Some of you may remember the posts about GPGNet at the following
locations (for redundancy, in case of a ReputationDefender.com take
down)
- http://groups.google.com/group/micro...18c4a742de42d6
- http://groups.google.com/group/alt.g...f5adf2ae1d9dd2
- http://groups.google.com/group/uk.ga...e80485741e885a
I strongly believe in the use of Usenet as a whistle blower for
corporations that scam and offer defective products. Some of you may
know me, I've spent a great deal of my time in the 90's reviewing and
testing games, and took up a job with a major game development studio
ever since.
I believe that Gas Powered Games is ran by immature, unprofessional
people who can't code.
They are attempting to work together with Stardock.
Now, let me get this right.
Stardock. Gas Powered Games.
Space, Hot air. A hot air balloon in space. Obviously, you and I both
know, it won't work.
Why not just merge North Korea with Iran.
Yet they still will profit off unsuspecting people, even though their
games have multiple flaws.
Maybe I will go into the "Minidump" crash on Sins Of a Solar Empire in
some other post. It's quite annoying. People play games up to 5 hours
long just to crash. A stroll through the lobby of the game shows
people with 100 games played, 7 wins, 3 losses. Meaning somehow, he
got out of 90 games "early"
You're going to have to agree with me when I say, their are tiers of
game development. You got the $10.00 games on the island at Best Buy,
you got your $30.00 games that are glitched and poorly maintained (GPG/
Stardock style games) then you're premium, high-quality real games.
Gas Powered Games and Stardock sold Sins of a Solar Empire and Supreme
Commander for too much. The overall production and quality of the
games, including game player, development time, and service all add
up. You do not get what you pay for. These are $30-35 games, maybe,
once they are patched of their terminal flaws that plague them because
of outsourced, poor programming (if ever fixed).
As my friend at Nintendo says, smaller, private companies like GPG and
Stardock simply pocket the money, and forsake the people who wish to
continue to play the game and want patches. Often, Gas Powered Games
and Stardock skips important fixes that ruin the game and instead work
on yet more overpriced "Expansion packs", which add to a game, which
is already so buggy and prone to crashing it's useless.
Their true profit is made with this thought. As they try to sell them
in "combo" packages just above th $50.00 level with the price of the
original software drops.
Really, it's a big scam, a corporate conspiracy even. The developers
have limited budgets, pay review sites to garner publicity and just
fire away.
Then again, this is just my opinion, as a game developer for one of
the few leading game makers out there. You're mileage may very. Yet
reality is, most people spend their money and just grow to apathetic
(or in the case of Gas Powered Games, scared) to post critical
reviews.
Do yourself a favor - if you're going to use these games, Try before
you buy. I'm not saying do anything illegal (i.e. downloading of
bittorrent) but ask a friend if you can try it. If you don't have a
friend playing, don't bother -- you're not going to make friends in a
community of teens and fanboys.
I do not expect this to change the opinion of zealous fanboys or
somehow bring heart into the griefers that control these groups. But
simply warn people: Try before you buy, or don't buy at all. Wait
until the high-budget, god-like game makers release their game. 
And finally, this is simply my opinion of the matter. I am posting
this anonymously because I am in fear of reprisal and harassment by
the companies and the zealous players who spread hate through the
company as a proxy.
God bless, and don't forget (trolls and fanboys), get outside and
exercise.
sonofshafat@gmail.com wrote in
news:e7dfcaa5-45ce-4e55-b024-de37a4bccc41@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
Which one? You don't seem familiar to me. I'm no big wig, but I like to
think I read the credits in a lot of games, and while i'm not "in the
industry" anymore, I still hang out at parties. Name one game that
didn't ship with something that causes the game to crash (not an OS
crash, I mean a game crash), and I'll find 2 crash bugs for ya.
Actually I believe that to be true, but they still manage to make good
games. Proof positive that if you throw enough monkees [sic-op] at a
game it'll all work out in the end.
Wow, so because the name of 2 companies won't work together, there's
something wrong? Stardock has the best games ever, they don't support
them because they don't have the budget, not everyone is Blizzard. If I
wrote a game I wouldn't want to spend months fixing little problems
unless I had too.
Republican...
All games do. Welcome to next gen, d00d.
Good to know my next puzzle/tetris remake I can sell for $60 and keep
you off my back. If you are actually in gaming I'm guessing you don't
work in Marketing or PR.
You don't have friends at Nintendo, you struck up a conversation with
one of their phone support people who you now call you're friend because
he was forced to give you his first name to get you off the line.
Here's my opinion, why so much hate? If you don't like it, don't use it?
I've not any any of the problems you're describing with these games,
(not that you've really described any) though honestly the whole
gas/stardock anology is priceless.
Wow, such hatred for the people you're trying to appeal too. If you're
trying to win over the hearts and minds of an audience, maybe you should
brush up on who your audience is. I'm a bit of a fanboy. I enjoy Chris
Taylor's latest and insulting me by insinuating that I don't have
friends because I am a fan of Chris's games defies logic.
I'm no "zealous" fanboy, but I would suggest that if you think you can
write a better game, why not make one yourself? (well you say you are,
but I see no names, so I'm gonna guess you work at one of GPGs
competitors) Wait! I know you now, your the Starcraft 2 guy who posted
something a week ago about how Starcraft 2 is going to be new and better
than any RTS out there. I wonder who signs your checks for posting all
this. I wonder if an ip trace of some sort might point to one of the
Blizzard offices?
Chicken... android8675 AT hotmail dot com
Back at'cha buddy. Starcraft 2 looks pretty good, but if anyone thinks
that game is going to be anything more than an expansion to Starcraft 1,
they are fooling themselves. I wouldn't pay more than $30 for that game
either.
--
-A.
