Thanks. That’s far more concisely put than I would have been able to express.
Perhaps people who are close to him don’t consider Qt3 to be a part of their relationship and don’t especially care what he posts. Since we’re being so oblique and all.
sorry, misunderstood your post
i read as you don’t care about your personal relationship with the general readership of qt3. my mistake.
How would you know that? And even if we grant it as true, why does that matter? If the substance of Matt’s argument is valid, his motivations shouldn’t matter. I think Matt harped on some weird stuff in the Elemental thread, but he made valid points as well.
Is that why MattG got banned, for discussing whether the game was good or not? I don’t think that point is germain to the conversation of whether someone should support Stardock at all…
I think that you may be highlighting the problem there without realizing it.
For people unfamiliar with the history between the two, then Matt seems to bring up good points.
Just so we’re clear…you’re a progressive liberal who supports people like Glenn Beck…
This isn’t about with me or against me, this about not supporting a company that supports people actively fighting against our country. That’s what Beck does. If you’re what you claim to be, you know that. And if you pay attention like you claim, you know you’re giving money to a company that goes out of it’s way to support the likes of Beck.
If you want to talk about divorcing personal views from company policy, I’m all for it. But that isn’t what happens at Stardock.
As for my blind hatred of Stardock or Brad Wardell…I have neither. I have used my eyes to make a determination that Stardock itself, not just Brad, supports things I don’t. So I have chosen to protest in the only way I know how, by not buying their products. I do the same with many other companies…
This. And to put it in context, the reason why Quarter to Three has a specific forum for politics and religion is because there are a considerable number of people here who would like to have discussions about things like games that don’t constantly devolve into shouting matches about politics and religion. There are a lot of people in the Elemental thread (praising it, criticizing it, or otherwise) that are either playing Elemental, or that aren’t playing it but are still genuinely interested in discussing it. Matt was there for none of those reasons–he was just there to troll Brad because: politics.
That may very well be true, but…he did troll him using obvious game flaws. If you’re going to release a game early, shouldn’t you expect to have people call you on it?
I mean, I get MattG may have gone to far for this particular forum, but in reality, he just kept laughing at dumb things Elemental does and it ruffled feathers.
Kalle
2830
…which was why none of his posts in the thread were about politics.
What are you, a fucking mindreader?
Well, clearly Tom doesn’t want that, and it seems that a lot of people here agree with Tom’s decision.
I don’t know anything about the particulars of Matt’s banning outside of what’s in this thread, so I can’t claim to have anything resembling an informed opinion about that. I don’t bother to read the Elemental thread, as I have no interest in Stardock products.
I was responding to this:
Which I took as implying that it wasn’t possible to separate the objective quality of a product from a decision regarding whether to buy it or otherwise support the company producing it. I disagree with that, as I think it’s possible to say something like, “Product X is a magnificent piece of work and done very well in every regard; however, I will not be purchasing it, or anything else produced by company Y for A, B and C reasons.”
Perhaps I misunderstood your meaning? If so, I apologize.
Again, you appear to be entirely blinded by rage.
Why do you think I support Glenn Beck? Or Brad, for that matter?
Why do you think I’m giving money to Stardock, when I said twice in the Elemental thread that I haven’t bought the game and have no plans to do so?
Why have you entirely ignored the substance of what I posed to instead argue with the cartoon caricature of me that exists in your head?
But, no. I don’t support an all-out attack on Brad whenever and wherever he may appear, and so I must be a Glenn Beck-sympathizing, Stardock-supporting, Elemental-loving horror.
This is the kind of debasement of discourse that comes about when you let politics color unrelated discussions.
Yes, I know, Brad holds odious political views. So what? Millions of people hold the same views. The future of Western civilization is not at stake here. You aren’t going to change anyone’s mind by acting like a douche every time someone dares mention a Stardock game. Quite the opposite, in fact. All that happens is that civility vanishes and everyone separates into their own little camps and stops listening to each other.
Tyjenks
2834
We can never tell someone’s motivations behind their posting in any given thread, but at some point a pattern emerges and they are obvious. So if Matt’s motivations were only to point us towards the problems with the game, maybe we all owe him an apology for our doubt. That said, there were plenty of people who were holding Brad and Stardock’s feet to the fire who had some actual gameplay experience. There was more negative, constructive feedback in that thread than I have seen in a while. I believe most was people had a vested interest in wanting it to be good. I am not sure what Matt’s interest in the game was that drove him to his posts if his motivations were other than what so many thought.
I can agree with that on all points. I think I was the one who misunderstood your original point.
I don’t want to get into too much yentaing or second-guessing Tom, but my take was that Matt’s offense was to continue snarking up the thread after Tom asked him to stop. And his final post unquestionably did bring up his opinion of Brad, referencing both Brad’s politics and his handling of the Demigod debacle.
I think maybe we’re getting confused here.
Wardell’s views are just that, his. I don’t like them, but I don’t really care as he’s just some guy on the internet. When those views though, drive how his company, Stardock, does business, then I care. Enough to not purchase the product. That is all.
I think I made an assumption based on a misreading/misunderstanding of an earlier comment. Do I think he needs to be dragged through the coals everytime he releases a game? No. Do I think bringing it up, that Stardock actively supports causes that are anti-country, is a bad thing when they release a game? No.
I don’t think pretending it doesn’t happen or not saying anything is a good way to approach it either.
No, I asked whether he was just in the thread to make noise, and if he really had any genuine interest in Elemental. He refused to answer. Not that he needed to, because everyone in the damn thread knew why he was there, and he knew that they knew. And he tried this exact same defense with Tom, BTW, which might even sound reasonable if one was completely clueless about the context of Matt’s hostility for Brad. But Tom isn’t, and I’m not either, so I’ll repeat what he said: please don’t insult my intelligence.
If we can discuss this civilly (and I’m not sure we can, and I’m not trying to imply it’s your fault if we can’t), why?
Let’s say you do the minimum possible and stop into a thread to say “This looks like a fantastic game, but I won’t be buying it because I don’t like the policies your company stands for.” What’s your purpose? Is it to simply let the head of the company know of a lost sale in the hopes that somehow this will change their behavior? Is it the desire to let others know of the political issues that you feel are important? In either case, is that something that you feel is best served by posting in the games forum instead of, say, a personal letter (on paper and all) to the CEO or a more in-depth post outlining the history of your concerns in P&R?
The Games forum just seems like an awfully strange place to bust out the crusade, y’know? But perhaps I’m not getting the purpose you’re aiming for here.
Tyjenks
2840
Can it not be brought up somewhere else, though? Or is entering a game thread doing your part to defeat the “anti-country” cabal?
To me, blanket-ly perceiving someone’s views as anti-country is a little subjective.
Also what mouselock said above…and then in his previous post.
