In 2003, I began interacting on the forums at Penny Arcade with a member there whom I found to be an articulate, fascinating and altogether wonderful person. Soon after, I asked that gentleman, by the name of Ben Paddon, to join the editorial staff of GamePartisan. He agreed, and for the better part of the past five years Ben has been what I refer to as “the Star Son” of our journalistic endeavor.

While we, quite naturally, have experienced our ups and downs, our epic defeats and glorious triumphs, we have always sought to be the most forthright and intelligent member of the gaming press. This brought about our being signed as a member of both of Microsoft’s syndicated editorial content programs on Xbox.com in 2003 (banner year, apparently), and set the stage for us to regularly grace the front page of GameRankings.com as one of their preferred review sources.

Since that time, the long and winding road has brought us here, to yet another crisis of conscience that poses challenges equally to our character and our very existence. Ben Paddon’s treatment by Microsoft Corporation is baffling and, in the end, inexcusable. However, the situation did ring a familiar tone, one that I am now both willing and able to address at the outset.

In November 2004, I wrote a review that was linked on the front page of GameRankings. In my experience playing that year’s collegiate gridiron offering from Electronic Arts, I ascertained of a number of crippling problems that rendered the game nearly unplayable. My review, accordingly, aptly addressed the issues and delivered an uncompromising score of 5.5 (out of 10). As a result, Electronic Arts threatened to pull their advertisements from GameRankings if we were not removed from their list of preferred sources of review content. If you go to the site now, you will not find our name there at all. In retrospect, aside from the fact that this materially damaged both our traffic and our reputation in public relations circles, I find this to be highly amusing. It is rather akin to the tantrum thrown by a spoiled child or the threats made by an equally unruly parent in their desperate attempts to corral the little cur.

At any rate, when Ben Paddon first approached me with his Xbox Live dilemma, I offered to use my extensive contacts within Microsoft in an effort to effectively resolve the situation. I had hoped for Ben to have his account issue straightened out, one way or another, and also get him off the collective backs of a company I have had a long and healthy relationship with.

Unfortunately, my calls for resolution were not heard before a few malevolent Microsoft call center employees behaved in the asinine manner Ben described.

I was undeterred. I decided to take the matter as high as I could: I first went to the guy who helped GamePartisan get on Xbox.com in 2003, Mr. Peter O’Rullian. Unable to reach him initially over the phone, I forwarded him Ben’s e-mail to me (which contained a detailed description of the idiotic remarks directed toward him by the call center employees) and asked him to address the situation. I then directed by next phone call and e-mail to one of the directors of all of Microsoft’s online gaming ambitions, a guy who has pull with Xbox Live operations and is one of the key figures behind the scenes at Xbox.com: Colin Hurlock. Given my prior experience with these men, I knew that they had always been swift to respond to any issue, good or bad, pertaining to the relationship between Microsoft and GamePartisan, and they would help me bring an end to this fiasco.

Within ten days time, neither man responded. I then decided to make one last-ditch effort to bring about some sort of conclusion to an issue that needed to die long ago: I called the Microsoft switchboard myself, and was eventually connected with one of Mr. O’Rullian’s assistants. They gave me an e-mail address to contact, which I immediately did.

Meanwhile, throughout this debacle (which ranges anywhere from outrageous to simply ridiculous), I was working to finalize a sponsorship deal that I felt Microsoft would sign on to. This made Ben’s ongoing dilemma with his friends at Xbox Live all the more sensitive. In essence, I was caught between a rock and a hard place: the needs of a longtime friend and brilliant writer for GamePartisan, British correspondent Ben Paddon, and a potentially lucrative deal with our biggest supporter in the entire industry, which just so happened to be Microsoft Corporation.

Then the whip came down: it became clear that in order for me to proceed in my efforts to finally capitalize on being one of Microsoft’s biggest supporters in the video game industry for over five years, Ben Paddon was going to have to hit the road. I was advised by a friend at Microsoft to “remove any potential sources of contention” and that would allow me to resume my efforts to bring about a Microsoft sponsorship of GamePartisan.

Just forty-eight hours ago, there I sat. Stunned, my face enveloped in a hard-boiled stare Rick Deckard would be proud of. Slowly, a broad grin crept across my face, for I knew I’d been here before. As Yogi Berra would say, it was like déjà vu all over again.

I learned the hard way with the Electronic Arts/GameRankings ordeal that silence often seen as concession. Therefore, I wouldn’t sneak out of this thing with Microsoft. I couldn’t. It was either dismiss a loyal employee and dear friend in the hope that GamePartisan might get a sponsorship deal out of it, or roll up my sleeves, do the right thing, and suffer the consequences.

And so, I write to you now, the general gaming populace and any others with ears to hear, telling you that I, Ben Paddon and GamePartisan as a whole have resolved to do the right thing. We will not bow to Microsoft Corporation, and it frankly disappoints me greatly to have things come to this. I have long been a supporter of Microsoft (I own an Xbox 360, I love Windows Vista and I refuse to have any mp3 player other than a Zune). I have always viewed them with a great deal of leniency, and never bought into any of the nanny-state “investigations” of the Clinton administration or the European Union.

The easy solution was for Ben to receive a 12+1 subscription card to Xbox Live as a show of good faith on the part of Microsoft. They could have saved face and made a demonstrable effort to show how sincere their (non-existent) apology was. But they didn’t.

I remain an ardent capitalist, a political centrist, and a big believer in GamePartisan and the men that work here. This decision, to persist in what we believe to be right, and maintain our editorial integrity, may very well serve as the handwriting on the wall for us. Our hopes of obtaining a sponsorship may have just withered away before our very eyes.

I make no qualms about GamePartisan being one of (if not THE) last of a dying breed: we want to be entertaining and honest, we want to be an advocate for gaming as both an artform and socially-acceptable entertainment medium, and we want to be who gamers look to for not only honest reviews but also further, articulate and enjoyable insight into video games themselves, the video game industry and the socio-political issues surrounding these topics.

Whether or not that happens remains yet to be seen. Our business model and progressive editorial policy have kept us alive and earned us a certain modicum of respect, but at a cost: the future for GamePartisan is now more clouded in uncertainty than ever, and all I’ve personally got to show for my dogged ambition (since our 02/02/02 launch) is a plethora of wonderful memories, a great deal of experience, and a heart chockfull of ache.

The moral of that story is, if you make personal sacrifices and pursue your dream at any cost, be very deliberate when taking that cost into account.

No matter the result, no matter the sacrifice, Ben Paddon will remain apart of our sterling editorial staff so long as he chooses to do so, and as long as said staff allows me to remain editor-in-chief, we will not compromise our principles. This may see me forever exiled to drinking away my sorrows on Bourbon Street and may land GamePartisan marooned in the same desolate grave as Cloudchaser and the Gaming Intelligence Agency. Or, it may result in our integrity, perseverance and talent finally paying off.

Either way, this is not a case of some “bloody Limey” whining about the “big bad Yankee corporation” railing against him. As for me, I can tell you that this particular “Colonist” wouldn’t hang his own [expletive deleted] out to dry if Mr. Paddon weren’t telling the absolute truth.

This is not about being a "raging fanboy", or coming out against a company I don’t like. Nothing could be further than the truth. This is about it being the second time in our 5+ year history where a juggernaut attempted to dilute our journalistic integrity and interfere in our affairs; the tragic part is, this time, we didn’t even write an article that irritated the guilty party. In 2004, a review got EA’s knickers in a wad; in 2008, one gamer’s quest to get his paid account straightened out started off a whole firestorm.

I feel, in closing, that the general public will support my final decision.

Ben Paddon stays. And England prevails.