I have no idea. But this past Thursday, something funny happened to me on the way into my email folder.
See, it went like this.
I opened my email inbox and found an email in my “soapbox” folder (yeah, I filter all my email) which is where people who reply to my <a href="www.3000ad.com/soapbox"soapbox</a> column, write to. Anyway, I came across this pretty odd email. (Note that my soapbox clearly indicates that there is a good chance that I’d print responses, in much the same way I can print fan/hate mail if I wanted to)
Dear Mr. Smart,
I wrote a letter to PC Gamer that has appeared in print, and in that letter I made a comment concerning you that was unfounded, inappropriate and very immature. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to you for my comment.
From what I can gather, you are a hard working, intelligent, driven and passionate man who actually cares about the product you offer. I did not realize you had a stalker, I have read much of his garbage on UseNet and dont plan on reading more. Though I may disagree with some of what I have personally seen, I had no right to say anything about you in any capacity, and I hope you can accept my apology.
Please keep making space simulators, I bought BattleCruiser Millenium Gold and love it to death, and dearly look forward to the Generations release.
I hope I have not caused you any undue stress or aggravation.
Bob Simmerman
OK, so I’m like wtf? I then contacted the media folks at Dreamcatcher to see if they’d come across this because I hadn’t. In fact, I scoured the July issue of PC Gamer and the June issue of PC Gamer (UK) looking for the letter, but somehow missed it. I later found out why. Anyway, nobody knew what the heck Bob was talking about and they just told me to ignore it.
Anyway, I fired off another email asking Bob to give me the issue, page etc etc
Derek,
It is in the same issue with the BCM:Gold review on page 10. I wrote in the letters section, page 6, the first pile of vitriol. I basically told Rob Smith, after my rant, the He ‘reminded me of you’. And that is what I said, and that is why I sent the apology. It was wrong, and just not appropriate for what I was trying to say. Again, my apologies.
Bob
We STILL couldn’t find it because there haven’t been any print reviews of BCM Gold (since its a re-release of a 2001 game). Then came this…
Derek,
It is issue 112, July 2003 Vol 10, No7. My letter is on page 6. The BattleCruiser Millenium Gold checkout is on page 110, ‘Micromanage Millenium’ by Dan Morris. It is the issue with the SuperHero from City of Heroes on the cover.
Bob
So this time, I decided to read all the letters (which I rarely do). Then I saw my name in the letter he’d written to Rob Smith captioned On the one hand…. It was a rant about Rob’s diatribe in the May issue regarding forum participants ruining the flight sim niche market. Naturally, Bob disagreed. But he didn’t stop there. He concluded his lengthy rantage with…
NOTED: Reprinted without the permission of PC Gamer. But I’m sure they’ll get me somehow. Hi Rob!! :D
Yeah, right. And for your information, Mr Smith, in 99 percent of the cases, publishers are out to make money, period. They simply don’t care if their game sucks or not, because they always have rags like PC Gamer to save their asses, and whiny little stories about how all the forum posters are picking on them and running them out of the market. You remind me of Derek Smart.
Now I see why I missed it. While it was nice (and admirable) of Bob to send in an apology, its not the kind of missive that I would pay close attention to and even if it was and I wanted to flame him, I’d be hard pressed to find him. :D Hell, I’ve weathered worse but its the kind of thing that makes you go, hmmm. :roll:
And my point was? Screw you, I never said I had a point. I didn’t see any new forum threads worth posting to and its Saturday, so I had to post. :D
