The REAL Inside Xbox.

Travel advisory: Ignorance ahead.

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen Major Nelson offer one single real opinion of a video game. Ever.

It might just be the way I view it, but as an individual that’s essentially the face of Xbox Live/Inside Xbox, he doesn’t seem trustworthy. Sure he plays games, but I can’t say I’m convinced he’s actually a gamer. I base this allegation on the fact that he offers no opinion on anything game related.

My conspiracy theory reasoning? Microsoft employee. I’m well aware of the fact that from a marketing/PR perspective, it’s his job to be objective, don’t position things in a negative light, blah blah. However when it comes to the gaming/entertainment industry, I feel that there are things that should be out in the open.

Take IGN editors for example. When a shit game comes out, let’s say…..Vampire Rain. They’ll tell you it blows. They’ll say you should kill it with fire. But Major Nelson will tell you “Vampire Rain available now, DLC for xxx MS points”. It always happens in this way. At most, he’ll tell us he’s been playing a game for “too many hours” and is now late for a meeting. No real gamer will tell you too many hours. There are never enough hours, amirite?

Either way, there are some things in the gaming world that are worthy of negative criticism. It might not be his job to do so, but the fact that Mr. Nelson never offers so much as an opinion regarding what he actually thinks just screams red flag to me. I can’t bring myself to believe that he’s a real gamer, but rather that he only does his job, relaying messages that team Xbox wants him to.

Nelson also follows less than 20 people on Twitter. Trixie has well over 1,000. Red Flag #2. I’m sure Mr. Nelson can’t be bothered with the masses, since he’s quite important.

This is more common than you’d think. As a former Microsoft employee working within Xbox/gaming/Massive/etc, there tons of  people handling our gaming in there that wouldn’t know Super Mario Bros. from Silent Hill. When I first started working at MSFT, I thought “Hell yeah, there’s bound to be people here to talk to about some gaming. Finally!”

There are people there that never even heard of Final Fantasy, let alone played the first Halo. But they know Halo 3, because it’s damn near plastered on everyone’s cubicle. When you go into a client meeting, don’t forget to follow this format: “Halo 3 sold a jillion copies. That being said, let’s move into slide 2.”

How’s that for Inside Xbox.

Would you believe that the picture below is how they really view gamers? It made me sick going into meetings, and presenting this shit. It’s like self degradation…

Obviously without the MSPaint edit.

PS – I  obviously like to keep it honest on my blog here. I tend to share what’s on my mind, love it or hate it. That being said, there’s one little tidbit I forgot to mention.

My animosity towards MN may or may not stem from my time at MSFT. Once upon a time I emailed our friend (internal MSFT-MSFT addresses mind you, not as some gaming fanatic) with a proposition for potential cross media executions regarding XBox Live, Massive and a few other advertising opportunities. The email read just like any other that bounces around MSFT, pointing out ideas and potential opportunities for driving revenue, increasing product offerings. It was probably about half the length of this blog post, explaining initial steps, ideas etc. Mr. Nelson’s response was simple but effective. “I don’t handle xyz. Talk to this person”.

As the guy that’s supposed to be excited about up and coming programs, and enhancing the Xbox experience, he sure didn’t seem to give 2 shits about what I had to say. I wonder if I emailed him as a regular game nerd from a gmail account, if he would have faked being nice, and told me I had great ideas and even that they’ll look into them.

I reached out to some other folks, and we were onto something. Meeting times were set up, everyone was ready to go, and then they laid off all the people at Massive that actually played, enjoyed and knew anything about gaming. I’m not bitter, as I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, however…I can’t help but share my opinion, as I’m sure I would still have them, regardless of my first hand experience.

This chip in my shoulder is making me hungry. Time for lunch. Hope you enjoyed that.