Former Steam Director Leaves Microsoft After Six Months

[lacktheknack]

He was just there to sabotage Microsoft's system. Before long, he'll rejoin Valve and the internet will feel the rumblings of evil laughter.

Seeing how his only contribution of note was to kill off GFWL, I think that he only managed to improve Microsoft's system immeasurably.

 

[Somethingfake]

A bit OT, but that guy looks like Crowley from Supernatural to me. Would have thought sorting out M$'s fucked up PC department would have been easy for him?

Captcha for today : Dear Mr. Vernon

 

[RJ Dalton]

Microsoft is a labyrinthine pit of bureaucracy in which it's damn near impossible to get anything done. I'm not surprised he's left already. To go from Valve to Microsoft would be such a dramatic shift in management policies, I don't' think anyone could take it.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

He was just there to sabotage Microsoft's system. Before long, he'll rejoin Valve and the internet will feel the rumblings of evil laughter.

Whose evil laughter? Microsoft's?

After all, one must never underestimate the corrupting power of the Dark Side. Who knows what those 6 months did to Holtman. He could be more corporate than man now. Twisted and evil.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I hope he got one of those big fat severance payouts just to burn M$ for being the kind of corp that does that evil practice.

I've heard somewhere that the Balmer had a really weird organizational system that actually encouraged lack of cooperation and even mild sabotage of other project teams. I'd be really surprised that anyone after working under Valve's horizontal organization, and what I've heard is the fantastic work environment because of it, could ever thrive at Microsoft. I would think that even with a company stated goal, it'd be nearly impossible to make any headway as an outsider there. I'd most likely quit out of frustration myself.

From what I've read employees basically work in teams of 10, and every quarter management rates the individual in each team from 1-10. That's not an out of 10 ranking, but rather one guys is always first and another is always last with everyone else falling in one of the spots in between. So you, people are concerned about their individual performances so they can get their bonuses or whatever, and the more devious may actively work to sabotage his competition to ensure a better ranking for themselves.

Forget where it was from but it was a rather lengthy magazine article from a few years ago on the woes of Microsoft. That's as a corporation, nothing to do with gaming, looking at how they went from the dominant position in the industry to losing ground to the likes of Apple and Google.

That is a horrible system yet similar one are apparently still common practice. Where I worked after an even bigger corp bought us out, they have this stupid rewards card that they wanted everyone to sell. So, the ticket cashiers would force it on people coming then the concessions, and they wanted ushers to ask random people coming out if they had bought one yet. The concessionists got more commission so some people would complain if they were anywhere else. And even worse they started basing raises on those sales. The 3-4 projectionists left including myself were along with the ushers screwed because we never worked a cash register since we were ones (not even anyone in management had the basic computer skills to understand half the stuff we asked them to do) who could comprehend what was going on if a problem happened and they happened a lot, so we just helped clean theaters on the weekend and ran of when bulb inevitably failed early or management switches showtimes around without telling us. And the ushers weren't going to take what little time they had to let someone else make a sale. It was all counterproductive and demoralizing. The card was shit to all but families and movie fanatics who would spend over $120 a year, anyway.

I heard of and seen other similar or worse strategies in action and can't believe love companies turning their employee's against each other or the company. The recent asst. manager getting barrista tips story rings a bell. Then, I remember these corporations are ran by greedy fucks who only look at the short term profits and see everyone below them as pack animals they begrudgingly have to feed, and it all makes sense.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's always easiest to derail a project when you're working on the inside.

What project?

Games For Windows Live was on an iron-lung when he arrived; clinically alive but functionally dead for all practical purposes.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first sign that Microsoft is finally ready to admit that its future in gaming lies solely with the Xbox.
This isn't necessarily a bad development, or even particularly noteworthy in and of itself.

I think it's noteworthy, but mostly due to such a short term of employment for a high position. If I had to guess, I'd theorize the game-unfriendly "new management" and restructuring saw him go.

As for Microsoft going Xbox-only for gaming, I'm of two minds.

Future development for their OSes and software could go in a direction that is PC game-unfriendly either out of apathy or just to quietly push gamers into the console arena.
On the other hand: SteamOS is coming out soon, and depending on how that goes, it will either supplement any part of the PC market that M$ neglects, or life will become briefly...problematic.

Microsoft is just in a WEIRD position of power when it comes to gaming.

 

[Caiphus]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first sign that Microsoft is finally ready to admit that its future in gaming lies solely with the Xbox. This isn't necessarily a bad development, or even particularly noteworthy in and of itself. It's not as though MS has been doing anything with the platform anyway; its most significant move in years was to pull away from the market, and while that was initially presented as the first step toward a better and more focused approach, the feeling now (and especially under new leadership, as has been pointed out) may be that it just isn't worth the effort.

I really do hope MS gets back to me on this - impactful or not, it's a big move - but I'm not holding my breath.

I'd agree, but this news also surfaced a few days ago:

http://www.ibtimes.com/eliminate-xbox-one-bing-surface-says-microsoft-investors-1554691

I don't think that it would be smart for Microsoft to come out and announce "Xbox is the way forward" in light of this. But maybe they'd be able to spin it in a way to get people back on board.

Anyway, that's only the investors, but there have been a few higher-ups in Microsoft that have expressed discontent with Xbox too. So who knows what Microsoft is up to.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

We'll, I'm going to remember this the next time Microsoft pretends they're "serious about PC gamers."

which btw just happened... TODAY

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-on-pc-gaming-we-re-very-dedicated-to-that-space/1100-6417683/


the article came online just before the news of Jason leaving, i bet he saw the article and he was like "what a lot of bullshit, fuck you guys, im out of here"

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I'd agree, but this news also surfaced a few days ago:

http://www.ibtimes.com/eliminate-xbox-one-bing-surface-says-microsoft-investors-1554691

I don't think that it would be smart for Microsoft to come out and announce "Xbox is the way forward" in light of this. But maybe they'd be able to spin it in a way to get people back on board.

Anyway, that's only the investors, but there have been a few higher-ups in Microsoft that have expressed discontent with Xbox too. So who knows what Microsoft is up to.

On the other hand, I don't think it's smart for Microsoft to say that they're going to give up on Xbox right after they've invested shitloads of money into a new console that, by all accounts, is actually doing quite well, even if it's not doing as well as the PS4. Xbox is a big and popular brand, even if Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to actually make money on it yet. Maybe they should look to drop it in the future if the Xbone doesn't do amazingly well, but for now dropping it would be incredibly stupid.

I do think they should get rid of Bing, though. That has been nothing but an enormous money pit for Microsoft, and it needs to go.

 

[Caiphus]

On the other hand, I don't think it's smart for Microsoft to say that they're going to give up on Xbox right after they've invested shitloads of money into a new console that, by all accounts, is actually doing quite well, even if it's not doing as well as the PS4. Xbox is a big and popular brand, even if Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to actually make money on it yet. Maybe they should look to drop it in the future if the Xbone doesn't do amazingly well, but for now dropping it would be incredibly stupid.

I do think they should get rid of Bing, though. That has been nothing but an enormous money pit for Microsoft, and it needs to go.

Oh, absolutely. It would be a disaster for them to publicly give up on Xbox. Developers and consumers would fear a lack of support, sales would drop and it would snowball from there, in a similar fashion to the Wii U.

But yes. Who knows what they're actually thinking internally. Whether Microsoft considers that the Xbone may be their last console (I rather hope this doesn't happen. Sony have begun to behave themselves partially because Microsoft gave them a decent fight last gen).

As for Bing, I don't know. I never use it. How much money do they put into Bing? Surely it can't be that difficult to get a return on a search engine, even if it isn't quite google? I'm speaking from ignorance though.

 

[Vigormortis]

Future development for their OSes and software could go in a direction that is PC game-unfriendly either out of apathy or just to quietly push gamers into the console arena.

So basically what the GabeN and other notables from around the industry were saying over a year ago but were given endless shit for?

Microsoft is just in a WEIRD position of power when it comes to gaming.

Yes...yes they are.

In fact, I'd say they're in a dangerous position in that they basically have their hand gripping the esophagus of the PC gaming industry. And given the direction they're seemingly going with Windows, they're tightening that grip to the point of suffocation.

Like I'd been saying last year: 2014 will be a very tenuous, very crucial, and very telling year for the video gaming industry as a whole.

 

[Atmos Duality]

So basically what the GabeN and other notables from around the industry were saying over a year ago but were given endless shit for?

I never gave them any such shit; but then again, I remember the Microsoft that thought Windows ME was a legitimate product and who torpedoed software development firms just to avoid having to compete with them.

Like I'd been saying last year: 2014 will be a very tenuous, very crucial, and very telling year for the video gaming industry as a whole.

We'll see.
I'm leaning towards "Second verse, same as the first. This time though, a little bit worse."

 

[chiggerwood]

I'm sure king Gabe will take him back with open arms.....for a price.

I now have the visual image of Gabe Newell sitting in a chair looking bleakly at his former employee demanding his pinky as a sign of loyalty. Although I'm pretty sure that's EA's policy.

 

[happy_turtle]

So nobody here thinks that when one guy gets bounced from two different companies in six months, it might have something to do with the guy?

Nah, I honestly suspect they hired him in the run up to the XBone launch to get their names in more gaming articles, hence planting their image as taking gaming seriously on the whole in gamers minds. Now it's out he's useless to them.

 

[Strazdas]

Hmm, i wonder what has he actually accomplished withing MS. I guess we will never know.

Can't say it's him but with some new multiplats only coming out for Windows 8 on the pc someone at Microsoft doesn't know squat about the pc as a gaming platform.

actually.... PC gamers are praising windows 8 all over. This is because of directx 11.3 and faster kernel that actually improves PC gaming performance. This is also going to be the same reason games no longer support XP: XP does not support the engines the games run on, for example Directx above 9.
Me personally - i was forced into Vista due to dropped XP driver support for my hardware (sound and internet could not be made to work sort of writing my own driver) and got into 7 as soon as i could. so far im planning to stay with 7 and see what windows 9 will be like before thinking of switching.

There have also been rumors that there is a strong block on Microsofts board and among their shareholders that are not thrilled with the costs vs rewards of the whole XBox line, feeling that MS's best efforts and rewards come from the core OS and the business world.

you mean, investors flat out saying they want the division dead? [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/05/investors-want-microsofts-new-ceo-to-kill-xbox-bing-and-surface/]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first sign that Microsoft is finally ready to admit that its future in gaming lies solely with the Xbox. This isn't necessarily a bad development.

what is this i dont even. how is that not a bad developement?

 

[mirage202]

It's not as if anyone actually believed MS saying they were going to embrace the PC gaming crowd, this just goes to confirm yet more hot air from mouth pieces. Probably a game port on its way they want us to buy otherwise they wouldn't have said a damned thing.

 

[SecondPrize]

Hmm, i wonder what has he actually accomplished withing MS. I guess we will never know.

Can't say it's him but with some new multiplats only coming out for Windows 8 on the pc someone at Microsoft doesn't know squat about the pc as a gaming platform.

actually.... PC gamers are praising windows 8 all over. This is because of directx 11.3 and faster kernel that actually improves PC gaming performance. This is also going to be the same reason games no longer support XP: XP does not support the engines the games run on, for example Directx above 9.
Me personally - i was forced into Vista due to dropped XP driver support for my hardware (sound and internet could not be made to work sort of writing my own driver) and got into 7 as soon as i could. so far im planning to stay with 7 and see what windows 9 will be like before thinking of switching.

There have also been rumors that there is a strong block on Microsofts board and among their shareholders that are not thrilled with the costs vs rewards of the whole XBox line, feeling that MS's best efforts and rewards come from the core OS and the business world.

you mean, investors flat out saying they want the division dead? [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/05/investors-want-microsofts-new-ceo-to-kill-xbox-bing-and-surface/]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first sign that Microsoft is finally ready to admit that its future in gaming lies solely with the Xbox. This isn't necessarily a bad development.

what is this i dont even. how is that not a bad developement?

Whether win8 delivers improved performance has nothing to do with the fact that one of the core strengths of PC gaming is that the games are built to run on a variety of machines. You may have to do a little work sometimes, but the expectation is that a game built for PCs will run on any reasonably up to date PC. Developing PC releases which will only work on one OS flies in the face of this strength of the gaming platform.

 

[Charli]

Huh. Maybe he was resistant to the microsoft mind-control chip that turns everyone that works there into snooty self absorbed douchebags.