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The Smoking Gun

The inside story of GameSpy Industries.

This article was NOT written by altSoft; opinions of the author may not reflect our opinions. We can not guarantee that all facts provided here are true. Read at your own responsibility. Official rights to this article belong to:

©1999 Andrew Smith, Madness.Unreal.Org All rights reserved. Published with author's permission.

Few companies in the computer games industry attract as much pessimism as GameSpy Industries, née Critical Mass. This is not to say that the negativity is justified, but nevertheless it exists in abundance, and in more quarters than just the instinctively cynical world of the gaming underground.

One concern held by some critics and industry folk alike is that GSI will reach a monopoly position. Based on a less than squeaky clean track record, there are fears for how such a position could be dangerous for both consumers and the industry itself.

GSI owes its success to id Software, makers of Quake. The company's first web site, PlanetQuake, would not have existed if it wasn't for id Software. The QuakeSpy server browser, now known as GameSpy, would have almost certainly not been such a big hit if it wasn't for id Software. Without id Software, one could argue that GameSpy Industries would not exist.

Yet despite this entirely dependent birthing, the working relationship between the two companies has been minimal. John Carmack, id's lead programmer and part-owner, relates how the two companies "worked closely together on QuakeWorld support, but other than that we have little interaction".

One senior figure at PlanetQuake is disappointed with the lack of communication, and tells of how id has always shunned his efforts to approach them. His feeling that "they won't give me the time of day", a view held by at least two other GSI employees, could suggest that id has no great desire to help the company any more than it already has.

Anti-Competition

The GameSpy software has very little competition. Similar utilities do exist, but they have nowhere near the market penetration of GameSpy. In the online gaming environment, GSI's only serious competitors are commercial networks such as WON, TEN and HEAT.

Recent evidence suggests that GSI is taking underhanded steps to boost the popularity of its own service by making other networks appear unreliable when they are not.

One observer noted how GameSpy queries to the server lists at WON and id Software show, in some cases, less than a third of the actual number of servers listed, while another browser, Pingtool, reports the correct number.

GSI's master lists can only be queried by the GameSpy browser. If other networks, and even id's own list get a reputation for being unreliable, this will make GSI's list become the definitive source, which will in turn render competing browsers redundant. GameSpy will have no competition.

Followers of the company may remember the conflict of interests that surfaced when the network's hosting manager used his position at the Walnut Creek file archive to severely restrict two competing games networks in the global distribution of their content. GSI responded to allegations of unfair practices by explaining that they had no reason to deliberately harm the other networks: "If [they] go under, no one benefits. I certainly don't think that we will benefit. Fan sites are not 'competition' for us. They are part of the community that we are part of as well."

One of those networks, Telefragged, and another site, QuakeCity, also run server lists for the test version of Quake III Arena, yet neither of those lists are supported by GameSpy. In the absence of any other credible explanation, this could easily be seen as another case of anti-competitive practices.

Mainstream Domination

Currently, GSI's software is targeted at the hardcore gamer, but the company has been trying to change this. As titles such as Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament and Team Fortress II push online gaming towards a more mainstream audience, GSI can piggy-back its browser to a greater level of public acceptance. Or perhaps, expectation.

As the Internet becomes a more plausible gaming platform, and more games are released with out-of-the-box GameSpy support, the GameSpy logo may become synonymous with online playability. How much control will this give GSI over the industry it owes its continued success to?

Will the day of the ultimate irony arrive when an id Software game loses mainstream sales because it doesn't carry the GameSpy logo on the box? John Carmack is doubtful: "It is conceivable, but I don't expect it." Supporters of the company that effectively created online gaming can only hope he is right.

The QuakeSpy / GameSpy software has clearly helped to facilitate the current market shift towards multiplayer-focused products, as Carmack explains: "GameSpy filled a very important niche in the growth of online gaming. It was one of the best of the user community additions to Quake, and I was happy that they have been successful with it."

All of the three major forthcoming online games have their own built-in server browsers, which could effectively eliminate the need for GameSpy before it has been able to gain a stranglehold. This could be the one major hurdle that stands in the way of any plans for online domination.

Carmack: "I don't think GameSpy can have a monopolistic position. It is too easy to integrate community support into a new game if [publishers] want. Implementing similar functionality is not too daunting of a task for any small group of developers. I think the playing field is still level enough that there shouldn't be any worry about dominant positions."

That view, from someone who has been so instrumental in the development of Internet gaming, caries considerable weight.

The other side of the argument, however, is that GSI may not always play by the rules, and as we've learned from the Microsoft anti-trust trial, companies that break the rules do not lend themselves well to accurate prediction and forecasting. A high-ranking figure at GSI light-heartedly describes how one of the company's potential business paths is likely to lead them to a position as "the Microsoft of the online entertainment industry". It has yet to be seen if they choose that path.

Volunteer Workforce

The ever-present thorn in GSI's side is the fact that many of their staff are unpaid. Several of these volunteer contributors have told how they were approached with offers of payment as soon as the company became successful, and how those offers were apparently withdrawn and forgotten about when money started coming in.

One source corroborates this: "A number of people have brought up the 'when we make it big' statement from older PlanetQuake / GSN hosting statements. It is true that they were saying this around a year ago, when it was about seven people, four in an office and three outside. At this time they have received several million from investors. It would seem they've made it big, or at least have received enough to compensate at least their hub site webmasters with some pay for their content."

Senior GameSpy representatives defend the ongoing lack of payment to most of its workforce by saying that the company is not profitable. They acknowledge that a large amount of money is being made, but all of it is recycled on building the company and paying necessary expenses. There has been no explanation of why payments to their volunteer staff, some of which have been with the company for several years, are not considered necessary.

This has lead to a common feeling of unease about the company's ethical standing, and a view that it is willing to trample on well-meaning contributors to propel itself forward. One long-standing employee told me, "When you first come to GSI, it rules. The people are great, fun times are had, etc. But soon you realise you're being used... or at least I did."

This is certainly not a unique viewpoint, although many of the people who feel they are being used are satisfied with the situation as they are working to gain valuable experience in the industry. They feel that they are using GSI as much as GSI is using them, and that the experience is payment enough.

One person in particular, who was recently promoted to a paid position, is enthusiastic about how he has been treated: "I worked my ass off for five months, they recognised it and now I'm being compensated for what I do. And I enjoy it."

Even though there are clearly some volunteers who are gaining from their efforts, one particular story has come to light that casts aspersions on how the company is willing to treat people in extreme cases. It was related to me how one person worked on-site for two months, living in the office without payment or any other compensation. Despite such commitment, the volunteer was not eventually offered a paid position, and this naturally lead to some bad feelings and a sense that the volunteer's trust had been abused.

Investment and New Directions

Following the recent investment by Michael Ovitz and Richard Wolpert, people waited to see if the time had arrived for a company-wide payment plan to be introduced. It hadn't. Instead, the investment was used to hire more full-time staff.

One source within the GameSpy company believes the Ovitz / Wolpert investment to be more than the reported $3.4m and also supports the current rumour of a future investment by the Ziff-Davis group, giving a figure of $5m. A recent article in the LA Times lends weight to this rumour by citing sources from within Ziff-Davis itself.

Another source within GSI claims that the company has also received, or will be receiving soon, investments from AOL and AMG Records, who presumably share the same interest as Ovitz and Wolpert in the company's MP3Spy software, used for finding online music broadcasts. These investments are also said to be in the region of several million dollars.

There has been a recent push by GSI to hire more programmers to work as a part of the GameSpy software development team, but rather than joining the original and current team, new recruits are said to be replacing them. One employee comments, "I do not believe that any of the original QuakeSpy developers are aware of this, or how they would take the news".

According to the same employee, "a new team has been hired and is already working on changes to the existing engine [and] interface". The original developers are currently re-writing the browser's core functionality, and "will be fired from any further work on GameSpy once [their work] is complete".

The company has also reportedly hired Walter Costinak, one of the industry's most highly esteemed artists, for a six figure salary. Based on the few known salaries of off-site workers, this could have allowed for at least ten volunteers to move into paid positions.

Breaking of the Ranks

As the company has become more successful, and more full-time staff have been hired, appreciation for the unpaid staff is said to have waned. One volunteer worker, largely responsible for a site that plays a major role in the network's future, and therefore in GSI's ability for self-promotion and marketing, had a request for payment knocked back. The site, it was said, was run on a voluntary basis and workers were not eligible for payment.

Some volunteer workers who have donated their services for several years in the hope of eventual employment with the company have been disappointed to learn that the many new job openings are only available to people who are willing to relocate to California. The company's first major recruitment drive, if it is any indication of future hiring policy, suggests that many people's years of hard work may have ultimately been in vain.

Even the much-touted focal point of the company's "community spirit", the Beatdown parties, have turned somewhat ugly. One employee tells of how "there are rifts at GameSpy now, with elitism and cliques appearing in the workplace".

According to this employee, an email was recently sent out by Mark Surfas, owner of the company, explaining a new policy with regards to Beatdown guests. The source explains: "Some are to be flown and boarded there, and others will have to provide their own way. This is causing a lot of bad vibes throughout the office."

Reports of discontent within the ranks come as no great surprise. Judging by the number of employees who have contacted me with stories of unethical practices, and the number of others who were eager to help fill in the blanks when asked, it seems obvious that a large number of GSI workers are not only disappointed with the company's behaviour, but have also reached the stage where they see public exposure as the only possible remedy.

As one of them explained: "I don't want GSI to go down, it has too much potential. I just want certain people to see the errors of their ways, and change their business practices."

Future Vision

When Mark Surfas launched PlanetQuake and his Critical Mass company three years ago, few people could have foreseen how it would grow to become the modern GameSpy Industries. It was seen as a small, albeit professional operation, with no greater plans than to run a web site, earn some cash, and support the hobby of a few fanatical gamers.

The network has grown at an impressively rapid rate, and if the leaks and persistent rumours are to be believed then the company has become one that has no intention of honouring past commitments to volunteer staff, will coldly dispose of the team that created what was until recently its primary asset, and is already developing an internal class system with a few choice staff reaping the rewards from the hard work of dozens, if not hundreds of others, most of them unpaid.

Responsibility for serious problems within a company must be accepted by the person at the helm, and so attention must turn to Mark Surfas. In just the last six months, his image within parts of the company has changed from that of the dedicated, hardcore gamer, to one of a ruthless, fiercely disloyal businessman.

Many people at GSI enthuse about how Mark is a "great guy" and "one of the nicest people I've ever met". Talking off the record, such glowing praise is soon dropped.

The impression given to me of Mark is that he is a genuinely friendly and amicable person, someone who is very easy to like, but one with a callous drive and ambition that will not allow compassion or decent obligation to stand in his way.

Mark's self-attributed nickname, "Bastard", was hurriedly dropped when investors began to show an interest, presumably because such a pseudonym could be considered unprofessional. The name, by his own admission, is a thinly veiled boast of his darker, perhaps even nastier side, and one could reasonably conclude that this part of his personality, while surely having helped GameSpy on the road to success, is also the cancer at the heart of the company.

Whether or not the next phase of GSI's growth will have traces of the same rotten core remains to be seen. There can be little doubt that the company's involvement in online gaming has been ultimately self-serving, but with more staff and a bigger budget, it's possible that the move into online music and broadcasting may bring with it a more ethical route.

Initial signals are not positive. The launch of MP3Spy was immediately greeted with concerns that the company was profiting from the illegal broadcast of pirated music in the popular MP3 format. Mark has explained that the browser does, in some ways, assist such illegal activity, but assures people that the holes will be plugged within the six month "grace period" demanded by law. Policy, it seems, is based only on legal requirements, not on the issue of the software being used for piracy, which one can only conclude is not seen as a problem.

The company's public stance on piracy is unequivocal: "We don't condone [piracy] or copyright violations." In contrast, one employee tells of how "they have an MP3 server with loads of MP3's which they record for [workers in] the office". Other sources tell of the company running a private "warez" server with pirated copies of games and the latest cinema releases available as MPEG video files.

While some employees express dislike for this activity, it could be seen that the availability of such "free" illegal material is a contributing factor to so many people's willingness to work without any official payment. In the past, several volunteers have publicly defended the company by saying, vaguely, that they receive non-financial compensation. This may be what they were referring to.

It could arguably be unfair for an outsider to base expectations of the company's future behaviour on what, essentially, amounts to nothing more than some negative public opinion and anecdotal evidence of unethical behaviour, albeit worryingly common.

However, one long-serving employee, who is perhaps in a position to form a more accurate opinion, does not predict well for the future: "GameSpy was not based on honest practices, and [that] continues. It's sad that something with so much potential has to be so tainted with Mark's personal greed."

So what will the future hold for GameSpy Industries? Whatever it is, there is sure to be cynicism and controversy, and it will be interesting to see how justified people's concerns turn out to be. So far, those concerns appear to have been largely accurate.

As so many disillusioned employees have expressed, one can only hope that the company will soon learn from its mistakes, but first it must recognise them, and currently there are few signs of that happening.

If any current or past GameSpy employees have any other stories to tell, or can add to the information given here, please contact me in the strictest confidence.

GameSpy Industries was invited to respond to this article, but declined.

Your comments are welcome; feel free to send in your thoughts. Please note that this article does not necessarily reflect our opinions, and is written by another person, who granted us rights to publish the article on aGSM.Net.

 This page was last modified on February 27, 2002 (07:18:42)
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