Jason "Thor" Hall, who often goes by the online nickname "PirateSoftware", was quite popular and famous not only among the followers of his live streams, but also millions of casual YouTube viewers.
Many of his videos on YouTube are about interesting facts and tidbits related, most often, to video game software development. His takes on many aspects of this field are really insightful, enlightening and interesting.
He also often emphasizes how he worked at Activision Blizzard for something like a decade. He is also developing a video game of his own, which is available for early access on Steam.
While he probably has never directly claimed it outright, most people got the impression from all of the above that not only is he a very competent programmer and game developer (probably even a "star programmer" of the likes of John Carmack), but he was also working in that role at Blizzard, and code he has written is likely found at least in World of Warcraft (a game he often talked about.)
Some time ago another popular youtuber, Ross Scott, launched the now famous Stop Killing Games campaign, which seeks to have the EU parliament pass laws that require video game developer companies to ensure that their games remain playable even when the company itself stops the online servers that such games might be reliant on (even if it means that the playability of the game is somewhat reduced, or requires individual third-parties to set up and run the servers on their own.)
Some months ago Jason Hall became somewhat infamous for not only opposing the campaign, but outright verbally attacking and denigrating it, and announcing that not only would he not be supporting it, but he would outright campaign for others to do likewise.
Unlike he later claimed, this overt criticism of him likely reduced the amount of support and participation in the campaign (as shown by the timing of the number of votes on the EU petition.)
However, back then this still flew a bit under the radar and didn't still become a huge controversy.
It all changed when more recently Ross Scott uploaded an update video where he responded to Hall's criticism and attacks against the campaign. The controversy exploded pretty much overnight.
Somewhat unexpectedly (Ross himself had the tone in his response video that the campaign is effectively over, as voting for the EU initiative had pretty much stopped and had been stagnant for months, without even half of the required votes being achieved) this caused interest in the campaign to skyrocket. As a consequence, the number of votes in the EU initiative likewise skyrocketed, reaching the 1 million votes mark, and well beyond, in mere weeks.
However, because of this controversy and sudden publicity, people started looking at Jason Hall's past a bit more closely.
Turns out that actual reality might not match so well with his previous public image.
Turns out that while yes, he did work at Activision Blizzard for many years, he wasn't actually a game developer there: He was a game tester, and later some kind of security consultant. There is no indication that he ever actually wrote code for any of Blizzard's games. (This is all public information and it's not like Hall tried to hide it, but that didn't stop people from forming the mistaken picture of him being some kind of "star programmer" who actively wrote code for Blizzard's game, most likely World of Warcraft. A misconception that perhaps Jason Hall himself wasn't exactly in a hurry to correct.)
Also, the singular video game that he has been developing that's available in early access on Steam? Turns out that that project has been completely stagnant without significant updates for years and years, with no final version in sight.
Several instances of him being a less-than-nice person have also been highlighted, such as when he participated in a stream where a group of people participated in a "hard core" WoW match (where if your character died, it was automatically erased and you had to start from scratch) and he acted in a very selfish manner rather than being a team player.
At this point what he should have done is to back down a bit, perhaps say that he overreacted to the SKG campaign, and that it was just a knee-jerk reaction done in the heat of the moment without much thinking, and that he retracts what he said back then. (Even if he still wants to criticize the campaign, he could approach it much more tactfully and rationally.)
Instead, he has double down, and tripled down, repeatedly, which hasn't exactly helped his reputation.
(One of the funniest responses he has given to criticism, particularly to why his game has been on "early access" for so many years and why it doesn't see much development nor progress, is that he doesn't "have time" to develop the game because of his actual work and commitments. The funny thing about this? The fact that he streams himself playing World of Warcraft and some other games for 12 hours a day, almost every day. And this is not some naysayers and critics saying this. This is his own fans who have bought the early-access game saying this.)
He has become rather infamous at the moment, with dozens and dozens of commenters on YouTube making videos about him, and what his latest antics about this entire debacle are.
Needless to say, someone who was quite well-respected and generally considered a "cool guy" with lots of interesting information and tidbits about video game development, has had his reputation tarnished overnight, by his own words and actions.
A lesson to learn for others, for certain.
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