I would like to apologize to anyone who was offended by me loosing my temper and uttering explicit terminology for being fed up with all of the ridiculous accusations posted on this message board. I dare anyone to find a developer who worked with us who has been "ripped off" by our company. I know you can''t because this simply hasn''t happened. From now on you will not see any more posts on this message board from me. Like one of the people, who seems to have a problem with Crystal Interactive, pointed out: why are you wasting your time by posting on this message board? Well, I''m human too and I like to keep in touch with interesting topics being discussed here. Mixing pleasure with business works well for me and if you find it so unbelieveable that a CEO of a company comes onto Gamedev.net I''d like to point out that Bill Gates also has to go to the bathroom once in a while and that President bush probably enjoys shopping with Mrs. Bush at their local supermarket. You don''t go telling Bill Gates that he should not "waste his time" by going to the bathroom or call Mr. Bush a fraud when he walks up to the checkout counter... They might even be reading this message board for all I care!!! Anyone who wants to contact me please send an E-mail from now on and don''t expect me to reply to a single topic on this board anymore. I''m going to take the advice of Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous Poster who told me not to pour more oil onto the fire and ignore any Crystal Interactive bashing posts. There''s no way I can get them to accept we''re for real so why bother... Thanks to everyone who has communicated in a civil manner. Bye! Take care, Alex de Vries President and CEO Crystal Interactive, Inc. http://www.crystal-interactive.com

Thanks and stay away please. So that there aren''t more new developers in the future who could be riped of by your illegal activities. So that we don''t have to warn them.

Why oh why is it that the Anons are usually the ones posting crap? This is not to say that all Anons are bad. Some are really helpful, but please, if you don''t have any facts to back up your statements, why not just STFU?

This is very sad Alex, but I understand you very well. Thank you for having taken the time in the past to answer to posts on this board. I am very sorry that we, as a community (?), were unable to stop these ridiculous postings.

*points to DavidRM*. If I would have been you, I would have banned Nicole Posters IP and deleted posts like hers as soon as they showed up. I am thinking of leaving this board too. Although my posts are rather unimportant, I do not want to stay in this kind of community, even if it is a "net community".

Again a very sad day.

No offence Jester but Nicole Poster post''s stupid and useless post''s in most the forums here at GameDev..

Second, i''m sure that Moderators don''t have the power to ban IP''s. And if they do I bet Nicole Poster has a Dynamic IP therefor he would have to ban a whole domain.. hmm too bad if you are using the same ISP as Nicole Poster.

This makes me absolutely sick!

How are new independent developers supposed to get a fair chance at publishing their games when idiots who don't know any better chase publishers away?

I have been following all of the Crystal Interactive posts since last summer and I have seen Alex bashed in every post. The only thing Alex has ever done on this site is try to be helpful to aspiring game developers.

The truth is, if you have a game you want published, you send it to as many publishers as you can (including Crystal Interactive). You wait and see if anyone takes you up on your game, and you have a contract drawn up. Then, you take the contract to your lawyer and have him/her verifiy that you are not getting screwed. If you are lucky enough to have more that one company interested in your game, you take the better deal.

But to publically chase away a publisher and ruin opportunities for the rest of us is just plain evil. When I eventually do get my game done, Crystal Interactive will be the first place I send my game to. My reason is simple: Crystal Interactive is the only company I have seen that has cared enough to answer questions when asked.

Alex, if you are reading this, please feel free to post on my message forum (forums.borngamer.com) and I will make sure that you have a fair community to ask and answer questions.

borngamer



Edited by - borngamer on February 7, 2001 9:55:47 AM

let''s go here:

Message Board about Crystal-Interactive here

1. If the accusations are based in fact, then there''s nothing you can do about them, deal with it.

2. If they are false, sue the libelous bastards.

Otherwise go cry somewhere else.

First, I''m sorry to see you head out, Alex. You''ve added a nice amount of Legitimate Business Viewpoint to the forum. We''ll miss you.

Secondly, to respond to Jester101: The problem with a public forum where anyone can post is that anyone does...not just the ones you *want* to post.

As a moderator, we can edit posts and delete or close entire threads. I''m unaware of any IP banning option. And even if there was such an option, most people on the Internet have a dynamic IP address so banning isn''t the best option. And locking the login of someone doesn''t help much either, since then they will simply create a new login and start over.

If you''ve never attempted to run or moderate an online community, the "solutions" seem so obvious. However, there are no easy solutions. If someone is bound and determined to make a fool/pest/ass of themself, they will find a way to do it. And all you can hope for is having adequate tools (and patience) to minimize the damage and get the mess cleaned up ASAP.



DavidRM
Samu Games

Well, there seems to be a little support for Crystal here, however that may be anti-nicole feelings :-)


There is a saying though:


Where there is smoke, there is fire.....