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Is Anybody Really Happy the WAR Guys Are Back?

Rockstars?

Forgive me for being a little crass, but I’m not all that excited Paul Barnett and Mark Jacobs are back. These are the same guys who sold us a total bill of goods and then dropped the ball like lepers at the super bowl. To be quite honest, I’d keep Paul Barnett out from in front of a camera (and microphone) for another three years if I could. If AOL wanted to help the MMO community, they’d have Massively pretend these two don’t exist entirely. Both their names are synonymous with failure and disappointment.

And it doesn’t help that these guys are pretty much severing all ties they had with the MMO world. Paul Barnett came off like a “facebook games are the future” –type back in December and was outright dismissive his former (and now future) customers. And Minecraft players, of course, because, you know, Minecraft isn’t even really a game. Mark Jacobs is doing the same but at least he’s being upfront about it. He says that social games are easier to make and their players are easier to please. It’s also a lot harder to put your foot in your mouth when your whole game consists of aiming birds or pressing “jump” repeatedly.

Simply put: Both these guys messed up. They’re likeable enough people and I respect them for their talents, but they should lose their PR privileges forever – you don’t shackle yourself to the Titanic and then try to sell me a river boat. Even though Mark Jacobs would have you believe it was EA that drowned WAR, a good look at Christmas Past should tell us all that WAR had fundamental problems far before EA bought them. It didn’t start with the buy-out, it only got worse because of it.

So, yeah. Enough with the schilling already. You pay marketing people to market, not “creative strategists” and CEOs.

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