As some people know, Stardock’s main business isn’t games. We make games because we enjoy making them. Lots of individuals do this every day – they spend their “off hours” doing what they like and their day jobs doing what needs to be done.
That’s not to say that we don’t enjoy making “regular” software. We do. Multiplicity, Fences, ModernMix, Start8, WindowBlinds, etc. are crazy fun to work on.
But games, I just love to work on games. I spent this weekend coding AI on Elemental (Legendary Heroes expansion to FE). There’s business justification to do that. I’m free labor to the games unit so I tend to work on all kinds of things since I’m not “billed”.
I bring this up as a lead-in to a general preemptive apology to our gaming customers who I’m routinely rude to on our forums. I don’t what to posit this as an “excuse” but rather an explanation as to why I have (and only for the past 20 years or so..) taken a different mindset when dealing with gamers.
I don’t think of you guys as customers. I think of you as friends. I’m a gamer. I don’t make games as a “job”. I make it because I love games and – and this is the key part – I like hanging out with you guys. That’s what motivates me. That’s why I’m on so many game forums (even though journalists occasionally plead that I stop doing that since I inevitably say something horrible online).
I make games in order to hang out with other people online talking about games – not the other way around. I only made Galactic Civilizations in order to please my friends on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic. That’s why I work on the AI or other parts of the games. I just plain enjoy interacting with other gamers.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to over my notes regarding DISC and tax planning. If anyone wants to shoot me, they know where to find me to put me out of my misery.
Why are the journalists the ones that are pleading for you to stop? Wouldn't they be jumping on the fact that you did say something "horrible"?
Well there's a lot of dirty secrets in journalism which I won't go into here...
But one of them is that we all tend to be friends with one another but on the other hand they live and die based on the page views they get.
So if I tell a customer to kiss my butt or something, they have to weigh their desire to get page views against knowing that it takes everything out of context of what was said.
Just remember this: Web-based journalists are measured on the page views their articles get. Nothing more. Nothing less. It's a crappy system for journalists who are trying to put together a worthwhile story.
Are you seriously suggesting that you don't use cracks and whips at work?
I can see from your perspective when people criticize the game or AI you'd take it personally. Heck, I've been offended by quite a few of the comments in the SD forum about FE/LH! I've seen several of your responses that have been quite civil and helpful when I would have either blown them off or said something rash. However, there are those times when "angry Brad" appears and things tend to go badly...
Just some encouragement to keep up the good work. Dealing with human AI is much more risky than computer AI, but the positive rewards can outweigh the negative. Also, don't let a vocal minority ruin the game or jeopardize updates for the rest of us less vocal, very supportive folks.
We've all been there. .
I think the general tenor of the board is one a positive one; most critiques are done with the goal of improving something we all enjoy and no offense is intended.
FE is great..I stopped playing the scenario and started the freeform quests and it is a lot of fun. Can't wait until LH is finished.
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