Joel Billings
Posts: 32265
Joined: 9/20/2000 From: Santa Rosa, CA Status: offline
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We are not a large company. We are a very small company. Basically I have to get Pavel to make a release exe (he has a full time job and is working on critical WitW items and is on the other side of the globe from me). Next, I have to assemble all the files from Dominik, and then pass them on in the format that Matrix would like them to be in. I happen to be working on a deadline now for the WitW manual, while also dealing with several issues with WitW that need immediate attention, and many others that need attention but won't get it immediately. As it is, my wife complains that I spend too much time working on these silly games. Once I have the files to Matrix, they then have to put it in their production queue. They are a bigger company than 2by3, but not much bigger in terms of number of employees. Yet they produce tons of games every year, all of them requiring periodic updating. Dominik, Dennis and the WitE testers have done a fantastic job working on this 1.08 patch. It is absolutely true that we had to end our support of WitE and without these guys no further work on WitE would have happened. We cannot continue to work on a game endlessly when there is little revenue to be gained from it (yes, even if this patch made the game so perfect that everyone agreed it was the best operational Eastern Front game ever made, it would still earn us relatively few extra dollars). I'm sorry if some of you have pushed WitE to the point where you are disappointed, but I'd bet that for every one of you there are 100 customers happy with WitE and the number of hours of enjoyment they got from the game. We cannot continue to support a product for that 1 out of 100 (I will admit the 1 is vocal). The interesting thing about our customer base is it's pretty experienced and savvy (I could say old, but I wont't go there). Many of you have a lot of business experience and know the position we are in. We do the best we can with the resources we have. We aren't Microsoft or Google and you can be sure we aren't making Microsoft or Google wages. When people like Dominik and Dennis come along and are willing to volunteer a lot of their time to improve a game, we say thank you very much and let them go at it. We try to support them the best that we can. Feel free to believe what you want about the evil 2by3 and Matrix, but be sure to appreciate what these volunteers have done. We will get the patch out as soon as we can. It's nice to know that people are excited to see it come out. And please, everyone, stop the name calling.
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All understanding comes after the fact. -- Soren Kierkegaard
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