Smith and Midway part following BlackSite's 'f*cked up' development

by Alexander Sliwinski { Nov 30th 2007 at 3:53PM }

There's only so many times in a week one can make a "so long and thanks for all the fish" joke. GameTap is reporting Harvey Smith has left Midway Austin after making some very public waves in Montreal, calling Blacksite: Area 51's production "f*cked up." Although he took "personal accountability," he also pointed at Midway saying the project went from alpha to final in a "completely reprehensible" fashion.

GameTap says their source confirmed Smith's departure was "by mutual agreement between Harvey and the studio." Smith became creative director at Midway Austin after previously working at the now defunct Ion Storm on Deus Ex. Conspiracy theorists believe Smith made his statements to get fired by Midway so he could try and work on the recently announced Deus Ex 3 at Eidos Montreal. Yeah, the same Eidos implicated in the Kane & Lynch shenanigans. Look at that, we've come full circle. Best 'o luck Mr. Smith. (Also, call us when you want to talk Deus Ex).

Tags: Area51, BlackSite, BreakingNews, DE3, Deus-Ex-3, Harvey-Smith, Midway

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Fernando Rocker @ Nov 30th 2007 4:22PM

Blacksite and Kane & Lynch... I hope they don't fuck up Deus Ex.

Poisoned Al @ Nov 30th 2007 4:36PM

You're implying they didn't fuck up Deus Ex 2.

Shagittarius @ Nov 30th 2007 4:29PM

Good Luck! I hope that Eidos isn't just Midway and Ion Storm Duct-tapped together.

Monkey65 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:37PM

What a surprise.

Nice to see people like Smith damaging the companies he works for. Maybe development on Deus Ex 3 will be just as fucked up and he can rant some more.

Poisoned Al @ Nov 30th 2007 4:39PM

Well you know what happens to honest people in this industry don't we boys and girls? That's right, be a sniveling little arse-kisser and you'll go far! It's the American way!

gonk @ Nov 30th 2007 4:40PM

unfortunately

AK @ Nov 30th 2007 8:35PM

There is a difference between being honest, and publicly badmouthing the company you work for. Nobody says you have to kiss-ass to keep your job, but at the same time, you can't talk shit about your company, and expect them to keep you on payroll.

Would you pay someone to talk shit about you?

NoHitHair @ Dec 3rd 2007 3:30AM

AK-

No person should be ever be penalized for badmouthing their company. It highly benefits customers and demands corporate responsibility. For companies that honestly do their best to treat their employees properly, there would likely be little dissent and that would pale in comparison to the companies that run sweatshops.

Eric @ Nov 30th 2007 4:43PM

Now he'll have more time to talk politics in interviews...
Why again does anyone care about the political views of a guy making video games? Oh, that's right, they don't. Maybe he can SFTU...

cybereality @ Nov 30th 2007 5:06PM

Thats the spirit. Stick it to the man!

Pag @ Nov 30th 2007 7:08PM

I was at Harvey Smith's presentation at the Montreal International Games Summit, and I think what he said was blown out of proportions. His presentation wasn't "why Blacksite sucks", it was something entirely ("The Imago Effect" for those curious) and he spent 10 minutes at the start doing a short post-mortem of Blacksite. Sure he was harsh on the project, but honestly almost everyone in the games industry has been on projects that went worse than that.

Another presentation at the MIGS, a post-mortem of Crackdown, felt harsher honestly. The producer there described parts of the project as "The Gates of Hell" and such -- I didn't come out of that presentation with a warm fuzzy feeling about Microsoft as a publisher...

Smith's post-mortem was awfully close to the game's release though. Add to this that he said how much he loved Montreal at the start of his presentation and how he'd spent a lot of time thinking about what he'd do with Deus Ex 3 -- that adds credence to the idea he did this either because he knew he was leaving Midway or because he wanted to get fired, and he's going to work on Deus Ex 3. Frankly I hope he does work on that game -- no matter what you think of his work, I prefer to have someone who've seen the good and bad parts of working on a Deus Ex project than someone who's entirely new at it.

BananaBoat @ Nov 30th 2007 7:39PM

I can see where Midway is coming from in firing him. Maybe the development was fucked up, maybe it wasn't. What it wasn't is cheap to make and his comments have effectively killed any sales that the game might have made this holiday season. Is that a bad thing? Personally, I'd say no. Charging people 60 dollars for ALPHA software is disgusting, but that doesn't mean that the employees of the studio have a right to come out and sandbag their company.

Imagine an employee in any other sector doing this. Imagine if a Microsoft employee came out and said that Vista sucks, and that the development of it was fucked up. Would he still be around on Monday? I don't think so.