. I could just see that conversation:

MS: We're putting a family shared library system into the XB1
Pub: What does that mean?
MS: Anyone in your "family" can play your games.
Pub: That sounds like it's going to negatively impact our sales.
MS: It might to a some extent, but we're limiting the family size to 10.
Pub: What about different governments legislation about video games?
MS: Well it'll have to be region locked so that we don't get banned anywhere. It may take some negotiating.
Pub: So any "family" member can play any game at any time?
MS: As long as only one person is playing it.
Pub: That sounds like a 90% loss in sales, i'm not sure we can get on board with that.
MS: I wouldn't worry too much. It'd take a really coordinated group of friends to get the most out of it. Besides, if we get more interest in digital sales we can drop prices and the consumers will love that.
Pub: What if they just added a whole bunch of "family" and then played offline?
MS: We'll have to get the console to check in regularly so that doesn't happen.
Pub: I don't know about this, but I guess if we want any sales we'll have to agree.
AFTER
MS: Guess what? Forget about what we talked about. People are stupid.
Pub: Wait, what?
MS: Yup. People are really, really, stupid. They didn't want the FSL after all.
Pub: Seriously?
MS: Yup.

TLDR: I understand that more is better than less. I don't understand why people chose less. Gamers chose to have the FSL removed.
 

hooksashands

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Apr 11, 2010
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Honestly? This guy has my pity. He snaps under pressure and makes one negative comment, and suddenly he's an archvillian for something his company decided would be protocol way ahead of time. I don't hate him. If I had the chance to sit down and talk with him and ask him why he told everybody to "Deal with it!" he could probably articulate why as a motive rather than a reason: Because even if he listened to everybody's objections and challenged his superiors about Always Online, he probably would have still been fired. Microsoft only changed the policy at the last possible minute, with their backs against the wall. Really, what could Orth have done before we all got mad?
 

DeaDRabbiT

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Sep 25, 2010
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I certainly hope that Mr. Orth is prepared for the refresher course he's about to get on the subject.
 

The_Echo

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Mar 18, 2009
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I sense an appropriate subtitle...

Mob Rules: The Destructive Power of Opinion and Online Community,
or How I Made an Inflammatory Comment and Couldn't Handle the Consequences
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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Orth subsequently resigned from Microsoft following the controversy. Whether the resignation was entirely Orth's decision or "encouraged" by Microsoft is unknown.
Annnnnnnnnnnnd yet Don Mattrick still has a job. Le sigh.....

On a lighter note, I've got a great idea to make a lot of money very fast! Set up a tomato cart outside the room Orth is giving the speech in and charge a dollar per tomato. Make sure you bring a lot of'em though, because you'll be certain to run out of inventory very quickly.
 

ThreeName

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May 8, 2013
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Hahaha, what a gimp. He said multiple stupid things, got into trouble for it, now he's complaining.

Sounds like he needs to deal with it.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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hooksashands said:
Honestly? This guy has my pity. He snaps under pressure and makes one negative comment, and suddenly he's an archvillian for something his company decided would be protocol way ahead of time. I don't hate him. If I had the chance to sit down and talk with him and ask him why he told everybody to "Deal with it!" he could probably articulate why as a motive rather than a reason: Because even if he listened to everybody's objections and challenged his superiors about Always Online, he probably would have still been fired. Microsoft only changed the policy at the last possible minute, with their backs against the wall. Really, what could Orth have done before we all got mad?
I wouldn't pity him. Granted, trying to sell the XBone as a good idea to the gaming community is a nigh-impossible task. Diablo III and SimCity should have let pretty much everyone in the game development industry know that gamer's are fully aware of what DRM is and all the negativity that comes with it. It's an argument that game companies simply cannot win. No matter how many bells and whistles they tack onto it to make it seem appealing, at its core it will always have problems (such as loss of connection and server crashes and such equating to effectively losing the game itself).

One rather nasty and foolish habit that MS employees have fallen into lately, though, is to counter questions and criticisms with out-right insults. Between Orth essentially saying "fuck off if you don't have an internet connection" and Mattrick laughing as he says "Yeah, well maybe if you live on a nuclear sub you won't have connection", they've somehow come under the impression that treating their customers like children and speaking condescendingly towards them is somehow a good thing. So this guy throws a hissy-fit and tells us all to deal with it...and now that we HAVE "dealt with it", he's doubling-down on his douchebaggery by announcing that he's going to give a speech which will effectively be saying "Gamers don't know what's good for them, they're holding the industry back by not laying down and just taking whatever we try to cram down their throats. When we piss all over their faces and tell them that it's just the rain, they're supposed to believe us!" (that is, if the title of his speech is anything to go on in regards to the subject matter).

No, he "resigned" from MS for effectively telling the gaming community to fuck off, and now he's written an entire speech which will effectively be saying the exact same thing. He's not worthy of pity, he's worthy of a slap to the face for being such an arrogant prick.
 

RicoADF

Welcome back Commander
Jun 2, 2009
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seditary said:
Someone please go to his speech and yell out #dealwithit
Seriously anyone who does that would earn 1000 internet points, I hope someone does
 

hooksashands

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Apr 11, 2010
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RJ 17 said:
snip-snap
That's what scares me about these situations: People are simply looking for someone to blame. Orth and Mattrick come to represent key figures in an evil empire out to drain our wallets and betray our trust. Don't you ever feel like gamers are just a little too happy to start screwing someone's reputation without getting all the facts straight? As I said , Orth had no decision-making power, he merely oversaw customer Q&A. Even Mattrick himself has to answer to shareholders and his own employees; It's not like he's some omniscient demigod who can snap his fingers and cater to everyone's specific needs. This is most evident in the DRM/Used Games reversal, because those conditions are in his power to change; the Kinect peripheral can't be recalled because it's probably already gone into production. Not that I'm siding with the industry here, much less the sort of people who screech "ENTITLED!" at anyone who dares complain, but I can't help but feel like we're just shooting messengers left and right. If I worked for a company like Microsoft or Nintendo, I would be terrified to approach the videogaming public. We've shown a history of getting results when we complain, but we've also shown that we're capable of effortlessly ruining careers.

I can't in good conscience lay all blame and enmity on Orth. His removal from MS was punishment enough. If he wants to have a panel where he whines about how totally mean the Internet is, let 'em. Who cares. I'm gonna keep my hate saved for someone who actually deserves it.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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hooksashands said:
Indeed we are shooting the messenger here, I'm not denying that. Both Mattrick and Orth were tasked with marketing a product whose features from top to bottom were things that pissed gamers off.

However, that doesn't mean they have to be unrelenting pricks about it by outright insulting their consumer base. THAT is where the anger towards them becomes justified. Surely there must have been more diplomatic ways to deal with the situation. It wasn't that they had the impossible job of trying to convince us that the XBone was filled with great features, we wouldn't have believed them no matter what they said. But they came across as just the most arrogant of douches. Between the infamous "deal with it" comments from Orth and the snobbish "nuclear sub" analogy from Mattrick, these guys were being complete pricks. I doubt that MS wrote them scripts to read off of for those interviews, they chose their words incredibly poorly and thus brought upon themselves all the rage that has been thrown at them. That's why they're undeserving of pity, they didn't even try to be nice or diplomatic about it. I mean hell, Mattrick flat-out told people to not bother getting the XBone: "Well we do have an offline console, it's called the 360." Such a comment coming from someone trying to market a product is essentially saying "Don't have a good connection? We really don't care, stick with the old console. You will not be missed."

Sure, there was nothing either one of them could do about the features of the console, but to say the things they said shows a complete lack of caring for the people they're trying to convince to buy the thing. They could have easily said "We do appreciate all the feedback from our customers, unfortunately at this point there just really isn't much we can do" then give us some corporate spin "we'll continue looking into more avenues to make our Xbox One more accessible to a broader market, but for right now this is the console that we've developed and we hope that you'll give it a chance."

There, I just answered all the complaints and questions by saying "We're not going to change", but I did it without saying anything that could be construed as offensive by the gamer market. Had we gotten some kind of line like that from these two, we would have likely rolled our eyes at them like "whatever", but we wouldn't have had a reason to get pissed off at them.