The 25th of August 2014 I asked Tom Happ if he planned on releasing Axiom Verge on GOG:

Tom Happ: "@Barry_Woodward @GOGcom Yeah, we're already in contact :) But it won't be until mid-2015 or so that it'll be out for PC in any form."

The 11th of June 2015 after it had been released on Steam I asked for an update:

Tom Happ: "@Barry_Woodward @GOGcom Not sure, but @Dan_Adelman is working on it!"

Since the creator of the game himself was not sure and it seemed he had put Dan Adelman in charge of the details, I tweeted Dan about it, two months later and it turned into a nightmare.

Dan Adelman: "Do you work for GOG? Spamming the shit out of everyone is bad form. @Barry_Woodward @AxiomVerge @GOGcom"

Brian Provinciano: "@Dan_Adelman @Barry_Woodward someone should find out whose photo that is and let them know it's being used on a spam account, lol."

Steven Nikolic: "@Barry_Woodward @Dan_Adelman @AxiomVerge you can see why ppl think that? Yr twit is Gog this, Gog that, I dream of Gog"

Brian Provinciano: "@Barry_Woodward @tylerglaiel @Dan_Adelman a Twitter account used entirely to tweet devs/pubs about putting their game on gog = deceptive"

Brian Provinciano: "@Barry_Woodward @tylerglaiel @Dan_Adelman you could post a vine with some proof that you're who's in the photo and not located near gog. Lol"

Tyler Glaiel: "@Barry_Woodward @BriProv @Dan_Adelman on the GOG forums you're listed as the director of biz dev"

Dan Adelman: "@tylerglaiel @Barry_Woodward @BriProv That's some mighty fine police work, Lou."

Brian Provinciano: "@Barry_Woodward @tylerglaiel @Dan_Adelman okay, director of biz dev for gog pretending to be a kid -- your actions are unethical/deceptive."

Tyler Glaiel: "@BriProv @Barry_Woodward @Dan_Adelman even if I was slightly interested in @GOGcom before, this basically kills any interest in it"

Brian Provinciano: "@Barry_Woodward honesty is the best policy. It's unethical of you to masquerade as a potential customer. just ask devs officially."

Yeesh. I never portrayed myself as being connected to GOG, just a fan, but at the time people were joking on the forums that I should be a biz dev because I had gotten a number of responses from developers about bringing their games here. Tyler Glaiel happened to see that in whatever thread it was, took it as fact and escalated things considerably. I tried to set the record straight but there was no convincing any of them. Needless to say the whole ordeal put me off contacting developers at all.

Vote: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/axiom_verge

Uh... wow. Honestly really surprised Dan reacted like that — he’s always been pretty chill when I’ve worked with him.

The completionist in me would like to point out that the @Barry_Woodward twitter account has been suspended.

Not disagreed or agreeing with what happened. Just including it because someone over at Twitter had an issue with the poster's actions.

On the other hand, our server status twitter account, which is 99.9% automated and with 14k following is going strong 6 years after we set it up.

edit: As I was writing this, i went looking for an archive of the BW account and found this:

http://archive.is/jzZRq

Maybe I should remove that Real Admiral tag under my name.....

I deleted my Twitter account. That situation really disillusioned me.

Jeez, no wonder they thought he worked for gog. While I appreciate some of the work you do Barry, you kind of screwed up here. Still, that initial reaction to your tweet from those devs was uncalled for.

Again, I mean no disrespect but it redirects to the suspended page.

*shrug* I stay away from Twitter as much as I can. We ran one of those spam detectors against the followers of the server account I mention up above and it came back with a 70% spam rate. We reported a few just to see how things would go and well GoG deals with spammers better than Twitter does.

I'm getting off topic. Excuse me.

I went to the settings of my Twitter account and clicked: "Deactivate your account". It's my understanding that after a period of time the username goes back on the market and can be claimed by someone else, so I don't know what became of it after the fact.

WTF? Going by their logic, I guess these guys reply and send money to every Nigerian prince that asks them for help by email, don't they? Jeez...

They treated Barry like he was a nobody.

Welcome to the real world.

Yeah, they could have at least tried to contact someone at gog to verify that he didn't work for them. I thought of trying to tweet them to set the record straight myself, but they'd probably just accuse me of working for gog too. :/

I just located the email I sent to Tyler Glaiel, who outed me as a secret GOG employee, to set the record straight:

"Dear Tyler,

I'm not contacting you to give you shit, I'd just like to clarify a few things outside of the 140 character format. I'm an actual person, not a cover for a GOG employee. What would the purpose of that even be? The notion that GOG would tweet devs publicly as a way to get them on their service, rather than contacting them discreetly is laughable.

Aside from following celebrity tweets and occasionally inquiring about games coming to GOG, I don't have much use for Twitter. I don't feel the need to post about everything I'm doing or every thought that crosses my mind. My infrequent tweets are not an accurate reflection of all that I am. When Dan called me out and you and others piled on, it really knocked me for a loop. The primary feedback I've gotten when contacting devs has been either positive or neutral.

I might be a bit overzealous as a fan of the platform, but I wasn't trying to harass you or anyone else in any way and I wasn't trying to represent GOG either. Twitter is not an ideal form of communication, so I'm sorry if inquiring about your game's availability on GOG publicly rubbed you the wrong way (it shouldn't). I am not, nor have I ever been employed with GOG. I do, however, own many games there. It's the primary platform from which I game, which is why I ask devs whose games I'm interested in about them.

About the Director Biz Dev confusion, it's origins were literally just yesterday. There was a back and forth about my Twitter advocacy and how GOG should hire me as Director of Business Development in North America, which is still a position they're looking to fill. Ha!

This whole affair has been quite embarrassing for me and it sucks that you've gotten the wrong impression of GOG. That's the opposite of my intent. It's hard to change a first impression, but I hope taking the time to explain myself is not in vain. Regardless of this unfortunateness, I hope you reconsider working with GOG in the future. Peace.

Sincerely,
Barry"

He replied:

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt just keep in mind your original
tweets came off as really corporate sounding and a better way of getting
games onto gog would be to convince GOG to reach out to developers
rather than the other way around

- Tyler"

When this thread started, I skimmed Dan Adelman's account back a few months. Well.....

I find most companies won't respond as then they have to pay official attention which may or may not result in an HR issue and the word every company loves: lawsuits.

sorry it seems you tripped and fell into a bunch of friends having a laugh. I honestly don't know if they really believed you were working for gog. I suspect they knew they weren't sure and they didn't care by then.

couple things though

why are these developers so hostile to gog?

and secondly

"Yr twit is Gog this, Gog that, I dream of Gog"

back in ye olde day that would have been the post of the keyboard warrior idiot that people just read and roll their eyes. twitter is so fucked. when it started people criticised it for being shallow. now though, people just use it as a medium. it's honestly fucked. it was always a toy. now police departments and other official offices use it to announce things and they use the twitter language to do it. so weird seeing that. just the existence of twitlonger should have been strong evidence that you know hey this is some bullshit here.

Rolling Stone reprinted an article they wrote back in the 70s a little while ago. At first I didn't realize it was a reprint. I was reading it, and it kept going, so I just hit the scrollbar to check how long it was. And that fucking thing went forever. I was taken aback. Then I look at the date on the byline. It all made sense then. You know considering that English and other language was the main tool we've used to communicate, coordinate, and educate, I have my doubts about the fact that we're so frequently diluting our use of, and ability with it.

anyway. I know you liked that game. I'm sure that was kind of rough on you. fuck those guys for real.

A thought just occurred to me.

Maybe they were looking for an excuse not to bring the game to GoG and they found their whipping boy?

I hope they're not that petty....

What do you mean? His overly anti-Trump stance? Other than that, I didn't find anything noteworthy.

Anyway, independently of his political inclinations, his almost paranoic attitude towards Barry's request was totally uncalled for.