In response to an attempt by Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante to bash him in the court of public opinion, Moon Studios’ Ori series director Thomas Mahler has proven that he has no time for bad faith internet discourse.
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This particular episode first kicked off on October 3rd when Twitch user Rachel Cherry, perhaps better known by her handle @xingenue, took to her personal Twitter account to author a lengthy thread decrying the numerous video game players and critics who have found themselves fed up with the continued pushing of the ‘corporate activism’-styled concepts of ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ within the medium.
“THE DISCOURSE IS BULLSHIT SHUT THE F–K UP,” she declared. “Nobody is coming to save you. No incels are going to band together to create an immaculately gate kept industry for you. The existential dread you grapple with has everything to do with the fact you weren’t loved enough and that most ppl find you insufferable. No matter how much muscle mass you grind out at the gym, people will still find you obnoxious and repulsive because you never learned how to listen to other folk’s lived experiences.”
Given its combativeness, Cherry’s thread soon became a topic of discussion on Twitter, with her supporters turning out in droves to cheer her on and her ideological opponents rallying against what they perceived as an inherently disingenuous read of their complaints.
Among the numerous individuals whose attentions were caught by the thread was none other than the aforementioned Mahler, the director behind Moon Studios’ popular Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
Ostensibly due to his checking out her full profile, Mahler eventually took notice of Cherry’s pinned tweet, wherein she claimed to have worked on the second Ori title.
His curiosity piqued, Mahler would then inquire on October 9th, “I’m the director behind both Ori games and I don’t know who you are and how you were affiliated with Ori…?” to which Cherry would explain, “I worked with Xbox User Research (I was the [User Research Assistant] for global publishing during 2018-2020). Nice to meet you!”
Having received an answer, Mahler in turn asserted, “That could explain it.”
“I didn’t want to cause you any trouble,” he told Cherry. “I just saw you posting that you worked on Ori and I had no idea who you are. Since you’re calling people names online, I thought it was important to inform people that you never actually worked for Moon Studios and that you didn’t ever directly engage with anyone at Moon. Always be nice to people, Ray, even those you disagree with.”
This straight-forward response would subsequently draw the ire of Mercante, who replied to Mahler’s tweet with the simple declaration, “You’re a Dickhead.”
Unphased by this insult, Mahler would directly admit to the Kotaku staffer, “I don’t know who you are”.
In turn, Mercante then shared an excerpt from a 2022 VentureBeat piece wherein former Moon Studios team members accused Mahler of fostering an “oppressive” workplace and shot back, “Maybe you forgot”.
“Mahler sometimes argued with the veterans he brought in, and he changed his mind about the decisions they made and would overrule them,” read Mercante’s excerpt. “Mahler would also forget about agreements and then argue for the opposite to happen, and that impacted the work of multiple people, multiple developers said.”
Refusing to put up with the Kotaku editor’s nonsense, Mahler responded to Mercante’s holier-than-thou attitude with a lengthy statement that began, “Hey Alyssa, You’re apparently a journalist from Kotaku – So I’m guessing you haven’t worked in actual game development yet. Let me try to explain the thing you posted about, which I’m guessing was from that hitpiece from a few years back.”
“Yes, I’m guilty of what’s stated in that image,” he admitted. “And that’s okay, because this is the normal creative process. We brought lots of veterans into Moon because generally great people want to get the opportunity to work on great projects and that’s our goal at Moon: We always set out to create the kinda games we’d love to play ourselves, that fill some hole in the market because for some reason these holes haven’t been filled yet. And so we’re all incredibly passionate about what we do.”
“With great talent comes lots of enthusiasm and passion, which absolutely leads to arguments because ultimately everyone is working hard on getting their vision into the game,” Mahler continued. “But also, everyone at Moon understands that we’re working together as a team – so the point of these arguments is then to try to convince each other why this or that solution would be the best thing for the game we’re making – and the best solution ought to win!”
“Most of the times the beauty behind these arguments is that everybody gets a chance to contribute and more often than not the actual solution will be one that ultimately everybody contributed to because we’re dealing with very complex issues all the time and complex problems often also need complex solutions,” said the director. “It is often a chaotic process, but it’s controlled chaos.”
“And yes, absolutely every now and then I have to put my foot down and set the direction… because I’m the game director and ultimately it’s my responsibility to ensure that everyone knows where things are heading and that decisions get made,” he clarified. “And yes, it has also happened that I agreed to a certain decision, playtested some more and changed the direction after – Again, to me this is a normal part of the process since things get clearer and clearer the more stuff gets implemented and the more we play and test.”
“To me, all this is just how creative work happens. It can be painful, but my job – like any good director – is to understand what’s going on and make sure the right decisions get made, even if some work might get rendered useless in the process,” he added, then sharing a link to a page on The Legend of Zelda wiki regarding the series’ development process. “See here, even [Nintendo Game Director Shigeru] Miyamoto is guilty of that. A few years back we hired some folks that didn’t really fit our culture, so we had to part ways with them and then this article happened. Wasn’t a great feeling to see some ex-Moon folks talk badly behind our backs, but ultimately it just made it clear that these folks shouldn’t have worked at Moon in the first place and I hope they’re happier now wherever they landed.”
Closing out his reply, Mahler ultimately asserted, “I don’t know why you’re out here cursing out game developers and what your whole deal is, but I hope that gave you some insight into the creative process and it’s messiness (and beauty).”
“I hope you have a nice day,” he signed off, “Yours, Dickhead.”
His statement met with the opinion that he was “way nicer to her than she deserves”, Mahler explained, “I don’t know her and I prefer to be nice to strangers – she’s working in the industry, so she ought to know how these processes work and I had a few minutes to spend”.
As of this article’s writing, Merante has not responded to Mahler’s final tweet.
