Jeff Minter Hates Frogger…. Jeff Who?!
Jeff Minter, creator of huge classics that I have no doubts no one has heard of, such as Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, and Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time (no, I made none of those titles up). His most recent endeavor, one that I had somewhat looked forward to, was the Xbox Live Arcade’s “Space Giraffe.”
It was a somewhat remake of Tempest which goes along with the beats. Now the game did not get raved reviews and it seems it didn’t sell well, at least not well enough for Minter, who recently posted on his Live Journal (I can’t believe people still use LJ):
jesus fucking christ
not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than ten to one, in one week.
OK, we get the message. All you want on that channel is remakes of old, shite arcade games and crap you vaguely remember playing on your Amiga.
We’ll shut up trying to do anything new then.
Sorry for even trying.
Wow, cry me a river. His game imo wasn’t terrible, not worthy of a purchase, but not complete crap, I have no doubts it has its audience (get the demo and try it for yourself). Either way, this is no way to go about dealing with bad/unexpected sales. If you have a game that has no advertisement and is confusing as all hell when you first try it competing with an already established classic title that anyone can easily pick up and play, do not compare your game.
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Jeff Minter, Space Giraffe, Frogger, XBLA, Xbox Live Arcade
November 24th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Agree that Space Giraffe is confusing as all hell. I downloaded the demo for this a while back and just could not figure out what the hell was going on. I ended up just listing to the music and pushing random buttons.
Tempest this was not. I can at least play Tempest.
November 25th, 2007 at 2:35 am
“Either way, this is no way to go about dealing with bad/unexpected sales.”
Do some research into what you are writing about - this is lazy journalism and an offhand blog posted on an obscure (by your reckoning) corner of the net hardly merits the swathe of cheap, mocking laughs sites like this have been aiming for these last days, a party to which you are a little late yourself.
Minter is an alright guy and a hero to many. He’s also taken some very big chances on testing the water for indies in XBLA and been stung. He’s feeling down and he’s hurt and trying to make sense of this and move on. When he lets off steam, people will rip into hiom on their blogs and newsreels for the sake of a few hits.
Not to defend his words as such, but games bloggers with any genuine aspirations for the independant developers out there would be tempering their response to this post and not giving the kicking this poor sod has received since he made it.
But hey, it’s just the internet… everyone’s fair game, aren’t they? “Because we can” is always good enough justification for writing anything we can think of and bollocks to whomever it hurts.
Disappointed.
November 25th, 2007 at 3:53 am
I completely stand by the quote that you quoted me on. He can let off steam all he wants, but when it is on a Live Journal, don’t expect it to not be judged.
As I said, I thought Space Giraffe was okay, and even semi-agree with Minter’s thoughts on the industry, I think Frogger blows. Still, he is bringing out the situation to the public on the internet in a really childish way, that should not be ignored.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Why?
November 25th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
It’s out there, it needs to be talked about, it is part of video games news. Someone in the industry is saying something he obviously feels strongly about and wants people to hear, now it is out there for us to interpret. His message behind his words may have validity, but it is overshadowed by the way he said it all.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Because it makes him sound like a big whiny baby. If you’re going to publicly cry about your failed game, then expect people to talk about it, especially in the news/rumor hungry world of game blogging. His post makes him sound like a big crybaby. Oh you don’t like our stuff? Well, I’m going to take my ball and go home AND THEN YOU’LL BE SORRY!