Several weeks ago, Joseph Jackmovich came to me with concerns about ethic violations going on at VGChartz, the site he’d served on as a Weekend Editor for some time. We’d discussed the best way of disseminating this vital information, culminating in the blog post on Monday, the first in a planned week-long series of posts.

However rather than attempt to defend his site against the allegations, VGChartz’ proprietor Brett Walton focused his energies on making Joseph and myself look, to use Brett’s own words, arrogant and idiotic, and posted several inaccurate statements about the nature of Joseph’s employment with the site, specifically that he hadn’t been “fulfilling his duties” and that he had been fired because of it.

One of Jackmovich’s colleagues, Alex Co, said of him, “I’m 110% positive that Joe helped me more than anyone else during my time at VGChartz. I’d stake my reputation on it.” That doesn’t sound like someone who wasn’t “fulfilling his duties.”

Brett has has since written a lengthy post defending his site against the allegations that, as you will soon learn, is littered with factual inaccuracies.

I had planned to post a detailed breakdown of what happened following the Reddit scandal that broke back in March (the shortened version: Andy Garner, aka “GamingForever1”, still works for VGChartz, they had a pretty good idea of what he was up to, and he’s still doing it). However in light of Brett’s response I’ve decided instead that it would be best to speak directly to Joe about his time at VGChartz, what happened while he was there, and why he left.

What follows is a transcript of our talk. It’s not a quick read, by any means, but it’s worth sitting down to read. It’s also worth noting that much of what Joseph says it backed up with actual hard evidence. Which is nice.

I’ve made the email conversations between Joseph and Chris & Brett available for download, and there’s a link to that further into the post, but if you’re in a hurry you can snag those from here.

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Update: In response to Gareth Murfin’s comment posted below, I have amended some of the information in this post.

We can thank our lucky stars that Zombie Massacre, Uwe Boll’s latest cinematic abortion, isn’t directed by the man himself (he’s opted to co-produce instead, with the film itself being directed by Marco Ristori and Luca Boni) but the film is based on a fairly unlikely source - an Amiga FPS released in 1998 called, fittingly enough, Zombie Massacre.

You will often see the game erroneously referred to as Gloom 4 in a number of places, particularly as news of the film has broken on various gaming blogs and news sites, but it’s interesting to note that the game has never been referred to as Gloom 4 anywhere outside of two YouTube videos featuring gameplay footage, and its ill-deserved Wikipedia entry where, you will note, the source for the alternate title is not cited.

Looking at Google search results, it seems game journalists have decided to draw purely from this unsourced alternate title on the Wikipedia entry rather than, say, do a little research themselves.

The first obvious go-to place is the Hall of Light, a comprehensive database of every Amiga game ever released. Their entry for Zombie Massacre does not list an alternate title and doesn’t list the game as a prequel or sequel to previous Gloom titles, but it does note that the game “Uses the GLOOM engine.” Another Amiga games database, Lemon Amiga, doesn’t list the game at all, which might give you some idea as to how bloody obscure the thing is.

I hope you brought your exercise books and your pencil case, because I’m about to give you a lesson on the history of the Gloom series.

The first Gloom title was originally released for AGA Amigas and the Amiga CD32 games console in 1995, developed by Black Magic and published by Guildhall Leisure. It wasn’t the only Doom clone released for the Amiga at the time, but it was by far the most enjoyable (at least until Alien Breed 3D came out). The engine had more in common with Wolfenstein 3D, and the weapons system wasn’t particularly impressive, but the game was challenging and entertaining enough, save for a lackluster Deathmatch mode.

An updated version, fittingly entitled Gloom Deluxe, was released the following year. It featured numerous updates and enhancements to the game engine including higher screen resolutions and, bizarrely, support for iGlasses (an experiment in virtual reality by Escom, who were owners of Amiga Technologies at the time). The updated version also allowed older, non-AGA Amigas to run the game, provided they had graphics accellerators.

It could have ended there. It should have ended. It didn’t. Inexplicably, a game bearing the name Gloom 3 (otherwise known as Ultimate Gloom or Gloom: Zombie Edition) was released in ‘97, ostensibly by Black Magic but actually developed by Alpha Software, featuring awful, awful graphics and audio stolen from other games. It was panned by critics and fans alike, and a planned “Directors Cut” never materialized. Gloom 3 was the last entry in the series.

In ‘98, Alpha Software used the same game engine to produce Zombie Massacre. They created a whole new set of levels and graphics, but the core game engine and weapons mechanics remained the same. It’s comparable to, say, Heretic, which uses the Doom engine to produce a similar game with a different theme.

If you’ve got the opportunity to play Gloom or Gloom Deluxe, it’s well worth a go and definitely worth the time. It hasn’t aged as well as id Software’s own little masterpiece, but it’s one of the more successful clones of the mid-90s, and one of the last truly great Amiga games. If given the chance to play Gloom 3 or Zombie Massacre, however, you’d do well to politely decline.

Most importantly, however, is the fact that almost every game journalist to reference Zombie Massacre has gotten it wrong. Unfortunately as the “alternate title” has been posted on so many “reputable” news sites, Wikipedia editors can simply edit the article citing them as a source… when they themselves sourced the alternate name from Wikipedia. It’s a brilliant example of self-perpetuating bullshit, isn’t it?