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(Warning, this is a long post. If you really must read it, go get a coffee first!)
The history of the development of computers and the Internet in particular, is indeed an interesting one. Every few years some journalist, usually a lazy one, writes a piece on the 'history of the Internet', trotting out the usual suspects such as the 'almighty father' Tim Berners-Lee or harping on about how "the Internet was invented to provide a communications infrastructure resilient to nuclear attack, don't you know?"
Well, this might come as a bit of a shock to you but the 'father' of the Internet is not Berners-Lee, he didn't even come up with the idea of hypertext links and the WWW! The Internet too was not brought into existence solely by the DoD for the purpose of defending against nuclear attack. If you want to know more go read this book;
http://www.amazon.co...65289434&sr=1-2
Well, when you read the accounts of the key protagonists involved, the scientists, thinkers and researchers, one discovers a highly socialist and anarchic sentiment amongst them. Indeed, in their own words they tried to subvert the aims of their military and commercial backers. They had a genuine concern that the computer might devalue human intellectual labour, as did the mechanical digger do to manual labour. They also feared the control and monopolization of the technologies they were directly developing. Why should game developers take note?
A Marxist would say that the PC that sits in front of you and the 'character' of the Internet represents, perhaps, a contradiction in capitalism; that is the means of production, and more importantly distribution, were given to us consumers. What's more, that it was big business selling us their own destruction. A pretty huge error one might think given that the computer standardized all of our media and knowledge products via digitization, with respects to both production and distribution! It is no secret that 'big business' tried to push the less empowering and hackable digital technologies such as consoles and 'media centers' to consumers, with the intent of supplanting the desktop PC.
Fast forward to where we are now. We still find the same socialist and anarchic sentiments amongst those proficient with such technologies today, and often no more so than within our online gaming communities and fan led game development projects. The tools have never been so easy to use and the signs are good that further usability issues (conceptual and mathematical) can be addressed.
With enough enthusiasm and stimulation, it is getting to the stage where community led projects are on the same level and sometimes better, in terms of producing a 'quality gaming product', than that which a gaming studio can deliver. Whats more the development is more transparent, fluid and better able to meet the needs of the community of players. Of course this is not always the case and I would say that our mechwarrior community is a special case, in terms of being overly blessed with technological nerds and neck-beards whose first 'menagerie', is now but an all too distant and fading memory.
The best and most able do it for the love of it, particularly when it is a fictional gaming universe that they grew up with! Should they be rewarded! Hell yes, but develop something first for us and don't be greedy! The mass is fickle and when they tire they go elsewhere to graze on the chaff that they are fed. Us geeks, however, instead go away to make our own versions of the game for free. We can play them elsewhere beyond the reach of someone's 'control' and 'will' to render as much profit from the gaming community, as is possible.
I see the same thing happening to other 'brands' too as the tools become ever more easy to use. Commercial game developers really need to take note becasue it aint getting any easier to 'survive' in the market place as a 'studio', particularly if you take an approach counter to that adopted by Chris Roberts and others. I guess then that I am, in a way, wrong. Some of them do get it, just not all.
EDIT: Attempted (read struggling to) to make it read better.
Edited by Purplefluffybunny, 16 April 2013 - 01:18 PM.
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. There will be easter eggs in the form of obfuscated information to be found on the site. I am more than happy to hand over and have other help once I have gone through my reveal process.
