Legally? It’s just an opinion.

Inspired by Shivam Bhatt’s open letter, I’ve decided to share two notes with the vastness of the internet. Mostly because writing letters to people is fun, but also because looking up their email addresses would take five minutes I don’t wanna waste.

To: Valve
Re:In-game advertising.

Fuck you. I can do whatever I want on my server as long as I’m not enabling people who pirate your game. If you want to host all of the servers, then fine, you can choose to not advertise and decide if you want to go after private servers. But if you’re not, then don’t complain about what I do on my servers. I’m paying for them and/or hosting them out of my own pocket. You either provide full functionality of the game, or you keep your hands completely off of what I’m doing to provide that. You want to label them as an advertising server on your game browser? Hey, I think that’s a fantastic idea. I’m sure a single bool or bit on the server telling if it advertised wouldn’t be too hard to implement. Hell, I’m rather sure that most server ops would be honest and set it accurately. You want to not list advertising servers at all? Completely within your right. But if I’m paying for it and doing the work, then you don’t get to make the rules.

And no, I don’t really run any servers. I don’t even really use the webspace I paid for aside from hosting a few files of DJ Z-Trip’s excellent music (which I heartily recommend, and you can get at http://ztrip.jeffool.com/) and a few pictures. But I still hold firm the opinion that whoever is paying-for/running a server gets to decide everything about it. Be careful Valve. You’ve already launched the next great step in publishing with Steam, not to mention you make damn fine games on your own. But remember Image Comics? Founded by a group of guys who didn’t like the ‘Suits’ telling them what to do? Well, it turns out they were just jealous of the Suits, and wanted to become Suits. And most of them failed at it and again make their money off of Batman, working for the same Suits they walked away from. You’re going to have to decide. Are you going to go all the way or are you going to go home. Are you going to become those guys you were trying to get away from, or are you going to make them irrelevant?

Jeffool.

Also,

To: Shoe
Re: Moore’s Law interview

Don’t let Penny Arcade give you a big head. Your interview with Microsoft’s Peter Moore was cool, and much closer to what we as readers should expect. But it wasn’t overly ball-busting. Well, okay, that ‘naming names’ bit was fucking hilarious… Here, lemme quote that:

EGM: Wouldn’t you be pissed if you paid $400 for a new console and many of its games looked only marginally better than their current-gen equivalents?

Peter Moore: You wanna call out some games? Because I’m not gonna call out any games.

EGM: The 2K Sports games. Amped 3. Tony Hawk. Need for Speed. Gun. King Kong.

hahaha! Hoooo boy. That was fun. But next time, go ask Neversoft about why THAW and Gun looked unimpressive on the 360. Peter Moore didn’t make the game, he’s in marketing for fuck’s sake. We all know where most marketing people rank on the list of importance.

Shoester, I firmly believe that you know just as well as I do that there’s an air of change about. And you’ve placed yourself firmly on the cusp of the coming change. Don’t let us down. You owe us. We’re not only readers and subscribers, we’re just like you. Rather, you’re just like us; you’re a gamer, and you want better games. So to use the ‘cliff’ metaphor, when you see the change coming, don’t doubt what to do for a second. You jump right off that mother fucker head first. We’ll catch you.

Jeffool.

PS. When/If you ask questions that they don’t answer, print those questions noting as much. There’s little as embarrassing as people knowing you’re afraid to answer a few honest questions.