Support and Business

I've strongly disliked everything Twisted Pixel has ever done, but their newest title, Gunstringer, actually sounds somewhat interesting. Far less interesting was IGN's exclusive reveal of the game, which couldn't have been lazier unless it had just been a cut and paste of a press release.

Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera was on Twitter decrying the IGN story earlier this afternoon. Kuchera seemed to be insulted that "sites that helped support" Twisted Pixel's previous games were made to wait on IGN's exclusive content to go live before they could publish their own stories.

Now I don't want to sound like Ben Paddon, but this business of game sites "supporting" indie developers worries me. I'm assuming Twisted Pixel thought the IGN exclusivity deal was in their own best interests as a business, and if they did, then I applaud them for going ahead with it rather than trying to perpetuate the myth that indie developers make games primarily to collect goodwill from press and fans. If you think it's a bad business decision, fine. If you think they should put the feelings of game journalists above promoting their games, you're delusional.

Twisted Pixel, no matter what else they might get out of making games, do it to make money. That's not meant to be a disparaging remark. They don't exist to support gaming blogs. And gaming blogs don't--or at least shouldn't--exist to support developers (even fashionable indie developers), but to report on them. That's the only relationship that's fair to readers.

Sad that it seems to be disappearing.