Adventure Gamers - Forums

Agustín Cordes - 01 October 2012 08:12 AM

Of course I’m not implying that you’re doing this on purpose, but this kind of trash talk can get out of control. Publishers and websites take notice, not to mention hundreds of gamers unfamiliar with the situation. If I were an innocent bypasser maybe I could think that Matt scammed you somehow with Bracken Tor, which is far from the truth. And this isn’t the first topic where he is being bashed either.

All I’m saying is mind your words. Matt shouldn’t be blamed for this as I believe events spiralled out of his control. Your frustration is totally understandable as well, but you can’t imagine the damage you may be causing with this (apparent) hatred. Trust me.

i agreed with you last post, and definitely feel like you have taught me to be more understanding.

but if you ACTUALLY read the posts in the thread. its YOU, and ONLY you who has used the words trash and scammed. i mean, you are obviously smart, so theres no need to resort to hyperbole to further make your point when i quite simply agreed with you in my last reply anyway.

I don’t owe him anything. His fans who bought Barrow Hill made it possible to make a new game (or three).

GreyFuss - 01 October 2012 11:44 AM

Agustín Cordes - 01 October 2012 11:28 AM

See my post above. Not saying you should support any developer unconditionally, but things with Matt are certainly getting out of hand.

I am his friend, yes, but I would say the same thing about any adventure developer in the same position. That is, unless this developer had specifically wronged someone, but come on, this isn’t the case with Matt.

Completely agree with everything you have said Agustin and very well stated I must add. Matt doesn’t owe us anything…in fact, it is the gaming community that owes him, an adventure lover like our selves, that even takes the time out of his real life to work on games that we might like to play.

Oh please. Don’t embarrass yourself by brown nosing. Some of the criticism has been harsh, sure, but fawning obsequiousness is equally preposterous. No-one owes anyone anything; a developer makes a game; people interested in it buy the game. It’s called commerce. The buyer doesn’t owe the developer anything other than the cost of the product and the developer doesn’t owe the buyer anything other than the product they paid for. Anything else is a tawdry form of emotional blackmail.

My take on all this: the game was finished (or more-or less finished) and Matt Clark decided that it basicaly wasn’t good enough. So he decided to redesign it wholesale. Hence the false dawn with its release date. Instead of just coming out and saying this (and thinking maybe it would lead to cancelled pre-orders) he made a bad judgement call and decided to indefinately string along the release date. This was dishonest, whatever a biased fellow developer may feel, as he was trying to secure pre-orders on false terms (ie that the game was to be released soon). My guess is that he thought he would be able to do the large overhaul he wanted to do much quicker. obviously, it’s taken a long time and things have blown up in his face to an extent. But, personally, I accept he simply made a bad judgement call and it won’t stop me buying the game (although not on release because my enthusiasm for it has eroded, so i’ll wait until its cheap) but i’ve lost a lot of respect (just a fact; i’m not attacking him) for the developer. I hold no long-term ill-will towards him; Hell it’s only a game, but it would be nice to have an indication that he has learned from his mistake - but hyping his future games when he still hasn’t been able to release this long-promised one doesn’t indicate he has. The result is he is becoming untrusted as a developer. And to say people on a forum are responsible for that is ridiculous; HE is responsible for his own actions, just like everyone else in this world.

Matt Clark is reading this thread and laughing maniacally to himself.

Fien - 01 October 2012 07:46 PM

Large overhaul? Trying to secure pre-orders on false terms? Cbman, you’re fantasizing about what went on in Matt Clark’s mind. You don’t know what he was thinking. Drawing conclusions about someone based on your own fantasies is not only unfair, it’s also pretty useless.

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I’m not even bothering with this. This is an internet forum; every post doesn’t need a large ‘This is my opinion’ disclaimer. I personally take that as read with any post I read and if you don’t… well, it’s up to you but don’t bother me with it.

If you announce a release date and accept pre-orders you are telling people that the game they are purchasing will be available at that date. Sure, shit happens and it’s not unusual for products to miss a release date, no big deal, but you don’t continually keep putting out inaccurate dates if you don’t actually know when the game will be finished. That is dishonest, in my mind certainly, and if it’s not in yours I frankly don’t care. I’m not going to bicker about that with you.

It seems developers are supposed to have it all ways. When it comes to forgiving their fuck ups we’re supposed to act as if they’re our friends rather than a business but when it comes to buying their products we’re supposed to remember that it’s all commerce, a business, an industry, and willingly acquiesce to their every decision (another off-topic example of this is with DRM: were supposed to show our sympathy and fairness towards the human effort of those making games by having the decency to pay for it, but at the same time they don’t have to show the same fairness and sympathy towards the buyer by actually having the decency to confer the priviledge of ownership of the game that has been paid for because hey, it’s business after all. It’s a two-faced moral hypocrisy).

BTW: one thing I forgot to mention in my previous post. I actually applaud the decision to hold the game back and develop it further if it wasn’t in a condition he was happy to release it in. That was a brave decision. I just think everything else should have been handled differently.