News PS3 developer fired for talking

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/02...d_for_talking/

[Arkuden]

ouch tough break for this guy... seems kinda harsh but i suppose they are making a point

[MiNiMaL_FuSS]

Well the interveiw says he's landed on his feet, but still feel Sony were a little harsh.....

He dosn't actually release any infromation and if anything is just bashing the effort being put into the making of his own compaines name rather than slateing the PS3 in any way.

Good luck to him.

[Lord Kordir]

More evidence that Sony is indeed the most evil corporation in existence

The Beatallica case really got me wound up.

[dom_]

If i owned a company and someone publicly defamed it i would sack them.

Why would you want an employee who is talking your company down publicly, work for you?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Originally Posted by dom_

Why would you want an employee who is talking your company down publicly, work for you?

I have to agree with dom_. From the company perspective his comments are not welcome, and by sacking this guy they will probably make anyone else about to release information on their own think twice!! Bit-Tech crew have you gotten more or less leaks from Sony people after this came out?? (that is if you get any )

All that aside though luck on his part!

[DXR_13KE]

Originally Posted by Lord Kordir

More evidence that Sony is indeed the most evil corporation in existence .

you took the words out of my keybord.

I hope Sony corp can find it in their heart to get the fellar back.

[DivineSin]

I wish i could find the entire blog post from this guy, but i did find a few quotes from him. The guy did and did not deserve to get fired. He was clearly angry with the team he was working on, and his entire blog post was pretty vague and didnt give off too much information. Hell, his post was so vague you really didnt expect it to be written by a guy who was designing a game, heres a few quotes.

Edit: Actually i found the entire blog post.

Originally Posted by josh robinson

I’ve spent some time the past year developing for the PS3. Actually it was a cinematic demo to be shown at e3 in 2005 at a closed door viewing.
I was one of the few artists selected to work on it for the demo. My job was primarily asset creation. I was creating assets to populate the path where our camera would be flying during the demo. The company I work for is also working on a launch title that I am quite familiar with. In short, I’ve spent some time around the PS3 and or the teams developing for it.

I’ve really had to sit here and think for a long time about what my first comment about the PS3 would be. Will I say, its GREAT or will I give it two thumbs down. Well my immediate impression of the PS3 is…where is it? Seriously, where is it? They have a case, a controller and a dev kit. But the system still doesn’t even exist. So what is there to say? We received one of 5 PS3 dev kits in the United States some time ago. Several companies in the US as well as companies over seas were given the daunting task of creating a demo in less than 9 weeks on a first generation dev kit. Now I’ll be honest with you. What most companies do is fake the entire demo. I mean they come up with some great visuals and neat tricks and scripted events. In the end however, its not a real time demo and its not running ON the actual box. We were the only company to my knowledge that showed something that ran it live on the box. Even then it was a scripted event. You could not pause the camera and fly around the scene. So if you saw the demo once, you saw it again the exact same way the second time. Also this was on a brutally early dev box. You could always tell where the PS3 dev box was because it’s the room that had the f-bomb coming out of it half the day.

Lots of time has passed since that demo and the dev box has gone from a totally jimmy rigged computer and box of parts about the size of a small child, to a much more realistic size. Although its still the size of a normal pc. I have been pretty excited about the whole cell processing thing. I am not a very technical person but my understanding of it was pretty clear. (Multiple processors to handle individual events in parallel). Sounds pretty good to me! To hear people talk, you’d thing that a processor revolution was about to happen. So I’ve been pretty excited to say the least. Now in my opinion it doesn’t matter how good the PS3 is. If the XBOX 360 is better, then it doesn’t really matter how the cell processors work or how good they say it is. Realistically one of them will be better over all. Now I’ve spoken with people who are on the technical side of the PS3. I’ve also talked with people on the technical side of the XBOX 360. The consistent comment I am hearing from people on my end is, “The XBOX 360 is better”. They are saying that it is capable of just doing more. (shrugs) Now take that for what its worth. If you watch all the videos on the PS3 they will say how much more powerful it is than the XBOX and vice versa. Im just telling you what I am hearing. They proceeded to go into a lot of technical info that I don’t understand. So I just nod.

The game that we are creating for a launch title is a “just get it out” title in my opinion. It doesn’t look next generation. I don’t see how anyone could debate otherwise. It looks good. But it looks good for a game that has come out in the last couple years or so. I mean we are talking about a box that will be with us for the next 5+ years! In 5 years will the games we are making today look good? The only way for that to be possible is if the new games coming out for the PS3 are drastically improved. So good that they can stand the test of time until the next system comes out. We’ve all seen Gears of War for the xbox 360. If that even looks half as good when it comes out then I’ll be floored! The game we are making isn’t even in the same league as Gears of War. In fact there are many current games out that look just as good and are using the exact same specs. So, on our end we are either not pushing the bar or were just trying to “get a title out”. To be fair, this is a business. Sometimes you have to treat it as a business and not make the best title you can. The best title you can make usually costs 20-40million dollars/3 start overs and 4 years of your life. You just cant do that every time out. Its impossible. Our game just keeps getting moved back….and back…..and back…..and back. Again, where is the box? Where is the final system? When is it coming out? No one knows and in the mean time people in the industry are starting to get just a little salty. I mean I was at e3 2005 and PS3 was almost no where to be seen.

In closing, I started of VERY excited about the PS3. I was very confident that it was going to just destroy the XBOX 360 just on the name SONY alone. The more time that goes by the more I am becoming doubtful. Everything I’ve developed or seen developed has yet to be “next gen”. The poly counts are not really any higher, im not seeing sub surface scattering, im not seeing much HDR lighting. (or they are faking it and not really doing it), I’m not seeing next gen fluid dynamics or object dynamics. I suspect that you’ll be able to have more dynamic objects in a scene than before. But im not seeing games doing this yet. We dont have a controller, there is no network code and there is no box. Its still the size of a normal PC. Oh well, at least they have normal maps. Although I’m over the normal maps fad ok everyone!

I’m confident that the PS3 will have a few “crazy” games that show it off to its potential. But I would expect the full capabilities of the box to not show up until the system has been released PUBLICALLY for over a year. This is the extra time the developers will need with a FINAL system to truly make next gen games.

[ou7blaze]

Well it looks like Sony top men are very secretive on the technical aspects, so secretive infact that employees don't even know what is happening hardware-wise lol..

[leviathan18]

this guy messed up with NDA and he deservers what he got....

[The Corporate Nerd]

I agree with sony for firing him for i would have too, but I still hate Sony's guts.

[Aankhen]

Originally Posted by dom_

Why would you want an employee who is talking your company down publicly, work for you?

+1 from me.

[Hybr1d]

I hope he gets on the Revolution team and is the key to Sony's demise, muahahaha!

[The cheapskate]

Originally Posted by Aankhen

+1 from me.

2+ now

Why work for a company you are going to bad mouth? its common sence to respect ure employer, no matter how much of a faceless ****** that employer may be, he is still afterall paying ure wages..

[L2wis]

Originally Posted by Hybr1d

I hope he gets on the Revolution team and is the key to Sony's demise, muahahaha!

Indeed, a true under-dog story i'd love to see come true!

[Bladestorm]

The ex-Sony 3D artist ran the review past two Sony employees, including a producer at the company, before publishing it in order to check that it wasn't breaking non-disclosure agreements.

I dont know if other countries have anything like it, but I should think in the UK, if he could prove to a court he had done everything that could be reasonably expected of him to check it was alright before he posted it and then they fired him for the posting, he'd have a good case for wrongfull dissmissal (might be slightly the wrong words there)

I think the blog is a bit too open for interpretation for its own good - to me I read it as a mixture of concern over the consoles development and maybe frustration/anger at marketing (IE the whole PS3 will launch in a couple months and blow everyone away angle, when if he's right it won't have the really good games for a year or two, or possible even exist for a good while longer than they are making out) He doesn't sound like he hates Sony or even wishes the PS3 any particular ill will directly.
But as I said, thats my own personal opinion, quite obviously quite a few other different interpretations can be read from it.

[koola]

It's a shame that his guy got fired for voicing personal opinions in his blog. Just shows how ruthless corporations can be (sony being no.1 most evil )

[DivineSin]

Its sad all these sony bashers, you never even saw them around untill that rootkit fiasco. When you work for a company, you dont badmouth your company and you definetly dont say that a rival company's product is better.


It doesnt even matter, this guy wasnt even an underdog, and he's getting paid -more- now than he was at sony and I believe has a book deal as well. If i didnt know better he just did it to get a little fame and a better job.

[MiLwOrkZ]

Ok Yes, Sony is an evil company but, Microsoft is #1 hated company of all times. That is to me to say the least.