Yeah, I almost posted that maybe we should give the guy the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t seem so bad to take this crazy Epic attention and use it to make a point about exclusives, partly for his benefit and partly for charity.
And it’s not cool of Dave to call him an ass. As Lego pointed out, that blog post from Ooblets was a more in-depth and personal piece of writing. I thought it was sincere and witty so the “ass” remark rubbed me the wrong way. In this case, I don’t have nearly as much of a sense of this developer as a person. Either way, name-calling these game developers we should probably be rooting for isn’t a good look.
Anyway, I hope I’m wrong but I think Nesrie muted me after our Ooblets discussion which makes revisiting the subject rather difficult.
No, I don’t think he is a bad guy. I really don’t think anyone in this exchange was the ‘bad’, guy. But I do think this is a guy who got a boost for standing up to Tim Sweeney.
You yourself stated that making other people mad was a pretty good reason to support him, so on some level, his tweet (I am minding the spelling this time) has succeed.
Or maybe he ‘believes’ in what he’s doing?
Are you referring to the fact that he believes he made a great game, and believes it will sell, or that he believe selling the game on Epic and giving the money to charity is a good cause?
Its certainly possible. I just don’t understand why the guy would even want to sell his game on Epic in the first place.
You put out your game on Epic because Epic is willing to pay you up front. It takes out a lot of the risk. If you aren’t getting the upfront payment, it just seems like a lot of work for almost no gain.
I mean maybe he believes he can bring storefronts (and therefore gamers) together by making a point about platform exclusivity.
Maybe. Hopefully. I wouldn’t mind being wrong about this.
By the way, can I say that I hate the term platform exclusivity. It makes it sound like Epic and Steam can’t run on the same machine or something.
To me, it’s all just different stores. The platform is my Desktop PC.
Edit: Which is a whole different discussion, which I guess I started all over again.
You’re right, that term doesn’t fit. Library Exclusivity?
As for his intent, I mean, if I was in the middle of this overblown controversy, I think I’d want to play peacemaker somehow. See if I could find common ground for the warring factions. Folks these days seem so quick to assume bad intentions.
True. Even if he was being cynical, it doesn’t mean he is wrong. And we shouldn’t automatic assume the worst in people. But these discussions can get so heated so quickly. All about a silly store!
CF_Kane
5403
Indeed. This is the Ben Shapiro “I will donate $10,000 to a charity of your choice if you debate me, AOC” strategy, and it is a form of hostage taking.
If the dev cared about charity, he could take some of the revenue from his steam sales and give that away. This is just to make a point, and I don’t appreciate the rhetorical hostage taking.
Also, if I need to slot myself in the debate so people can evaluate the above: the Epic store is a lousy piece of software and I would prefer if there were no exclusives, but I don’t care enough to boycott. Also, a bigger revenue split in favor of developers would be great—I hope it gets adopted industry wide.
Wow! Forcefully stated! But I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Isn’t there a read on this where he’s acting in good faith and hoping for something positive to come out of it? (And, yes, that includes sales of his game.)
Do we need a rule about goading people you’ve put on ignore? Asking for a friend.
Nesrie
5405
If we did, it wouldn’t really apply to me.
CF_Kane
5406
I’m not sure that the “do what I want and I’ll give money to charity” strategy can ever be made in good faith. The person who is making the demand is, by implication, saying that if you don’t do what they want, they will not give to charity, and it is your fault.
Hooray! I’m glad to hear that, Nesrie. 👍🍻
Sure, don’t we learn from a young age that calling people names like that is, in fact, a huge no no?
Just change your word “demand” to “suggestion” and there’d be no reason to fault anyone. Maybe he thought it could be a win/win if Epic happened to go along with it to generate some good will.
I mean, read it again: "Tim, I’m glad to hear that. If you change your mind and accept DARQ to your store non-exclusively, I’ll donate 100% of my EGS revenue to a charity. If you accept, the charity can be picked by the gaming’s community at a later date. "
It just reads polite and good-natured to me. Doesn’t seem anything like a demand. More like an idea he’s proposing. And I don’t think it’s comparable to Shapiro trying to strong-arm his way into AOC’s spotlight.
These screens of ours are like hostility generators. Let’s fight the urge! Sun’s gettin’ real low, big guy.
Nesrie
5408
It depends on how you take it. You know what I call someone who cuts me off in traffic, an ass. If my sisters say something that annoys me more than usual, I tell them to stop being an ass. If they say something ridiculous, stop being a dumb ass. I also say things like that’s a stupid ass thing to say. Both my sisters like to ask people when they’re in a bad mood what crawled up their ass and died that morning. Dumb ass, crazy ass mistake, lazy ass, stupid ass thing to say… It’s like one step ahead of just rolling the eyes.
I can say with 100% certainty you do not go around chasing people on this forum telling them to stop calling each other or even people not members of this board’s names because you literally don’t. And off course, you didn’t do it today either.
And no, it’s not just a family thing. It’s just what a lot of people say around here, friends, families and co-workers.
Sure, dumb-ass or jack-ass softens it. I had that thought when we first discussed it. But ass seemed pretty harsh to me and I felt compelled to defend that Ooblets guy who I thought had a pretty funny, honest take on the subject. I related to him and his sense of humor. I also admired his risk-taking.
I honestly don’t understand the point of your second paragraph. Do you feel like I only did that to you and I would never do it to others?
Nesrie
5410
Well you literally didn’t in this very topic did you? And if someone went around this site telling people to stop calling each other names, especially at people not even on this site names, I’d ask you what your second job is. Also, you’d be in a lot of topics you are not in.
I think there is a gross overestimate of what people think those of us do who are annoyed with some devs, or smug CEOs, or stores we don’t like. I also believe there is a double standard, and it was shown today, and not just by you.
CF_Kane
5411
I don’t dispute that the tweet was polite, and it is possible that the DARQ guy had only the best of intentions. But the fact that he made the offer in a tweet, rather than in a message directly to Epic, makes me think that this isn’t being done out of altruism or an interest in charity.
My objection isn’t about tone, but rather the substance of the offer/proposal/idea, which however you slice it boils down to “if you don’t do the thing I want [put my game in the Epic store], you will be responsible for harm [my refusal to give to charity].”
The DARQ guy may not have thought the tweet through, but I do think the proposal/offer is a morally suspect one.
Nesrie
5412
So someone poked Sweeney, and Sweeney responded as Sweeney does and then the dev responded to that. It wasn’t out of the blue. It was running a bit before he responded. I don’t know what his intentions were, but I do know it was strongly suggested here we try and give devs the benefit of the doubt, remember they are not PR people, can’t possibly know how everyone would take something, cant expect to be close to them and get perfect communication… and then I guess all that doesn’t matter now.
CF_Kane
5413
It is fine to give him the benefit of the doubt, and you are right that I may be off base in finding his tone disingenuous. He certainly may have meant well and wanted to support charity, which is admirable. I just think his approach was poorly thought through, from a moral perspective. Certainly he should get as much benefit of the doubt as we’d be willing to give the Ooblets devs (which i assume is what you are referring to from earlier in the thread). Maybe even a little more, given the twitter format does not lend itself to reflection before posting.
Also, god knows Sweeney can be an enormous ass on Twitter, and has done nothing to cover himself in glory here. I think he enjoys fanning controversy for the attention, maybe on the “no publicity is bad publicity” basis. He seems to get a kick out of trolling, which is a bad trait for someone in his position.
I’ve got nothing against the DARQ guy, I just hate the moral implications of his offer.
Nesrie
5414
Oh I don’t think there was any chance of the request working, and even if it did it wouldn’t change anything, so yeah not a good approach. But again, we went through how many posts in this very topic talking about about how devs are ordinary people making games, don’t judge them for not being communication perfect, not having PR firms, and if they are going to get close to gamers, give them what I assume amounts to a lot of leeway for mistakes and misunderstandings and here we are, weeks later… some of the same people demanding that then not even trying to give it now.
I have it from high authority that if I use the word ass as others do here on QT3 I have opened up the abyss and allowed the catalyst of all that is unholy to fall upon us… but I do agree Sweeney fans the flames. He makes it worse, and seems to enjoy it.
