Ex-MS director Adam Orth discusses #dealwithit controversy

Remember this guy?

Guess he finally dealt with it... though the last part really sounds sad, one of those ugly examples of how toxic the gaming community can get.

Source

Orth spoke publicly about the matter for the first time last night during a speech at GDC Next, attended by Polygon. He now knew that expressing the opinion publicly had been a mistake, he admitted, although he stood by his right to speak freely over the subject.

"I exercised incredibly poor judgment expressing my personal opinion in a public forum about a volatile and divisive topic in the gaming community," he explained. "I made it even worse by continuing that conversation sarcastically with a close friend. While the tone was natural and normal for us, the rest of the world heard and read something very different. It's easy now for me to see the anger, outrage and how controversial it was based on my professional position and the tone in which I delivered my opinion.

"While I stand behind that opinion as well as the right to have and express it, how I said it and how I conducted myself was wrong. This was a conversation I should have had with my colleagues over a beer rather than on Twitter. I absolutely deserved any and all rational criticism and discussion based on my opinion. Unfortunately, that's not what happened."

Orth also went into detail about the impact his opinions had on him - including the repercussions for his family, who also faced harassment over the issue. Orth was personally subjected to abusive emails and phone calls as well as a constant stream of threatening messages via social media.

"Were any of these threats credible? Unlikely, but I wasn't going to put myself and my family at risk," he concluded. "Ultimately we had to leave town to feel safe. We had to completely rebuild our life and fortify our digital life as well as all of our financial accounts in order to protect ourselves and our assets."

Wow.That sucks. I hope he is doing okay now.

"I exercised incredibly poor judgment expressing my personal opinion"

I guess he had to #dealwith the consequences of his actions.

That's respectable.

But yeah, those threats are not surprising, which is sad.

Why are gamers so crazy?

"He dealt with it"

lol

First thing I said after MS reversed their DRM policies was, "I bet Adam Orth feels like a real @$$hole right about now."

He erred terribly in judgment and it cost him a lot. But it made him into an amazing meme, so there's that at least.

Between #DealwithitGate and #ResolutionGate, the XBox One has definitely supplied us with plenty of entertainment in 2013. For free!

As much as we disagree, you're right :) So true.

The people who threatened he and his family's life with phone calls and hacking their financial accounts should be taken out back and executed. They are a blight to society and will never even rise to the level of having a neutral impact on the world, let alone a positive one.

Now just #dealwithit, orth.

is the nuclear sub incident filed under dealwithitgate or is it its own thing?

More proof that what Sessler said is true. There are a lot of gamers out there that are just nasty human beings.

I believe the dude should have lost his job over what he said, but when you start harrassing the dude's family and all of that other shit.. It's pretty disgusting stuff for something so trivial.

That sounds like it belongs under #NSAGate

Expecting someone in a position that he was in to represent his company at all times seems demanding. Public image really does matter. He learned that the hard way.

"I exercised incredibly poor judgment expressing my personal opinion"

Not only that, but you display very poor judgement in HAVING the moronic opinion that you expressed.

Very true. It's quite pathetic that some people can go so crazy over what is just a game in the end.

I'm happy that the guy still stands by what was said. Sure, it was foolish given the place that he was voicing his opinion and because of his position, but at least he has the balls to stand by what he believes in especially since it's not a very popular idea.

I guess he eventually dealt with it, Perhaps he wasn't expecting the always on harassment, lol.

Lesson to be learned. If you hold a high position careful what you say especially on the internet where there is no such thing as privacy. Your personal opinions will be interpreted as the stance your company holds.

He was indeed short-sighted. You're not just some random dude on system wars.

Doesn't impress me anymore. This is old and something unique to this industry which I thinks has a lot to do with the average age of its consumer.

I was gonna restate the Sessler thing too.

Gamers are and always will be idiots

That doesn't give it a pass. Vile behavior is vile behavior. I think he was a complete idiot but that doesn't excuse other people for taking this shit personal. It's just plain ugly.

Lol.

Why should he have lost his job? There are ways to reprimand an employee without yanking his livelihood out from under him and his family.

Because his views would and were interpreted as the views his company holds. He held a high position so whatever he says in public is going to hurt his company.

Again, why was firing him the only option?

I realize his behavior was shitty and he deserved censure of some kind, but taking his job because of Twitter posts would have been a bit extreme. He was a creative director, not a PR representative.

TD;LR: Dont fvck with the gaming community

Yes, FEAR the emotionally stunted teenage shut-ins, or they will put down their Doritos for a second and harass you on the Internet! :0

Under normal circumstances I would agree, but it was right before the system was officially unvieled and it caused an unneeded shitstorm (for MS anyway lol). It showed he had very little discretion, something someone in his postion should have a handle on. It was his comments that started all of the anti-drm backlash for the X1 and provided MS for a very convienent scapegoat. He made a seriously bad move and paid for it.

Having a family does not exclude you from the penalty of making really dumb decisions when you need to be on your toes.

@Cherokee_Jack: Well those emotionally unstable teenagers managed to make him move out of the city and change his personal information out of FEAR. So yeah, FEAR them

Thats a healthy mindset and not at all hypocritical.......

yea, dont f*** with whiny idiots! you deserve to have your life ruined because you said something dumb over twitter! take that guy thats just trying to provide for his family! we'll show you

shouldn't talk about the company you work for out of line. deal with unemployment

That last part makes me ashamed to be a gamer

I think it's less about being considered a gamer, and more about individual people that would take something like this as far as they did.

Generally speaking, you are correct, but this is not an isolated instance, incidences like these are all too common in the gaming industry. Being passionate and vocal is one thing, but some people cross all lines and boundaries, and the occurrence of such people in the gaming fanbase is unfortunately high.

What about hooligans in the soccer world? I think you can find rather standout instances of people acting foolishly in any form of entertainment.

I am not a close soccer fan (at most I watch it from the sidelines every now and then), and am not too familiar with it, but sure, people like those would make me ashamed to be a soccer fan too, assuming incidences like those were as common there as they are here.

lol guy is an ass but threats and moving out of town for this? damn crazy fanboys.

lol. sweet billy is going to join the Amish.

He "dealt with it" better than a lot of people would have.

STupid little shtts! I have video-gaming now.

It's not. I'm calling on the guilty to be punished. They attacked the innocent. Not even similar.

If he was a creative director at Microsoft at that time, one could think he could know how to separate private and professional life, i.e., you, as a creative director would know what you can say in public and what you can't.

But those reactions were just... idiotic.