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shikamaru317 said:
coolbeans said:

Regarding KOTOR...

While I know she left the project a while ago, it was the first warning sign for me.  My internal monologue literally said: "Oh shit... they're going to be tempted to alter Bioware's original storylines, dialogue, and so on.  Fuck!"  While I've always wondered how great KOTOR could look with current-gen graphics, maybe this news is for the best.

If you look at her writing credits, so far pretty much every game she has worked on in the story department has been notably lacking in terms of story. Anthem (50 something metacritic, criticized for it's disjointed story), Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance (50 something metacritic, criticized for poor storytelling), Call of Duty Vanguard (considered by many CoD fans to have the worst campaign in the series, and even critics from Polygon and Kotaku, 2 of the wokest gaming websites, criticized the game for wokewashing history too much), Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (worst story and characters overall in the Borderlands series to date, and Sam Maggs was responsible for the worst character and worst sidequest line in the game from what I've heard), an early access Steam game called Scavengers that currently has a 59% user score 2 years into early access. She also claimed that she was lead writer on Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart and that Mark Stuart at Insomniac stole her work, yet had no proof of that allegation, and Sony subsequently didn't put her name in the game's credits at all. 

The fact that Sam Maggs is still employed in the gaming industry tells me that the gaming industry needs to start hiring based on merit again, instead of hiring to boost a companies ESG score.

I want to be careful here.  I do agree that output looks terrible.  I reviewed Vanguard and I'm aligned with those criticisms.  But I also have to appreciate the one thing that keeps the writing contracts coming someone's way: paying your dues.  Disregarding how ChatGPT potentially changes the equation, scores of mid-tier and AAA studios are just looking for those people who absorb what a creative is thinking and pumping out thousands of words per day.  If she's able to know the right people, hit her writing targets, and impress her clientele, she's going to stay in the industry.  So, I'd be careful as to what "merit" actually means in this context.  Even if she has unimpressive prose, character writing, etc. but hits her thresholds, then "merit" looks totally different between you and this industry.

The R&C debacle really throws a wrench at her future prospects though.  Not only are you dealing with someone who narcissistically exaggerated her due credit on a project but also presents a potential HR nightmare down the road.