[Munderbunny]

Oh man, I just read that Stardock article. Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?

I'd like to chime in late and say, what a crock of horse ****.

He goes on about how so many game companies out there are just going for what he calls the "cool factor." Right, they aspire to making big huge giant games that tons of people want to play and get featured in gaming magazines and appeal to hard-core gamers! Those idiots!

So when I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable.

But when HE makes a game, he doesn't care about appealing to hard-core gamers, or features in gaming magazines--he just cares about the money! How noble!

And then he goes on to brag about how much money he made with those games (which was all he cared about, not being considered "cool" or being featured in magazines and stuff) he goes on to whine about how his games aren't getting featured in magazines (though not for lack of effort) because his game genre isn't considered "cool."

So he DOES want to be featured in magazines and considered cool?

And then he goes on to make some confusing point about Railroad Tycoon and The Sims?

Those things just aren't that cool to the hard core gaming crowd that everything seems geared toward despite the fact that they're not the ones buying most of the games.

Wait, the Sims isn't cool to the hard core gaming crowd, which is why it's unpopular? And yet I think I've read more about the Sims than any other game in the universe? What the **** is he trying to say?

And then, one of the most laughable parts is saying that his games succeed because they're low-tech and appeal to people who don't steal games?

You know who absolutely pwns video game sales and suffers practically no software piracy? POPCAP GAMES!!! You know why? Because their games work on a wide variety of hardware configurations, and those games target the largest customer bases per cost to produce for (that last bit is pretty much meaningless). POPCAP games rakes in the dough hand-over-fist because they make simple games that will run on your microwave and that target old people, mainly bored housewives, the vast majority of which don't even know how to pirate games.

By this logic, the whole gaming industry should stop trying to be cool by pushing the envelope with their games that appeal to a huge population of gamers, and just focus on making the next Bejeweled, or Spaceship Shooter (when IS the next Wing Commander coming out?)

And what's this bit about not selling games that pirates would want to steal? Should our only video game options be those that pirates don't like or something? WTF kind plan is that?

But, my absolute FAVORITE part of the article is when he says lots of people poo-poo windows blinds as being too ugly, but the people who BUY windows blinds love it. 14,000,000 downloads, 1,000,000 registered users. So, what I can conclude from this is that if my product is ugly enough, and unpopular enough, no one will want to steal it, and what we can also conclude is that people with bad taste don't steal games.

Hey, maybe if windows blinds wasn't so ******* ugly, he could have 7,000,000 registered users! Oh wait, but then he might have up to 3,000,000 pirate users out there, and he doesn't make games for pirates.

I think it's dumb when companies ***** all the time about piracy ending their game, but their mistake wasn't trying to make a great game with a broad appeal; it's not like game developers who are out there pushing the envelope are saying, "How can we make this game so that it appeals to game pirates?"

And, frankly, all these medium and low-grade games benefit from the advances made by the cutting-edge game developers. The whole reason that guy's spaceship games even HAVE the graphical capacity they do is from some previous game pioneer's hard work. If everyone followed this dumb plan and just made yesterday's game to run on yesterday's box, nothing would move forward.

What a hack.