Brad, you know better than that. I've been a successful software developer/publisher too and I know the rules of engagement just like you do. When you put your name on the box, you own everything about that box. Call it unfair or "offensive" but it was you who made the decision to use outsourced code for the most fundamental internal subsystem of your game (your p2p networking modules), and then put your name on the box. It's not "offensive", it's business and everyone plays by those rules. When GM recalls a car because of a faulty module, no one hears about the parts manufacturer and you don't hear the CEO of GM posting how "offensive" it is that he is blamed for taking the lead in recalling the cars.
You misunderstand.
I obviously agree with the premise that because our company's name is on the box no one cares who did what.
I mention that explicitly in this video:
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/353895
That said, there is a lot of misunderstanding about who did what. People think of networking as a monolithic thing. In reality, there are many many pieces. Certainly, the #1 problem Demigod had at launch was that the third party NAT fasciliator that Stardock chose to use was not able to scale.
Our response was not to wait for that fascilator to get "fixed" but to assign our own team to develop a new system ourselves.
In addition, when GM has to recall a car because there are catastrophic problems with one of the parts that was supplied by a third party, GM doesn't suddenly re-engineer a new part from scratch and replace what has been made. Instead, GM would send the part back to the supplier and have them fix it even if it took months.
What you and some others don't recognize is the difference between a privately held company and a publicly held company. We threw our guys at this problem out of principle - not because it was the most profitable course to take.
The most profitable course of action would have been to have moderators hide posts and have the game patched 8 weeks later. That is the normal way of doing business in our industry. Stardock, being privately held, can take actions based on principle versus profitablity. It mattered to us that Demigod's launch problems be fixed quickly and that users have access to the people who are working on it.
My problem with your posts Reg is that you are playing politics with a matter of principle. You make a post that clearly implies you can't play the game despite having played online more than I've gotten to. You choose to ignore the ridiculous amount of hours we've put in and focused on the fact that yes, people got Memorial day off -- that's because connectivity works well for the vast majority of users and the team had been basically living at the office fixing problems that they had nothing to do with in the first place.
You refer to how "people" don't know who did what but that you, being savvy, do. Well then, why can't you make that distinction and let "the people" decide for themselves?
And finally, let's talk about what's fair and unfair for a second. We don't have to hang out on these forums. We don't have to be communicating with users. Demigod is one of literally dozens of projects going on at Stardock. We're here out of principle. Demigod's success or failure is not going have a significant impact on Stardock's bottom line. We're here because we care about the game, the community, and you.
If the forums ever became a bastion of nastiness, we'd probably just get rid of them. After all, there's a huge demand for Elemental and people who remotely know anything about Stardock do indeed make the distinction between games Stardock publishes versus games Stardock devleops (And thus has total control of).
