Colin Moriarty leaving the successful startup the ‘four best friends’ started just over two years ago comes as a shock to many, but the writing had been on the wall for some time now, long before his controversial tweet.
Many point to Colin’s right-leaning politics being opposed to the lefty San Fran vibe of the rest of the team, but there were many other signs that pointed his way out.
For a time, I was a regular listener of their gaming podcast and more specifically their Sony-based coverage PS I Love You XO XO. I enjoyed Colin’s deep knowledge, eloquent insights, and bold opinions whether agreed with or not. When Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida appeared on their show, he specifically praised Colin’s knowledge of Playstation gaming and 1st/2nd/3rd-party developers. Take Sony’s President praising a Sony-centric podcast host with a grain of salt, but it should be noted he said nothing similar to Greg Miller.
Interests outside of gaming
Colin Moriarty mentioned many times he felt the pull to other hobbies and passions. He had always mentioned politics as one of the biggest passions in his life, but even Chess was brought up as a hobby he wished to pour more time into. When even a single game can easily consume 40+ hours, the pressure to stay on top of current releases (and Platinum many games) must have been a daunting task.
His appearance on Dave Rubin’s political show is only the natural evolution of his expressed desire to pursue interests outside of games.
Kinda Funny Live
Kinda Funny quickly branched out from internet-content to live performance with their Kinda Funny Live shows. Colin did participate and performed admirably well, but had previously expressed his anxiety towards public events, even staying home from a different public event. His co-founders Greg Miller and Tim Gettys however, thrived in the spotlight, even hosting Square’s Final Fantasy XV event.
Breaks from Gaming
Sometime before the release of PSVR, Colin had addressed a temporary break from gaming and general lack of interest. For most gamers, breaks from the medium are normal, but again, the pressure of covering the industry to that degree highlights any time spent away from completing games and staying current.
It speaks to the produce-all-the-time approach seen on Youtube and Twitch. Creators are pushed to their limits because they feel a pressure to provide a fickle audience with fresh content that is instantly devoured, usually for free. This pressure is so high that a simple two-week break from gaming is deemed important enough to discuss, on their gaming show.
Politics
Many of Colin’s political viewpoints skewed further to the right of his co-founders, and especially their adopted city of San Francisco. I feel a round-table discussion is more interesting and valid when opposing viewpoints are debated, but the reaction of Miller and Gettys to Colin’s controversial tweet made it clear they were moving in separate directions. Also, Greg posting “we’ve been moving in two directions for a long time.” made it even clearer.
Love him or hate him, Colin Moriarty was well-spoken, bold, and a deep well of gaming knowledge. Talking about games for a living can easily devolve into a hype-fest of praise, but he retained integrity and insightful criticism throughout.
Good luck in the next phase.
14 comments
This article stands out as insightful and objective among all of the other posts about Colin leaving Kinda Funny. Also, Shadowrun on Genesis is #1.
Thanks Chummer. Good luck in the Shadows. You a fan of Dragonfall?
Shadowrun is one of the few games I’ve played over and over and over and over again (my roommate was staring daggers to make sure I admitted this). I can honestly not say that for any other game from early console generations…I’ve touched on a few, but have never consistently played any of them 🙂
Haha, does your roomate love or hate the Shadowrun music now? I definitely fire it up once a year or so, and go through a big phase, reading a novel or two. I’d love to pull a Stardew Valley and make my own homage to it.
She has no idea, I’ll have to actually play the music for her sometime (I usually play it on headphones to hide that I’m playing it for the second time in a year). I’d love to see someone do a good homage to it. I’ve enjoyed the games by Harebrained but there is still something about that old Sega Genesis game 🙂
I thought Shadowrun Returns was decent, Dragonfall the perfection of the formula but I couldn’t get into Hong Kong. Story felt clunky, and character interactions unnatrural.
When you play the Gen one do you play with the code or actually grind your way through that tough opening?
Also, you gotta tell me your team and class.
I usually go Shaman and bring the Elf Decker and Stark.
Haven’t gotten around to Hong Kong yet, but I agree, Dragonfall was the best of that series.
I actually have never used a code (honestly, never thought to look for any kind of cheats, I enjoy it enough to just play through it). Considering I play with semi-regularity I change up my team and class semi regularly. I tend to prefer Decker or Shaman, Decker when I want to make lots of money and feel like a terror in the system and Shaman when I want to blast things with magic :).
As for my team, I pretty regularly pick up Stark (he’s just really solid addition to any one of my teams), Rianna when I play Shaman, and Freya when I run Decker, but I’ve run Phantom, Winston, and Ilene for full games for the fun of it…which just shows that I’m perhaps a little too consumed by this game.
Luckily, so far this year has been amazing in terms of new releases, and I haven’t even had time to look at Shadowrun.
Decker is awesome to rack up money, Samurai so fun to get cybered up, and shaman for something completely different. I’ve even sacrificed one point of essence on a Shaman and gotten a datajack and whatever else i could fit without dropping below 5.
True, been a busy year, In terms of a similar game, I’d have to say Deus Ex and it’s mix of cyber punk and infiltration is the closest.
Also, I played my roommate part of the soundtrack to the game.
She didn’t mind Redmond Barrens background music, to quote her: “it’s so sparse I could probably ignore it” but that only lasted until I played her some of the later stuff, in which case her response was: “Oh God it’s that 80s electronica crap. It’s worse than Beverly Hills Cop!”
I think it’s a good thing I’ve always used the headphones 🙂
There’s a guy remaking the soundtrack on youtube and the original composer stopped by to comment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Juxprjezg
Sega’s FX sound chip had a harsh sound but I thought it worked well for cyberpunk.
And I have now immediately turned on the theme song to Beverly Hills Cop and played it on high volume through the house bluetooth speakers. If you don’t hear from me again it is quite possible I have been strangled.
Thanks for this well written article. Unlike most of the well unwritten crap about him.
Cheers M.A, Colin entertained and informed me plenty of times when I listened to their shows. He always felt a little out of place with his well thought out opinions.