Who Has the Biggest…

By: Derek Yu

On: January 20th, 2008

John Romero had some not-so-nice words for Gamecock CEO (and former Ion Storm CEO) Mike Wilson on his blog, and Mike responded in kind in the comments. The whole incident is funny and ugly and not a little bit sad. Read it and weep. Or don’t!

Gamecock is worth mentioning at least once, however. Wilson once described his group in a Gamasutra interview thusly:

Itâ€™s indie but it’s “big indie”, with proper distribution and marketing money and all that stuff.

Which could be a good idea if its founders weren’t destroying their reputation (what there is of it) piece-by-piece by throwing money away on lavish clown orgies and generally making cocks of themselves. Independent developers could always use more resources, but do they really need this? Well, no.

Posted in Business, Community | Tags: Gamecock

http://gnomeslair.blogspot.com/ gnome

Oh la la!
Gordo

Mike Wilson is the biggest cock I’ve ever seen. He’s HUGE.
Splinter of Chaos

PENIS.

And now for something helpful:
What the hell?
Groogokk

Hahahahaha, Mike Wilson’s answer is so funny, I’m lmao! Where do they teach you how to bash people like that? University? High school? The world wide web? Incredible.

But in the end: Yeah, who cares that two guys from the games industry are not getting along…
Me

Its very entertaining.
AmnEn

What the f*?
This is hilarious on an epic scale. But you know, it could be an advertisement again since I’ve really forgotten about Romero and the morons over at Gamecock until that little Flamewar popped up.
Lez

John Romero can do no wrong O_O
Pixel Mort

Looks like Cher forgot to shave again : /
rz.

woah mike wilson is like the game industry’s Nas. fucking mutilated.
deadeye

WTF is “big indie?”
Obscuritan

Wilson’s response is fantastic.
Eclipse

guys, Romero did a lot of cool stuff after Daikatana, that’s also a very good and huge fps, it was only advertised very bad.
He’s back at work on his new software house called Slipgate Ironworks and he’s one of the kindiest and modest person i had the luck to talk with.
Kindiest

I am the mosterest kindiest person.
Kindiester

I’m afraid I am, sorry if I offended you in any shape or form.
http://myspace.com/akktivecarbon !CE-9

hooray for glossies.
Lim-Dul

Never forget, kids:

John Romero’s about to make you his bitches. :-D
JP

This little piss-war reflects incredibly poorly on both participants.

If Mike Wilson becomes associated with “indie games” I suspect everyone who writes for and reads this blog will ultimately be very, very unhappy.
Eclipse

Lim-Dumb, stop with that stupid old story.
And btw, Daikatana is a very good game, only marketized bad.

Also Cock Snorkeling is a great sport, it just has a bad rep for some reason.

oh, and I agree with JP
Cas

Didn’t like Daikatana one bit. I was killed by insects repeatedly on within the first few moments and decided never to play it again.
Pixel Mort

You mean Malaria mosquitoes? Now that’s innovation.
Lim-Dul

Ha, ha – Eclipse came over here from John Romero’s blog – I’ve seen his comments there.

Go, go Fanboy Rangers!
Lorne Whiting

Wow.
That is the best insulting letter made in the past 50 years, I’d bet!
Stij

I really can’t stand either of these guys, to be honest.
Eclipse

Lim-Dul, i’m both a reader of tig and romero’s blog, idiot… i’m also a game developer myself
Eclipse

Stij it’s a shame, because romero was one of the best indie developers in history :) he and apogee actually invented the shareware formula with commander keen and then giving it to the masses with DooM.
Something gory like Wolfeinstein back in that years was almost a revolution.

Btw in this case both of they are in wrong
Lim-Dul

*Lim-Dul, iâ€™m both a reader of tig and romeroâ€™s blog, idiotâ€¦ iâ€™m also a game developer myself*

You’re also a troll insulting other people while whining when they laugh about your lovely John Romero. Get lost.

P.S. If you’re a game developer yourself then we can already see the next generation of John Romeros and Mike Wilsons stepping into their idols’ footsteps. ;-)
Eclipse

i’m not trolling, you just call me fanboy for no reason
Lim-Dul

It’s enough to read your comments on Romero’s blog.

If you haven’t noticed, you started calling me names after my quoting an actual advertisement of Daikatana (can’t argue with history, can you?)…

As the smarter of both of us I should just let go, I guess.

As the saying goes: Never argue with idiots. They’ll drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience. ;-)
peshue

Ah,nothing has-beens trying to stay relevant.
http://www.retroremakes.com Oddbob

Can I be a big Indy?

I want a hat and a whip :(
BeamSplashX

Then you could use your whip to grab the design skills right from Romero’s hands!

…Wait.
http://www.retroremakes.com Oddbob

Romero could be *my* bitch then.

Genius!
Stwelin

You’re about to make Romero your bitch! Suck It Up!
Anthony Flack

Icky. Now I don’t know who the cock is. Probably the Cock guy – it depresses me to see boatloads of money squandered on stupid stunts instead of game development and pizza., and that photo depresses me too.

And this…”And please don’t be too concerned for the independent developers I work with… just like with GodGames, and like the deal I struck for you with Eidos, Gamecock owns their IP and is branded above the publisher on everything, and has a great royalty rate.”

… really doesn’t sound like THAT awesome a deal for the independent developers he works with. Sounds like a good deal for Gamecock though.
Thomas

Although Romero was a huge part of gaming history, the only good game that came out of Ion Storm was Deus Ex, and Romero didn’t actually work on that.
moi

CRIPPLE FIGHT!
Team Quiggan

There was that other one, the RTS that was pretty good too.
Lim-Dul

C’mon – except for Daikatana they had good or at least decent titles.

The RTS you’re looking for is Dominion – it was fairly generic and while not totally crap it wasn’t that good – average at most. 5-6/10 in my book (and I DON’T use the 7-9 only rating system =).

Besides Deus Ex is the brilliant but unfinished Anachronox – I still have it installed on my computer (I dug it out recently). :-D

Last but not least let’s not forget Thief: Deadly Shadows.
Cycle

Yeah, I was going to say! Anachronox and Thief 3 were radtastic.
http://www.the2bears.com the2bears

My indie life is so boring compared to this :)

Bill
Montoli

It’s like a train wreck. It’s so messed up, yet I can’t look away…
Eclipse

Not true, there was also Anachronox, a very nice rpg by Tom Hall, the creator of commander keen and one of the founders of ID Software, and of course Romero was also in the Anachronox credits… Then both Romero and Hall leaves and decided to make an indie software house called Monkey Stone, they did a little nice gem called Hyperspace Delivery Boy, for PC and PocketPC
Advenith

What is there to say, other than…

LOL. Drama.
PHeMoX

Round one… Fight!
TakaM

Both epic and sad at the same time
Team Quiggan

Ah yeah Anachronox, I remember that, it was a victim of timing if i remember correctly.
Bob

^TakaM

No, it’s retarded and sad.
PHeMoX

Yeah, it’s mostly just *retarded* .
http://www.getmagi.com TeeGee

Hey! I want to feel like I’m rich and famous too! Who’s up for throwing some shit at each other?

You suck at life! Me has many grrlz!!!
ZombiePixel

Taking the developer’s IP in exchange for a (slightly) higher royalty rate is about as sh*tty a deal as you can get. Successful IP is gold and ownership is the only leverage a developer has.

It’s unfortunate that most developers are just truly awful at business.