Of course I am days behind on the breaking news that Brad McQuaid has died.
And I feel loathe to even link to my posts about him here in the past. But I will. Here is when he suddenly returned and I called him out for shenanigans and past issues – fairly or unfairly at the time. I thought it was a hoax. Sure, that was 10 years ago but when I learned of his passing I immediately thought of that post.
The second time, here, I attacked his Kickstarter – not because it was him specifically, but more railing against the past “Rockstar CEO” syndrome where people had success (once, typically) with a game and are heralded as people who can do it again – and none have to date. Specifically speaking about British, Jacobs, and McQuaid there.
Now we will never really know if he would have had it with Pantheon. If it’s brilliant he will get the credit, if it’s bad he won’t get the blame. In either situation we won’t really know how much of the final product that is launched (if it is) was due to his vision and parameters or the changes that were made in his absence. Either way, it will be very interesting.
To be fair my stance softened over the years and I was genuinely interested in Pantheon. I came close to really investing a top tier to get into alpha. I mean, I am so discouraged by current gaming due to the overt focus on monetization instead of enjoyment that I am becoming that bitter, jaded old gamer. And that isn’t really fair for the industry that for the most part is churning out some of it’s best work, if you look closely outside the AAA studios.
Point is, whatever I disagreed with about Brad McQuaid the developer in the past I didn’t know the person. And the person died. He had friends, family, admirers and haters but human life is indeed precious so I will use my little space of the internet to simply apologizing for my rants about the developer – without knowing the person.
Doubly fun, is now my primary gaming enjoyment is his original vision, preserved, in Project 1999. It is some of the longer term most stable and fun gaming I have had in a long time.
So not only do I say “Sorry”, but “Thank you” as well.
I mean, sorry if I come off as an ass, but every person you criticize is going to die eventually. I don’t know why you’d feel bad about criticizing them after they died if you didn’t feel bad when they were around to hear what you had to say about them…
It is totally legit to feel bad that a person passed away and still have concerns/criticisms about the work they did! Don’t beat yourself up.
Ha! No worries, and good observation. I just think the news of it happening illicit those emotions and you think through things as you process. Sometimes out loud. I’m ok with it all, of course. It is kind of a big deal in MMO world – as it should be.
I have gone through and looked at some of his responses to negativity, at least since Pantheon kicked off, and Brad was always surprisingly positive and upbeat in the face of it. He left a couple comments on my blog where I took him to task over things like the lack of build up to the Kickstarter and he acknowledged his errors and seemed to have a plan to go forward.
I still didn’t agree with everything he had to say, and I had some worry that scope creep would overcome Pantheon the way it did Vanguard, but he never seemed to let that sort of reaction phase him in public. He seemed willing to take in those sorts of opinions without letting him get in the way of things. Or such is my observation from the outside at least.
Nice to hear he took it with understanding, no doubt he grew and changed over the years as people tend to do. Was nice of him to stop by and I did read some of the comments he made at your blog (that you linked to). So young, 51, hard to imagine.