On or around the tenth of this month it was reported by many gaming news web sites that Adam Orth, who was until April 10th a creative director at Microsoft, had resigned. This is due to some unfortunate statements on Twitter. Let me tell you how I heard about this.
Regina asked me if I had heard about game company executive who got fired. (She had not actually read about it and wasn’t sure on the details.) I asked her if she knew why and she said it had something to do with something that he said on Twitter that had pissed a bunch of people off.
I said something along the lines of, “Let me guess. He basically told all gamers to piss off and except the big publishers as their gaming overlords who can do no wrong.”
Regina laughed and said, “Something like that.”
“Are you serious?” I asked incredulously.
Again Regina said, “It was something like that.”
At this point I was pissed off and excited to have something to write about in my ongoing crusade against the big video game publishers. I grabbed my torch and my pitchfork and merrily skipped away to the interwebs for a good old fashioned riot of the townsfolk. Unfortunately, when I got there, things were not as they were advertised, at least not in my opinion.
What I found was not someone who was maliciously flipping the bird at gamers, but somebody who was having a lunchtime conversation with a friend. Mr. Orth and his friend could have just as easily been having this same conversation in line at a deli, or walking to or from their office. Had it been overheard in that context it probably never would have mattered. But since it was “over heard” on Twitter it was a big deal.
Don’ get me wrong, I think Mr. Orth’s opinions about always online systems in the context of the gaming world are completely wrong. But they are his opinions and he has the right to state them to his friends on his personal time. I mean, after all, who amongst us has never stated something that was an unpopular opinion or something that could be misconstrued?
To those who think justice was served by Mr. Orth being let go from his position at Microsoft was justice, remember that the next time you’re having a conversation with your friends in a not so private forum.
My personal feeling is that Mr. Orth wasn’t “resigned” because he was insensitive to the outraged gamers on the internets, but more to the fact that he may have corroborated a rumor that could have serious impact on future sales. In other words gamer folk, he most likely wasn’t crucified for you. He was more likely crucified because of something he may have given you. Information. That’s my opinion. Obviously, since I am neither a fly on the wall at Microsoft nor employed there, this is just my guess.
Until next time…
If he was just an Average Joe stating his opinion, no one would have cared. As a representative for Microsoft, public social media accounts represent your employer, personal account or not. I would never say anything on my personal twitter/FB account that I wouldn't want my employer to read. It's public. A truly private conversation should be offline or with a locked account. I'm not defending the decision to "oust" him from his job but I can understand why Microsoft would be upset. Especially since they have very strict confidentiality rules for their employees, so a statement like that sends rumors about their next Xbox all over the place.
I agree completely Amy. And that's kind of my point. I don't believe he got canned for the reason that all the upset gaming crowd thinks he did. I honestly believe he broke an NDA, but i have no way of proving it. I was also pointing out to people that it's just as easily could have been them. Thank you for your comment and time. 🙂