/me sporting best Erkle (?) voice
…did I do that?
At least nobody ever accused me of starting boring threads. :D :D
All jokes aside, I mean, what can one do? Its not like I’m going to pick up the phone, call Rob or Harms and bitch at the top of my lungs. Besides the ethical nature of the whole thing, I’m really not bothered by it.
Heck, mags have done worse things (as indeed I have) to me and I didn’t bat an eyelid.
Who can forget that it was CGW that printed that whole me kicking Coke machine blatant lie without ever verifying it? They got the libelous info from Take Two, took it as gospel and printed it without ever even asking me about it. It wasn’t until many years later when ol’ man Jeff was doing a cover article on me, that he verified from one of the Take Two managers who was on the scene, that the incident never happened and subsequently stated as such in that interview. In fact, he’s the only person besides myself, attorneys and Take Two, who has ever seen all the legal paperwork and other supporting docs, related to that Take Two farce.
The fact is, there was a heated argument, the Take Two producer and I walked to the elevator, I left and never returned. It was all a fabrication by Take Two in order to justify that I’d walked out on the project, thereby forcing them to release BC3K prematurely. The same shit publishers are still doing to this day.
Anyone who thinks that I would shy away from saying that I kicked a vending machine, just, well, doesn’t know Derek Smart. Fact is, I’m not even violent by nature and that was the funny part of it all. That whole thing was like an Enquirer hearsay piece.
Of course, several months later when push came to shove and the attorneys got involved, everything came to light. Take Two settled quietly, greased my palms for the agony and breach and I got my Battlecruiser franchise back. And subsequently went to Interplay. But the fabricated urban legend remained. Sure I sent CGW a letter in protest, but they just ignored it and decided to take the word of Take Two over mine even without ANY proof or corroborating whatsoever!!
And didn’t Tom McDonald do the same thing while at Boot (now Max PC)? Without EVER seeing a single line of my code - he called up experts (e.g. has-been Keith Zabalowi at Atomic Games) and a bunch of other fuckheads to speculate that because BC3K didn’t work (doh!), there was no neural net in place, that it [NN in games] couldn’t even be done etc etc etc.
It wasn’t until I fired off a particularly vehement email with source code, that he started back off and subsequently recanted after several people took him to the carpet for the same thing. From this complete accounting, here is an excerpt from his email/post.
2/12/97
“…I never said there is no neural net. I simply raised questions. That is
my right. There’s this funny thing out there called a First Amendment.
You have no grounds for a lawsuit.”
To this day, my games have been heralded as having one of the most advanced AI ever developed. And wasn’t it until much, much later that game developers started focusing on AI (e.g. the superb AI in B&W) for games - and using neural nets where/when possible.
What was the result of that farce? A lot of bitching. Sure I could’ve sued (and my attorney who corneredd Take Two was all for it at NO cost to me), but what would that bring me? Oh, so now I’m suing the gaming media? Where would that have got me?
What about that farce with Dan Bennett? He told me point blank on Usenet that they only carry demos that gamers requested. That ended up being a blatant lie as proven by several posters in that thread and via email, since several bad games were being carried on the PCG demo disk. The end result? A fight with PCG (because this put a spotlight on the mag) which ended up getting me blacklisted. But only the frigging idiots at PCG at the time, assumed that I didn’t have industry friends and that, at some point or another, whatever is written and/or said about me, eventually ends up either in my email inbox, at a trade show conversation or on the phone. So, I knew exactly what was going on over there. They just didn’t know that.
How about when the online (e.g. Gamespot) media deliberately take ludicrous jabs at me and/or my game when trying to pitch another game and/or idea. Then find later that their original pick ended up being a farcical flop. Anyone remember Starlancer? How about all the other space sims (apart from the excellent Freespace series) which were all pitched using BC3k (which beat them all at retail, funny enough) as a contrast?
There isn’t a SINGLE magazine that I can think of, that hasn’t taken ludicrous, unfounded, unethical pot shots at me (except maybe CGM). Not one. But what can you do? I know all the editors and all the mainstream writers, so of course I can send email bitching all I want. What would the end result be? I’ll tell you what it would be. It would end up being exactly what Imagine Media did to me during that BC3K farce in which every chance they got, they printed some ludicrous, unfounded and just plain false about me and if I bitch, I can look forward to more of the same, to the extent that I’d never get my game looked at, let alone previewed or reviewed.
And they ALL do that. It wasn’t until Rob Smith went to PCG (from PCXL which covered my games), and most of the fockers over there either got too old and died, fired, or burnt out and exited the industry, that anything about me or my games ended up in PCG.
Same with CGW. It wasn’t until Jeff became EIC, that I started getting more coverage as I used to when Johnny was there.
CGM (as well as PCXL and PC Games, when Steve Klett and co were over there) is a different story. And frankly, I can’t remember something like that ever happening over there. The only thing I can remember is Steve telling me that I stand no chances of ever getting a cover again because my games don’t sell magazines - mass market properties do. Bastard. :D Then they go and do a space sim article, treated BC3K as an afterthought…and watched all of the games (except mine) tank at retail. hehe
So you see, to print something about me in/out of context is probably something they [mags] wouldn’t think twice about doing. After all, this is Derek Smart - controversy magnet - we’re talking about. Even if I bitched about it, that particular rant would be relegated to just another of my rantings and be discarded without further ado.
When Jeff was interviewing me for that CGW piece, he had a recorder and the whole day he was down here, we talked about a lot of things - on and off the record. Not a single off the record item, recorded or otherwise, was printed.
So, seeing that I’ve come to expect something like this from the media, I’m not particularly bothered by it as I normally would be. But Chet and others do raise some valid points about contextual use and the fact that this is particular why game devs rarely post (as themselves at least) outside of their own boards and certainly not about anything which could be misconstrued and/or nabbed off Google. Besides, most of these folks answer to someone (unlike me, who answers to nobody but my bank manager) and they’re likely to get into some shit if something they posted ended up making the tabloids.
I find myself in the damned if you and damned if you don’t category, so, I can’t be arsed about stuff like this. At the end of the day, as long as what I do [develop games] remains fun for some people and for me (after all, I do this for me, though the derived income is nice too), I could care less wtf the press is writing about. As long as my games get previewed/reviewed based on merit and not on my antics, I could care less what goes on.
I for one am never going to post anon. My Derek Smart and Supreme Commander aliases are well known for fear of someone taking it out of context or for some odd reason. I will always stand by what I post and anybody who takes exception to what I post, can kiss my merry ass. In fact, my posting style is so unique, that even when some gits impersonate me on boards (e.g. VE, ScreenShots, Blues etc), most posters take one look and know its not me.
So, there you have it.
Brilliat!! A good 'ol roasting!!
brb
/me running off to fetch a stool, a bag of marshmallows and a pitcher of iced tea
