So the Doom Soundtrack situation

 You're tearing me apart, Id!

I've actually been avoiding talking about this because it really didn't seem like my place and had turned into a real mud-slinging battle of 'he said, the other he said'. The last time something like this made headlines in the news it was the whole Bayonetta 3 pay debate debacle and that whole situation turned itself inside out like a slasher movie victim; and I didn't want to be in the middle of that kind of trap story again. But then people didn't stop talking about it, and then Bethesda threw out a statement! Why, you guys could have kept your head down and let Id handle this internally! I mean sure, Bethesda got shame rightful shame for this situation, but just cynically and corporate-mindfully; sometimes ignoring the bubbling drama is just the correct way to go about doing business! In fact, most of the time I'd say things turn out that way! But I guess now the matter is too bloated to rest.

Now first of all, I'm not exactly in the best of moods right now so forgive me if I get a little unfair with my characterisations. Let me preface wherever I'm about to go with the information that everyone is human here and no one person is some demon in human skin that lives only to disadvantage others; now that's out of the way, why did Id Software go out of it's way to screw Mick Gordon? If you're unfamiliar, Mick Gordon is the talented Australian composer behind the incredible DOOM (2016) soundtrack, the upcoming Atomic Heart and, until recently, believed to have worked on DOOM Eternal. I mean he did. He did work on DOOM Eternal. But it seems he less did work on that game, and more 'struggled to bring that game to life in the soundtrack' whilst battling the business deal from hell, from the sounds of things. Of course this is the follow-up to the whole debacle surrounding the DOOM Eternal OST which disappointed some musically intuned fans, stirring up a mud-slinging saga which has somehow persisted to today.

It started with Mick throwing fingers at Marty Stratton who in turn published a damning condemnation of Mick's professionalism and punctuality, throwing his credibility into question and stoking the fires of the more 'unhinged' fans out in the world. (People were legit sending verbose death threats over a video game OST. I have no idea how these people avoid getting institutionalised in daily life.) Now after years of the matter being settled, Mick has risen from the Twitter ashes to point fingers back at Marty for misrepresenting the issue and laying blame where it was not perhaps deserved. Or at the very least, totally dissolving himself of any rightful blame for the failure of the OST. Again, a failure that only seems to have been perceived by the musically attuned. Really does seem like a lot of chaos to stoke over such a niche issue, but them's the breaks.

The original slap by Marty claimed that Mick was unprofessional and couldn't deliver to the timeframe that they expected. He was uncooperative and ghosted them at the most inopportune moments. But Mick dips a little more context into the situation by explaining why it was that the set deadlines proved inopportune for the work on the soundtrack. According to his side of the situation, Mick was tasked with creating music at a crunch-rate in order to match the pace of development. The task before him was to create music that closely matched the gameplay, only to be given a timeframe in which he'd be making that music months before the levels they were for would be built up and worked on. Which is- difficult to say the least. When Mick bought up these issues and proposed a revised schedule that would better benefit the creative process, Stratton became incensed at his, presumably cost effective, schedule being questioned and immediately took to attacking Mick's credibility. For suggesting an improved work schedule. Sounds like a very 'hinged' man to me, I don't see what the problem is. (That's sarcasm, by the way. The man sounds very un-hinged.)

Claims go on to say that Mick wasn't paid for many months of his work, but he persisted anyway, even to the point where, thanks to the bad time scheduling, some of his tracks ended up being unsuitable for the levels they were blindly scored for, wasting months of work. Then, as Doom Eternal started to become more ambitious, the breadth of required soundtracks also expanded, further adding to the man's workload. From how it sounds Mick was just constantly at the receiving end of a kicking machine that didn't value his contribution to the game enough to take any of his concerns and tribulations seriously, resulting in a rough experience. And from the way he tells it, none of these issues are tied to his working competency, but merely unrealistic and ill-thought out expectations running afoul of immutable reality.

But heads butt into each other during the crazy task of making a game, and one might be able to see scenarios where the bull rush allows an element to slip out of sink. I mean, making sure that doesn't happen would be the job of a competent producer; but let's not start questioning anyone's competency, eh? That never ends well. Where it starts to get vindictive is where Mick tells that after a falling out in which Mick learnt some of his pulled tracks were being used in marketing for the game without him being compensated, apparently Stratton reached out to offer a six figure settlement to encourage Mick not to speak about this situation publicly. Which would seem like a nice way to bow out of this total mess, if one of the conditions wasn't also that Mick had to publicly accept blame for everything that happened, including the poor mixing of the OST that apparently happened after he cut ties with the developers, basically tanking his own reputation in the industry forever more. Stratton basically offered him a retirement settlement; which is actually a little evil, if true. It doesn't matter how much you pay an artist, if they're blacklisted from the industry they love and have to struggle to book new roles from that point forward; you've destroyed that person. Mick really does paint out Stratton as a cartoon super villain in his take of events. 

Furthermore, this is just his take isn't it? As such, Bethesda went out of their way just recently to condemn Mick's statement as 'one sided' and 'incomplete'; whilst just hand-waving the fact that Stratton already provided his side on the matter. Heck, if we now have Mick and Marty's side on the same situations, why then that would make this a... two sided debate, then wouldn't it? But Bethesda haven't exactly made themselves out to be paragons of intelligent thought recently, so this utterly unhelpful and self-sabotaging butting-in to a situation in which they had nothing to add really does just fit their recent MO, doesn't it? Seriously, some one needs to find Bethesda's PR manager and have a real sit down about when exactly it's appropriate to self flagellate oneself on the public square. Which is never. It's never appropriate for a company to do that.

Soundtracks for video games should not be controversial, and I definitely shouldn't know the full name of your senior producer and composer. Mick Gordon is big enough for someone like me to know his work, but the second Stratton starts making headlines you know something had gone sorely wrong. Whether this story blossoms, if Stratton can claw any respectability back for himself, everyone is coming from this embarrassed and covered in egg over a game that was, let me remind everyone, a huge success. Widely loved and adored. I'm not saying that the success of the game in anyway invalidates the struggles that the creator's took to get there, Cyberpunk 2077 demonstrates what happens when you adopt that mentality; but you'd expect controversy this deep to be attached a train wreck like Saints Row or Gotham Knights; not Doom Eternal. Maybe after this is out of everyone's system, we can stop review bombing a frankly fantastic game and get to enjoying the love of the craft; that'd be really nice.