A music production intern who worked on God of War Ragnarok says she’s feeling incredibly disappointed and discouraged, after she wasn’t credited for her work in the PS5 and PS4 exclusive game. Writing on Twitter, composer Jessica Mao revealed that she contributed to the editing, arrangement, and implementation of the score during the Freya chase and Thor boss fight sequences at the beginning of the campaign.
However, despite sharing specific examples of her efforts – and thoughtfully explaining her approach to them – she admitted that her name’s not included in the credits and “apparently it can’t be added in a patch update”. She continued: “I was told that to be credited, my contribution to the game must hit some ‘minimum criteria’, [and I’m] still not sure what this criteria could be. This was incredibly disappointing and discouraging for me to learn, and I’d hate for anyone else to go through it. Game devs, please credit everyone who participates in the development of a game. It only makes sense.”
To be fair, Santa Monica Studio’s senior audio technical designer Sean LaValle was quick to respond: “I’m very sorry to hear about this, Jessica. I fully agree everyone who contributed to a project should be credited. It may indeed be too late but I will definitely ask about this.”
So hopefully there’s a happy resolution here, or at the very least some important lessons learned.
[source twitter.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 26
Just an assumption but - Sounds likely she works for a contacted entity. Someone working on GoW got her to help them with that scene. And her colleague didn’t put her name down. I doubt she was hired by SM and then shunned ala Doom Eternal.
If someone’s work is in a game, they deserve a credit. It should be that simple.
If you can credit random play testers picked from the street you can credit people that actually put work into the game! Is not the end of the world but they should fix that moving forward.
leave it to me id pay the women (devs) the most . for real though , i hope she gets her credit , i know how it feels to feel a part of something and put in work that’ll most likely go unnoticed and to not even be credited is a really ***** feeling .
Music intern... she had to hum a melody while she did coffee runs.
The music in this game was absolutely stunning.
I’m sure her name wasn’t excluded deliberately. It shouldn’t reflect badly on Santa Monica Studio’s.
@ReadySlayerOne @Tecinthebrain
I’ve worked with crews from some big time films… always contracted however. Didn’t end up in any credits. Was never a big deal to me personally. Definitely not to the point of bringing it up in public. I was just stoked it’s all resume food and to have the jobs I had.
That being said sounds like it was a pretty significant portion she was involved in. Yes if they can credit random play testers then someone working on the music should surely be credited. Curious if she brought it up in house before publicly speaking about it.
I predict that this will be the long-awaited downfall of Sony.
oh no. human makes mistake.
lets create a fuss about it on twitter. dear god.
That's so weird that they have a "minimum requirement" for getting credit in the game.
I'm not buying that that can't be patched in... That seems incredibly weird to me as someone working in the industry and has had to sanity check credits to make sure everyone is there that's meant to be.
People that aren't get added in a future title update. Simple as that. Very bizarre. Getting credit for work in games is important to the culture. As far back as Atari refusing to do so for devs, and those devs creating Activision with credit where credit is due as one of the main reasons.
It's tradition.
@MasterEMFG yeah same here. I always appreciate if someone gives me a nod.
But for those in positions such as composing music - I agree. It’s a big deal for them, those credits go a long way.
@Constable_What most people would be disappointed but not make a fuss. Mistakes happen. I don’t think making a big deal about it on Twitter is the right way to go about it but she’s had her 15 minutes now I suppose.
@Deadlyblack
Yeah the minimum requirement is weird. Like around with Metroid dread when the min requirement was a year on the job and there were a bunch of people that did 11 months and then left (I don’t remember why exactly they left but still). Like these people put effort into this project for a long time credit them.
@Hindenburg lmfao you sound ridiculous being so hyperbolic thinking something like this is significant enough to cause that💀
None of my temporary contract work was ever credited at the devs I worked at. Same with others I worked with. Internships definitely wouldn’t have been.
@opo02 or, you know, obvious sarcasm.
@naruball eh not really obvious. There are legit tons of weirdos that say outlandish fanboy ***** like that these days lol
Hmm the headline for this article is pretty ott for the content of the story. She's not accusing, just expressing disappointment. I work in animation and people sadly get their names misspelt or folks forgotten due to human error pretty consistently
Sounds like a storm in a teacup to me.
@opo02 You really didn't read that as sarcasm? Wow! Now that certainly sounds ridiculous and puts you firmly in the "outlandish fanboy" position. Ouch.
IMDB "Full Cast" lists are full of uncredited people. It's the way these things go. Credits these days are nearing the lengths of a full TV show. There has to be a limit.
@ReadySlayerOne according to another of her tweets, she worked directly for Santa Monica Studio.
@Milktastrophe Yeah. Things were updated after my comment. Appears she was an intern for a few months with no deal and the department decided not to credit her. This happens all the time in production. Wonder if this Twitter burst will be a good or bad thing for her, tbh.
@Eldritch well I read it as something ridiculous. Though I agree it wasn’t really worth responding to. I’m not a fanboy in the slightest lmao
Hopefully they will remember to credit her.
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