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Moon Studios CEO trashes Alyssa Mercante from Kotaku on X: 'Journalists know nothing about game development'

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
TLDR: Moon Studios CEO has trashed infamous Kotaku journalist Alyssa Mercant after she called him a dickhead after he tried to explain in the most civilized manner that her opinions on game development don't reflect how it works in real life.



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Thomas: I’m the director behind both Ori games and I don’t know who you are and how you were affiliated with Ori…?

Hey Alyssa,You're apparently a journalist from Kotaku - So I'm guessing you haven't worked in actual game development yet.Let me try to explain the thing you posted about, which I'm guessing was from that hitpiece from a few years back.
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Yes, I'm guilty of what's stated in that image. And that's okay, because this is the normal creative process.We brought lots of veterans into Moon because generally great people want to get the opportunity to work on great projects and that's our goal at Moon: We always set out to create the kinda games we'd love to play ourselves, that fill some hole in the market because for some reason these holes haven't been filled yet. And so we're all incredibly passionate about what we do.With great talent comes lots of enthusiasm and passion, which absolutely leads to arguments because ultimately everyone is working hard on getting their vision into the game.
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But also, everyone at Moon understands that we're working together as a team - so the point of these arguments is then to try to convince each other why this or that solution would be the best thing for the game we're making - and the best solution ought to win!Most of the times the beauty behind these arguments is that everybody gets a chance to contribute and more often than not the actual solution will be one that ultimately everybody contributed to because we're dealing with very complex issues all the time and complex problems often also need complex solutions.
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It is often a chaotic process, but it's controlled chaos.And yes, absolutely every now and then I have to put my foot down and set the direction... because I'm the game director and ultimately it's my responsibility to ensure that everyone knows where things are heading and that decisions get made.And yes, it has also happened that I agreed to a certain decision, playtested some more and changed the direction after - Again, to me this is a normal part of the process since things get clearer and clearer the more stuff gets implemented and the more we play and test.To me, all this is just how creative work happens. It can be painful, but my job - like any good director - is to understand what's going on and make sure the right decisions get made, even if some work might get rendered useless in the process.
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See here, even Miyamoto is guilty of that:https://zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Upending_the_Tea_TableA few years back we hired some folks that didn't really fit our culture, so we had to part ways with them and then this article happened. Wasn't a great feeling to see some ex-Moon folks talk badly behind our backs, but ultimately it just made it clear that these folks shouldn't have worked at Moon in the first place and I hope they're happier now wherever they landed.I don't know why you're out here cursing out game developers and what your whole deal is, but I hope that gave you some insight into the creative process and it's messiness (and beauty).
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I hope you have a nice day,
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Yours,Dickhead
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Other developers came to his defense:

They agree toxic positivity perpatuated by left centric game developers who are more interested in activism has been harmful:



 
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mitch1971

mitch1971

Member
It amazes me how they think this perfect utopia can actually exist. As if all ideas and suggestions are equal and should never be dismissed. The guy has simply made a decision about a games direction. The person who suggested it probably said ok, I'll go away and try and suggest a better solution (and then got on with his life). An occurance that happens a trillion times a day for normal people in work.

In her mind it's the end of the world and that person should be sent straight to hell anyway possible. How do these people work through life with that mentality?
 
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Neofire

Neofire

Member
Sounds like the Karen's going buck wild on X and they wonder why DEI gets slammed. They figured because they are female individuals should have to listen to the BS they spew and be happy with it as well.
 
Jaybe

Jaybe

Member
Her name rang a bell. Seems super unhinged. Glad she has to deal with herself 24/7 and we only get the odd flare up.

j3OShOO.jpeg
 
bender

bender

What time is it?
Punished Miku said:
His one mistake was referring to her as a journalist.
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I'd saying engaging her in the first place was the one mistake.

My biggest pet peeve in game critique these days is how often the line gets crossed from commenting on a game play system or graphics technique (or any other practice along the way) to making suggestions to how the development team should have implemented those systems or techniques. It's incredibly insulting and short sighted as every decision that is made has a knock on effect to something else and with most things rooted in technology, there will always be tradeoffs and there is no ideal solution because all resources aren't infinite.
 
Omnipunctual Godot

Omnipunctual Godot

Gold Member
It's also worth noting that this entire situation transpired because an unhinged streamer (Quelaag) claimed to have worked on Ori when she was actually in Xbox user research. It's kind of like the person in charge of buying scalpels saying they're a brain surgeon.

The Moon Studios CEO said he had never heard of her, which is understandable because he probably didn't want her dragging his studio's name through the mud as if she worked there. But of course, she's friends with Alyssa Mercante, who calls him a dickhead for addressing Quelaag publicly instead of through DMs, even though she publicly said she worked on Ori.
 
MiguelItUp

MiguelItUp

Member
StereoVsn said:
These sort of people are completely unhinged and aggressively incompetent.

Also, Kotaku shouldn’t be equated with journalism, period.
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Yeaaaah, honestly Kotaku lost its credit decades ago. It's been nothing but hit pieces and other adjacent nonsense ever since. It's why I don't understand when people link articles here, I never want to give them attention, nor do I want them to get clicks. It's a cesspool of a website.

I don't know much about Alyssa, and I don't really care to. But she should feel embarrassed by that interaction on Twitter. He wasn't being an asshole, he responded, and did it the best way he possibly could. Very polite, cordial, and earnest. Only to have her reply with a meme. You can't take someone like that seriously. I feel like the times I've seen her pop up she's always doing the whole "edgy attitude" thing, and it's silly.
 
Mr Hyde

Mr Hyde

Member
As a writer who covers the games industry it's very odd that she can't emphasize what it's like being a game director. Even I who have limited insight into game development knows that sometimes a director have to be firm and make tough decisions, sometimes killing your darlings, or go in a different direction, but I guess some people can't take that and gets offended. But if that's the case you shouldn't be in a creative environment in the first place. Maybe flipping burgers or working in retail is more suitable work? I think Mahler gave a very good insight to how it all works in a creative process and Alyssa calling him a dickhead is extremely rude and unprofessional.

By the way, this toxic positivity that's being reported on sounds like a horrible environment to work in. If I created something, I would like people to be honest and give constructive criticism so that I can improve myself and what I created, instead of everyone lying to my face and saying how good it is. That's just wrong.
 
Jaybe

Jaybe

Member
Omnipunctual Godot said:
It's also worth noting that this entire situation transpired because an unhinged streamer (Quelaag) claimed to have worked on Ori when she was actually in Xbox user research. It's kind of like the person in charge of buying scalpels saying they're a brain surgeon.

The Moon Studios CEO said he had never heard of her, which is understandable because he probably didn't want her dragging his studio's name through the mud as if she worked there. But of course, she's friends with Alyssa Mercante, who calls him a dickhead for addressing Quelaag publicly instead of through DMs, even though she publicly said she worked on Ori.
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This is pretty wild how it started. Imagine claiming you worked on Ori only to have the director call you out on it. I tried to get context for it all and came across this video which does a great job (despite the talking animation).

 
MDSLKTR

MDSLKTR

Member
Jaybe said:
This is pretty wild how it started. Imagine claiming you worked on Ori only to have the director call you out on it. I tried to get context for it all and came across this video which does a great job (despite the talking animation).

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Damn over a 100k views, who the hell keeps the lights on at kotaku? People get fired for less.
 
JPSLotus97T

JPSLotus97T

Member
Alyssa Mercante is a crazy, unhinged, lunatic that likely has borderline personality disorder from everything I have ever seen involving her.

She has a cuck fiance, but posts on Twitter about how she is either banging other guys or trying to bang other guys to the point that she stalks them around Twitter. In fact she has approached some of her desired targets IRL, and they have tried to get as far away from her as quickly as possible. But her fiance continues to tolerate it.

She is not a journalist by any stretch of the imagination. She was writing absolutely unhinged hit pieces going back to her college days.

I recall her bragging on Twitter that if she lost her Kotaku job, she would go back to doing OnlyFans. So that should tell you everything about where her skillset actually lies which is most certainly not what she thinks is journalism. Her entire Twitter feed reads like a desperate teenager looking to do anything she can to seek out more attention by any means necessary. Which is the true behavior of someone with borderline personality disorder. Stay far away from her if you can unless you watch from a distance because you enjoy train wrecks. Her mouth, or fingers, write checks her ass cannot cash hence her current legal woes. She complains about supposed harassment in the gaming industry, but devotes all her time to stalking Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube personalities doing the very thing she purportedly decries.

The sooner Kotaku gets shit-canned, the better, because it will take away her platform once and for all. I will not click on a single Kotaku link simply because I want to see her lose her job and disappear back to the netherrealm of nothingness from which she crawled out of.
 
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BbMajor7th

BbMajor7th

Member
If you ever needed more evidence that the so-called 'extreme left' are, in truth, a colonialist, centre-right outfit co-opting progressive values as a cover for a ruthless campaign of economic inequality and corporatist politics.
 
Nonehxc

Nonehxc

Member
I see the Enemy of Men* Squirting Tramp is being retarded again against men.

Don't give her any attention, she's just an unbalanced attention seeking whore. 😜

*She has one of those dumb phrases tattoed on her thigh that states 'All men are enemies'
 
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