Greg Costikyan Picks Up a Shovel
I busted Greg Costikyan's chops after his "Burning Down the House" rant at the Game Developer's Conference this year (look in the March 2005 archives if you're interested). I titled the post "The House Can't Burn Down When All You People Do is Cry," and here's one excerpt of what I wrote about Costikyan:...it's a lot of self-righteous complaining from a guy who's never, as far as I can tell from his website, had anything to do with an innovative PC game. Ever.
After that GDC rant, Costikyan gained purchase as a kind of self-anointed prophet railing about the game industry. He became a local celebrity for such unforgettable phrases as"Workers must control the means of production", "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "It was a dark and stormy night."
Or something like that.
As a sidebar, George Orwell absolutely kicked ass.
So I wanted to mention that Costikyan today announced that he's stopped being a self-righteous lecturer and has started a company--"Manifesto Games." Here's an excerpt from Gamasutra:
According to Costikyan, the Manifesto Games website, which will launch in early 2006, will offer independently-developed games for sale via direct download, and is intended to be a single place where fans of offbeat and niche games can find "the best of the rest" - the games that the retail channel isn't able to currently support.
Here's a link to the full article:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=6663.
Good for him. I totally respect that he's going to try to do something to change and improve the industry. Whether he succeeds or fails, he's moved out of the ranting category and into the picking-up-a-shovel-and-digging category. That deserves respect.
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