To All:
Monolith CEO Responds to Usenet Newsgroup Negativity to Blood SW
Hello..
My name is Jason Hall. I am the C.E.O. of Monolith Productions, and there are a few things I'd like to say.
For those who are interested enough to listen, here goes:
First off -
I have been reading virtually all of the comments that I could find that have been posted about Blood on the Usenet. I must say that I am not surprised that more negativity exists than positivity. This is ok to me because I have frequented the Usenet groups for far longer than I have been involved with Monolith, and I have always seen more negativity/criticism ofgames than positive ones in general. So I generally consider this area of the net to not necessarily be reflective of the world at large, but more reflective of the hyper-critical gamer audience.
I am telling you this so you all understand why your opinions are so important to me, and why I am paying close attention to what you are saying, and trying to apply the more useful ideas I read to Monolith's products.
I read a message that indicated that people might be thinking that Monolith is avoiding speaking in the Usenet area because of all the attacks on Blood. This is not true. The reason that we haven't spoken earlier than this is because we are only half way through an ISP switch from a 1 megabit connection to a 5 megabit connection. This changeover has ended our news-server connection for the time being. We made this switch sooner than we had originally planned - specifically for the release of the Blood shareware, so that the gaming community would be better served when they tried to download it. This particular message is brought to you through a separate news-service (zippo.com) that I personally had to subscribe to.
I feel that it is unfortunate that not absolutely everybody on Earth thinks Blood is an awesome game. Realistically, I know that was never possible, but it's ok to have a goal eh? The criticism that Blood is receiving is not really what I am concerned about though. What I am concerned about is that it seems like a big opportunity for the gaming community is being missed. Here's what I mean:
Monolith really cares about what gamers think,want, and say. REALLY. Blood was NEVER supposed to be all things to all people. It never touted itself as a "quake-technology-killer". It never made a bunch of claims (at least Monolith never did) about the engine doing things that it doesn't do. Blood was supposed to be a great improvement in 3D game content/detail (gibs,interactivity,etc.), gameplay, and Deathmatching- AND IT IS. Now, I know that not everyone is going to agree with that. That is fine. Like I said, people have their preferences. Monolith doesn't want there to be just one game that everybody plays for all time (it'd be good money, but we are
gamers too), and have no diversity. We aren't shooting for that. What we want to do - excuse me - ARE DOING is releasing a damn fun game to the public, supporting the game AND the gamers who play it. We give
art/info/support to the people who have put up websites, we try to answer EVERY email we get by hand, we listen to suggestions and try to incorporate them into our games. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Monolith is very open to the gaming community. We are not closed and untouchable like some other game companies. We want to cater to the gamer in every way that is economically feasible for us.
So here's where this all leaves me... Blood shareware has come out, TONS of people have downloaded it. The VAST MAJORITY of people honestly do lovethe game and let us know that, but here on the Usenet all we get is "It'snot quake" "Blood sucks!" "Monolith blows" - instead of more useful input (some of you have given great input). Please understand, we are VERY proud of Blood. We honestly think it's a GREAT game. We are going to support it, expand it, and make it easier for gamers to manipulate it into whatever they want. If you become a good BLOODBATHER, there will actually be some value in that because we are going to have tournaments and prizes in the future for BLOOD.
BTW- this letter is NOT some sort of sorry ass plea to like our game. It's OK not to like it. This letter is to assure you that:
1.) Blood is not some kind of "hey, let's buy this thing off 3drealms,
repackage, and sell it" product.. We put an incredible amount of time and effort into the product. It is NOT even close to what it used to be when only QSTUDIOS/3DRealms were working on it.
2.) We stand by our game, and are proud of it - and the people that
support/play/enjoy it. We appreciate all of the gamers out there..
3.) We appreciate all of the comments we see.. GOOD and BAD... We don't have big egos. We can take the criticism. We will learn what we can from your comments and apply them accordingly.
OH ALSO - A few things you might be interested in:
I'm 25 years old, and a DEFINITE gamer. For those of you that haven't heard of my handle "Messiah", I used to be quite the duke3d player back in the day ((isn't that right George?) hehe.. anyone who is up for a Duke or Blood challenge let me know..I'll call..)Monolith was a company that started out as 6 people (gamers - we are all fairly youthful), it is now 1 1/2 years later and we are now almost 80
people.
Blood has been Downloaded well over 150,000 times within the last five
days. This means that a lot of people have it and the feedback has
generally been INCREDIBLE. We are pretty excited about it. To be truthful, the most negativity that I've seen about blood has been on Usenet, and even with that it's only about 25 - 30 people.. So generally, if you are one to judge by the masses, it's ok to like Blood.. :)
1 Last thing..
THE BLOOD PATCH IS OUT..
Get it at www.blood.com!!!
and if you actually got to the bottom of this message... Thanks for taking the time to listen, I realize that you didn't have to!
Happy BLOODBATHING!!
Jason Hall
Chief Executive Officer
Monolith Productions Inc.
Cheers
Bill
PS> I like the fact that there have been WELL OVER 150,000 downloads of Blood SW !!!! = $$$ ??? |
