Why did THERE.com fail? Lessons? Harvey Interview

mszv · **Joined:** Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 am **Posts:** 2266

Interesting OHB (see I got it right). I have no idea if There was bringing in enough money, or the decision was made for other reasons. I didn't go to There much, but when I was in There I enjoyed it. It was a nice mix. The world was populated with what people made, but there was also a base of stuff to do. I liked the hoverboards.

On staying around for community -- I think there's something different going on here, in terms of the surveys that we talked about. When you are a game/virtual world where there is stuff to do, and people say they stay for the community -- that's not Uru. Uru is a game where you exhaust what there is to do pretty quickly. I suspect that in other games/virtual worlds, when people say that they stay for the community, they assume that "stuff to do" is part of what keeps the community together, it's a given. You stay in the virtual world and do things with friends. This is anecdotal, but if you read about MMOs (mostly MMORPGs) you find that people say that they stay in a game because their friends are in the game. They play with friends, do quests and raids. They play together, doing something.

If you compare Uru with Riven or Myst -- then you have the situation where people play it and stop playing -- they are done. They may revisit Riven or Myst occasionally, but it's not an everyday thing. If you look at it like that, then solo player Uru was successful in that people bought it and played it, and multiplayer Uru is successful in that people come in and play it, but don't come back unless there is something else to do. It seems rather obvious, but that's not a way to build an MMO.

I don't think this applies to current Uru, but I'm still curious as to what you could have people do in Uru, something that allows people to progress (even if you don't have levels), and is a satisfying experience. From my experience with MMORPGs, people are willing to do variations of a thing (the old fighting another monster thing) as long as you get something out of the experience, and each instance of a thing is a little different from the next. I don't know what that thing is! I know about fighting monsters, crafting stuff (garments, weapons, a home in your world) and finding stuff. There's also the occasional minigame like fishing in LOTRO (have to get back to that game, Lord of the Rings Online), which I've been told is a nice break from other activities.

DId anyone check out the diplomacy missions in Star Trek Online? Are they good -- interesting? I didn't sign up for Star Trek Online. It looks like a fairly good MMO, but like most MMOs, it's combat driven and to me, the great parts of Star Trek did not involve combat. That's why I'm interested in the diplomacy missions -- anything that can apply to Uru?

OHB · **Joined:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:28 am **Posts:** 1247

mszv wrote:

I have no idea if There was bringing in enough money, or the decision was made for other reasons.

It was. It was turning a profit. But it wasn't /enough/ profit. Basically, There.com was making lots of money, then the recession hit...There continued to make money, but not as much. They had to lay off some people to keep making as much as they wanted to. But this wasn't enough for Michael. So unknown to those around him he looked at other users for the platform, decided he could make more selling use for educational purposes, walked in, announced that There wasn't making enough money, told everyone they were about to lose their jobs and that There was going to close in a couple of weeks. The end.

All we can hope is that he fails to make as much money and goes back to where the money /really/ was and reopen There.

I miss it.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

OHB is right~~!!!

There.com when it first started was very much like what URU is!!! There had a storyline and Age like Islands and
areas. You could build in most all these areas and each had several 'FunZones' there was 3 differant type of 'FunZone' too.
Basicly There was a copy of our real world put into 3D!

When it first started it was very expencive to play it had a subscription of 75 usd a month! Later they put it to 50usd a month.
Then 25usd and then 'Black Friday' happened. where all or most of the artists DEVs where layed off or fired.
There ran out of money and was going to close its doors forever. But the Thereians members all cried out NOOOoooo
PLEASE SAVE OUR HOMES!! etc etc. Thats when MW stepped up and gave the members a ultimatom that
He and right hand man Vash would keep There open but the complaining had to stop about unfixed bugs etc.
The Orignal storyline was also just cut off too, ironicly the same thing has happened with URU the storyline just
stops, frozen in time. ( MW and Vash were the main stockholders for example )

Because MW and Vash didn't know the code very well, so they had to do these 'fiddles' MW put it thats when
they tweaked some vertible that ran some aspect in there wether it be the phyics or how to add things or take things out, etc.
There.com went to a Free to play and pay 10usd only once which would get voice and the primium package.

There.com Was My first true virtual HOME! I had many friends and alot of fun doing things.
I remember very distincly that most of the DEVs layed off from the Black Friday went over to work for SL!
The dates and times Im not sure of, but I over heard the Lindens talking about how so much better There.com was doing
There.com was making so much more money than they were! One guy said he was thinking about trying to get his
old job back at There.com again.

Then like 2 months later There.com closed its doors! WAH!!! WAH!!! I'm still shedding tears to this day.

( not sure of the dates or times:) But ONE main thing IMO put the final bullet into There.com and that was a series
of MAJOR bunders made to the GUI, chat KI thingy box, There had voice as well as text chat you could stay in voice chat
while you raced your buggy around a trak made by someone in a funzone, They broke the chat box when they tried to
change it "peter princable" made it so they could not undo what they had done, and that was you could not stay in voice chat
anymore cause every time you'd click , you would get thrown out of the chat, made it impossible to Race buggies and basicly
doing anything and trying to chat at the same time was now broken to either chat or race for an example.

Vash and MW had a Major fight not sure what it was really about but I think it was Vash had desided(spelling) he had, had
enough and wanted to leave to enjoy all the money he had made before he grew too old to enjoy it. IMO.
MW would'nt let him go because Vash was the only one who knew the code on how to emplement and run things better
than anyone. With this chip on his sholder he began doing bad things like just throwing out 100's of hood paz zones
over server lines and just anywhere some of them were pliled ontop of eachother etc.. causing major lag, and avyman crashes
among other anomilies. He then went and sabotaged Space, turned it into a sick looking gray smog color. Lagged out Tyr
with a huge statue of himself in about 5 layers of paz,hood,funzone zones! So Vash was demoted sence he couldn't be fired.
MW was left pretty much holding the bag, and without Vash There.com was like the Titanic and MW just could not afford
to keep it running, While all this was taking place 100's of members left There and even more after the chat box was broken.

I will always wonder why MW couldn't have reduced the servers and brought back the subscriptions per month again.
That could have saved There.com from totaly dieing IMO. There.com was and still is in many ways ahead of its time.
fiery abyss the US Military even used it for training at one time!

I GOT IT! We need a ALL in one type game that has ALL the game genders in it F2P, MMO, SIM, MMORPG, Adventure,
throw them all in! How we get these simple through Ages! D'ni went to other ages and BROUGHT BACK things from them
and visa virsa. Good and bad from G rated to R/X rated R rated linking books could be privet books or in a restricted area
where one would have to meet certain cryteria or status to be able to use them etc.
Cyan's Kelio bone age has creatures you can actualy fly! and have dog fights on etc. But it seems that URU's akillies heel
was infact the Phyics engine Bring back Havok or else URU stays the same as it is now. IMO.

Sorry I have rammbled on for far to long about nothing actualy. not sure why I even try anymore, nothing will happen
We ALL Just go around and around in circles forever, and getting nowhere, How can WE new human D'ni Do anything!?
for YEARS We have waited and WAITED all for not! Watson said Find a way Make a home! well HOW CAN WE
if Cyan doesn't FOLLOW THROUGH with what they said they'd do? So its up to us RIGHT!? thats what Watson said
did he not? SO Lets Hack the caca out of this and start RESTORING THE CITY and MAKING the cavern Truly OURS!
ALL Myst games Cyan actualy encuraged Hacking their games to learn from also finding hidden easter eggs was the motivation.
It was COS Cyan Open Sorce.

IMO, Cyan should and needs to just add in EVERYTHING they got left over, incl unfinished ages etc. and put them into
URU as UNFINISHED, areas, may not be accessable. example like the gareseen wall game. Take apart Myst 5 and
add it into URU the way it was supposed to be added as well. Set up UU/Moula shard network again, and someway
somehow bring back the old phyics engine Havok, Just use the older versions of URU ABM again and then convert all
GT URU new content back to Havok and add it in. Ok now that everything is here We CAN finaly start and
continue with what Dr. Watson said back many years ago at the ending of URU with GT days. I want to help Restore the city!
Not build ages!

Until URU DID AND WAS IN FACT WORKING AND STARTING TO GROW!

Nalates · **Posted:** Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:54 am

Business is always about turning a profit. You seem to it make sound like that is a bad thing.

THERE.com was financed by venture capital. Any project financed by venture capital is on a schedule and is expected to provide some rate of return. When it is realized the rate of return is not there, funds dry up. The articles I've read all say THERE.com could not afford to pay back the venture capital, nor provide a desired rate of return, and continue to operate without further investment. Harvey began selling off parts of the software and still could not find a way to get THERE.com generating the desired rate of return and says as much in his interviews. He closed THERE.com and took his funds to develop IMVU without depending on venture capital as he did with THERE.com.

OHB, where have you read otherwise?

IMVU is making money and has little if any venture capital and therefore has had to be self funding from the start. Harvey apparently learned something form his mistake, which I'm not at all sure we can say about Uru.

Uru has repeatedly run into that problem of having to live on external funding. The UU era and now the MOULa era are the only times Uru has been self funding. Cyan sunk money into the development of Uru and turned to Ubisoft for continued funding. When Ubi could not see the possibility of the return on investment being what they wanted, they quickly turned off the money and put it where it could earn more. GameTap did essentially the same thing, but still they gave it a year. There.com seems to have followed the path of many startup games.

aloys · **Posted:** Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:59 am

VoiZod wrote:

ALL Myst games Cyan actualy encuraged Hacking their games to learn from also finding hidden easter eggs was the motivation.
It was COS Cyan Open Sorce.

Let's not rewrite history here. Cyan didn't actually encouraged hacking their games. They often tolerated it, and sometimes even applauded some specifically great pieces of work. But saying they encouraged it: no. Even today.

OHB · **Joined:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:28 am **Posts:** 1247

Turning a profit isn't a bad thing. They owned There and technically they could do whatever they wanted with it. But saying "oh I'm not making enough profit so we'll close it down and screw everyone out of the money they've invested in it." - that kinda blows.

Believe what you want to about There and venture capital. But take what is written by anyone involved with There with a grain of salt. There is stuff that isn't in articles - for obvious reasons. When you talk to former employees...you get a pretty clear picture.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Cyan even helped with the hacking!!! back when they were making RealMyst aka Dirt later Dirt was broken off
and turned into URU. RealMyst uses a even earlier version of Plasma and it still used Quicktime, unlike URU
which got away from using QT and switched to Bink. during that time all the files were not encripted and Beta testers
under COS and I believe nda was in effect too. (This is mostly what I'm talking about when I say COS Cyan Open Sorce
but without the nda) when talking about helping Cyan restore the city etc. and going back to UU, TONS of hacking
was taking place back then and alot came out of it too, as to what you said aloys. But now we have the Growers, aka
the Guilds to help and Cyan is still the 'Maker' with the untouched D'mala shard. Each UU shard had its own community
and some of them had even put in the Tpots content before that content was officaly put in by Cyan, which I was told
Cyan used the same way of putting together as a certain shard did back in UU days! I even witnessed that YOU CAN
take a hold of objects in the cavern and phycaly MOVE them around, change their size or position etc. You can even change how the cavern sky looks! I seen it as a sunny blue sky day in the cavern! I will have to turn on my super old computer
(not sure if it will even boot up after all this time) but I have sceen shots of all of this and more! I think D knows about
what I'm talking about here. The site where everyone got user made patches and hacking tools (cyan approved)
was the Clockwork Orange site, now for the most part defunct.

But the main problem is getting the orignal phyics engine havok back again. with using the old URU ABM
and adding all new content from Tpots and GT etc into it. Now I'm not sure on this or even if this is connected to
the orignal phyics engine or not but URU ABM had problems with large groups of people all in the same place.

Another thing I knoticed is if Tpots was going to be added to URU ABM back then, then how were they going
to deal with the problem of multi users trying to get into a place made only for one? With Moula Cyan just closed it off
as they did with several puzzles and areas, they also made many open to multi users areas now only one can go there
at a time! NOT good! and IMO is what made many leave because they can not finish the Moula like it should be,
and that leaves out a lot of storyline too making URU storyline into swiss cheese.

Is this true I heard a rumor that there is a under ground decentralised UU shard network setup that they are using the old ABM version of URU they have gotten back online to test and also restore the cavern.

Only problem is I can not use dot net framework past v1.1. No other games that I know of use dot net framework
in their games because its so volitile and the fact that it is also sucking up all your bandwidth in the background
acting just like file sharing network microsofts version of a encripted Napster for programmers and devolopers.
This IMO is very bad because some of us have to pay for the bandwidth we use! and some of us are not Programmers
etc. and have no need for dot net framework to even be installed, this is another epic FAIL on microsoft along with
the failed DRM and FAILED Vista OS which made Bill Gates step down , He did not want any part of the Crap the
goverment wanted him to do, but he was trapped into it or eles microsoft was going to be broken up. Vista was apart
of this deal microsoft made, that and also a backdoor that only the goverment can access be put into ALL future
CPU chips. VISTA stands for Virtual Instant Surveillance Tactical Application

It litarly has turned the internet upside down! Maybe along with this above with trying to copy a macintosh and use of DX10
which is not at all compatable with XP in anyway (XP IMO was Microsofts golden high point OS) plus most of
the WHOLE internet was not compatable with Vista. This alone has made it VERY HARD for even seasoned game
devolopers to write compatable code (which has added a ton more hours to litarly have to write in a sniffer to analise
which OS is being used, and 2 separite codings of the same game have to be written side by side, and to get them to
BOTH work with the game machanics and objects, phyics is a chore, oh btw coensadence that games coded for vista
compability, I also have heard you can get a Mac to work on them without much effort. (not sure about that one)
cause I have never owned a Mac. So now Big Windows7 makes its appearance. (Bill Gates had nothing to do with this OS directly) The orignal W7 was all but scrapped. So as I have read about and heard & talked about is a waste of money
even with the Ultimate edition of W7, but even with the supposed backward compatability you get with it, FAIL again.
IMO the only thing I wish they'd write a update for is with XP.
W7 reconises and utilises any amount of RAM you put into it.
to wareas XP only reconises up to 2 gb RAM.

I'm not tying to derail, just trying to explain that I do know how hard it is to make a good playable enjoyable game.
Its not just what the user sees and does 'ingame' There.com is an amazing work of coding art that once did stand on its own
it has been around sence the 1980's! and thats NO LIE. IMVU sux IMO Harvy should intagrate IMVU with There
IMVU could be the outside of There messanger, you could have a choise and log onto the new IMVUTHERE world
and take your IMVU avys from the messanger and be ploped into the 3D World now able to move and fly more freely!
YEAAAA Freedom to move around and everything! in your imvu avy! in IMVU you move by clicking sit tags.

So I thought Micheal Willson owned There.com so how does Harvy fit into it? I missed something somewhere.

.

Nalates · **Posted:** Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:50 am

OHB wrote:

Turning a profit isn't a bad thing. They owned There and technically they could do whatever they wanted with it. But saying "oh I'm not making enough profit so we'll close it down and screw everyone out of the money they've invested in it." - that kinda blows.

Believe what you want to about There and venture capital. But take what is written by anyone involved with There with a grain of salt. There is stuff that isn't in articles - for obvious reasons. When you talk to former employees...you get a pretty clear picture.

You are still not providing hard information. I read a lot of stuff about THERE.com closing down. I did not get the impression you seem to have formed.

VoiZod wrote:

Another thing I knoticed is if Tpots was going to be added to URU ABM back then, then how were they going to deal with the problem of multi users trying to get into a place made only for one? With Moula Cyan just closed it off as they did with several puzzles and areas, they also made many open to multi users areas now only one can go there at a time! NOT good! and IMO is what made many leave because they can not finish the Moula like it should be, and that leaves out a lot of storyline too making URU storyline into swiss cheese.

All this may be true. But even if it had been better executed would it really have affected retention rate by any significant amount?

@ VoiZod - While you may not be trying to derail the thread… you are way off topic in most of the post. Many may consider a number of subjects slams on various topics. They look a bit trollish whether you indended that or not…

mszv · **Joined:** Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 am **Posts:** 2266

OHB may know stuff behind the scenes. It's hard to know what to do when you know this. I know a little tiny bit about There, internally, but I don't think what I know is relevent to this discussion.

I reread the article carefully, and I'm revising what I said before. I don't think what Harvey is doing now applies to Uru or to any MMO. His heart doesn't seem to be in a long term development project for a virtual world. I'm not sure it ever was. He's a 'walk away from it" kind of guy. The way he describes what happened to There -- it seems kind of lame, heartless. The part about not figuring out how to make money, that's mostly OK, but that rambling about how people had to be living their whole lives in the virtual world - silly. Those statements about how the online games (presumeably MMORPGs) grabbed the online people, also silly, particularly since There, unlike SL, had gameplay. It wasn't a pure "make whatever you want" kind of world -- stuff to do was built it. It's amazing There was as good as it was -- guess he had the ability to hire good people. or he hired a few good people and they hired other good people, and those people had the vision. What he does seem really good at is raising money, and starting companies, a serial entrepeneur. He doesn't seem to be a good fit for building and maintaining an online world, where having heart helps. At least in this article, he doesn't seem to care in the slightest that people loved his virtual world.

On making money in a large virtual world, this doesn't apply to Uru, but I look around at the industry and there's renewed focus on how you make money in an online world, different subscription models - monthly subscription (WoW), free to play (you buy some stuff - Runes of Magic), you buy the game, no subscription (Guild Wars), hybrid (LOTRO). I like that -- it keeps the games, the worlds viable. But -- making money after six months of development, which is what Harvey seems to want to do -- that doesn't make sense for a big development project that takes years. It also doesn't address how you predict the future. You've got a long development project and you want to be right in line with what people want, when it comes out. How do you do that? That's the part I'm interested in.

If he's saying that you have to figure out how to make money for your development project, I'm cool with that. Cyan had a model that was the most popular western MMO model around, monthly subscription. When I got into There, I paid a one-time small fee and bought a few things. I assume that, if you wanted land, there was a fee for that. It's not that There didn't have a model for making money -- the model did not work as well as Harvey would have liked. Whether it was enough for the VCs -- we don't know that, do we?

-------------------
OK, I feel a little better about Harvey. Unless I'm wrong OHB -- doesn't look like it was his decision to close There. Was he ousted or did he just leave?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6099242.html

And a somewhat better article where he talks about There. This one is interesting. Maybe he did actually care.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6099558.html

Lars Nordstrom · **Joined:** Thu May 14, 2009 8:35 pm **Posts:** 59

VoiZod wrote:

I missed something somewhere.

I'll say. If there was award for incoherent rant, you would have first place. Windows Vista and US Gov't intelligence does't really have anything to do with topic, no? No.

veralun · **Posted:** Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:48 pm

OK the call is clear.
Try to stay on topic.
If someone does feel the need to bring up something which is not related to this thread, feel free to start a new topic.
Thanks.

DreamingGirl · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 11:22 pm **Posts:** 58

Nalates wrote:

Harvey began selling off parts of the software and still could not find a way to get THERE.com generating the desired rate of return and says as much in his interviews. He closed THERE.com and took his funds to develop IMVU without depending on venture capital as he did with THERE.com.

Wrong. Harvey left There.com in 2003, and went to start up IMVU instead. It was taken over by Michael Wilson, and he was the one who closed it down in 2010, according to him it was because the recession didn't bring in enough money. (Can't give you any links, but this is what was said repeatedly in-game to the costumers)

What OHB says.. Yes, I've heard that too, from angry people in-game, people who actually worked with Wilson.. You won't find anything officially of course, because, you know, you can't just say those kind of things about your boss officially

Also, keep in mind that IMVU is really nothing more than a sophisticated Instant Messaging program, not a persistent world, so the comparison to Uru and even There is rather vague. And trust me, everything has NOT been all roses in the IMVU camp. I was a user several years back when it was just getting it's feet out. It prospered for a while, then hit a serious problem: Inflation. There were too many credits around, and thus they didn't sell enough to keep afloat. They were facing a serious economic crisis, and they hired an economic expert to solve the problem. Instead of realising what the REAL problem was, namely that they were giving away too many free credits so that many users never had to buy any, they decided the problem was that the developers were making too much, reselling them cheaper and cheaper, reducing the actual value of the credits. The solution was to basically waltz over the developers completely and changing how the credit system worked, so if a user bought a product with FREE credits, the developer got nothing.. Instead of the credits they were supposed to earn on the sale, they got a token.. Needless to say, this caused an outrage among the developers, and many of them left for good. Brilliant :roll:

I take a peek in there now and again, and I see not much have changed, I can still earn enough free credits to keep buying things if I want.. and I keep getting those emails that says I sold one of my items, and I got zero credits for it..

No thanks, if that's how Harvey runs a business, I want no part of it

Nalates · **Posted:** Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:29 am

DreamingGirl, thanks. I tend to forget THERE.com had Harvey and Wilson eras. I think most of the confusion is between Wilson and Harvey and who was doing what when.

Harvey and Ventrella started the company in 1998. Wilson came in 2001 and is reported to have founded the THERE.com most of us know in 2005. Between 2001 and 2005 is when Harvey sold off (or worked some deal on) the software to Wilson. I think the descriptions of Harvey and Wilson that characterize them in negative ways are unfounded and sound like common sour grapes, which is why I challenged the descriptions.

Many of those developing for THERE.com were upset and have voiced their opinions. But, most of those people were not part of the management team. Most of the employees of Media & Entertainment, Wilson’s company, also were not part of the management team either. Unless one has hard evidence otherwise I tend to believe most of the characterization attributed to management, negative or positive, come from those outside the inner circle and are those of the uninformed. In the Uru community we have a number that are notorious for repeating negative, unfounded opinions.

Those unfounded opinions do not help us figure out what it is that makes game play better or worse or how to improve Uru.

@mszv, having heart… how one feels about a game, customers, etc… these things may motivate an individual to find a way and help with customer relations. But, they do not pay the bills and keep a game going. Also, strong feelings and attachment can often blind one to the real situation. I think that has happened with Cyan (not necessarily a bad thing). Business is much more an intellectual exercise than an emotional one.

The value in Harvey’s interview is his information about what they did that simply did not work. They developed their opinions and ideas without regard to their players’ needs and desires. They spent millions developing ideas that did not work. The change he made in IMVU was to test ideas for ‘audience appeal’ before sinking millions into the development. Here I’m pushing to find the facts, studies, case histories, good statistical information, and go beyond opinion and personal preferences.

mszv wrote:

On making money in a large virtual world, this doesn't apply to Uru, […]

You may be right. But earlier we were defining what success is in Uru. In most cases what people think of as success requires positive growth and a higher rate of retention than we have now. What earns money in other games and people see as valuable enough or fun enough to pay for them are things that will improve Uru. Also, money is a measuring system that assures effort is not wasted but applied intelligently. Not having a financial burden on Uru is nice. But, it also allows us to be wasteful, not so good.

What Harvey is pointing out is that requiring a game to be self supporting early on stops the waste and weeds out lame brained ideas. Such development requires a developer to listen to the customers. How many times have we heard Cyan should listen to the fans?

As to what we do and don’t know about games making money… we do know a lot. Figuring out what works is only a problem if one looks at the problem in isolation. Micro-payments are the big thing now. Advertising payments are another. For some games monthly and annual payments work. I think I could make a good argument for micro-payments being the trend by counting up the games coming out or going to the model. LOTR is going to more of a micro-payment model with a free to play aspect. But, that is rather pointless for our consideration in Uru. If we were attempting to have Uru earn money then maybe a discussion about the best model would be in order. For now the ability to earn is really just a measure of what things and game play aspects work well enough people will pay for them and can those be used in Uru.

OHB · **Joined:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:28 am **Posts:** 1247

Nalates wrote:

You are still not providing hard information. I read a lot of stuff about THERE.com closing down. I did not get the impression you seem to have formed.

And I'm not going to post any

Why do you think I tried to stay out of this thread as much as possible in the past lol?

As DreamingGirl pointed out - if you actually speak to people who worked for There.com you'll get an interesting insight. And I'm not basing this on one conversation. I know a lot of former employees. Just in the last week I've spoken to 3 of them. Not about this...just casually...but the topic has come up in the past.

Like I said before...take it or leave it. Believe the articles and interviews, or believe the people that worked there. I'm not going to sit here and try to convince you of anything because I won't post anything that might be misconstrued as proof.

Nalates · **Posted:** Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:39 pm

@OHB, that is fair enough. Saying your opinion is formed from first hand experience of talking to former employees you know is reasonable. You do not have to prove your choice is anything more than your choice.

That they aren't classed as inner circle employees or how they were related to management leaves me thinking as I've posted. I don't fault you your opinion. But, I also don't see how you think it detracts from the point I have repeatedly made that investing huge sums of time, effort and money into development of an untested/unproven idea is a bad idea?

Most of the fan community here works on opinion and personal preference. Those ideas are pushed as good things to change in Uru without a deep look. I think that is now universally evident using unproven ideas work poorly in game development. Harvey highlights that. Unless you were trying to challenge that idea, what was your point in slamming Harvey/Wilson? What does characterization of Harvey or Wilson's motives have to do with that?

Many of my points are met with people attempting to discredit a person or source of and idea rather than the idea. That is a basic debate tactic and I beleive many do not even realize what they are doing. Discussions then wonder off into a series of personal attacks and defenses. The idea is then lost and thoughtful progress on the idea stops.

I also generally take issue with libeling someone based on what someone or several other someones said about another's motives. I don't see how anyone thinks they know a person's motives without that person stating them. We may seriously doubt what they tell us or flat out decide they are likely lying based on other information. But knowing and believing are different things. And seldom does one's motives actually make any difference to an idea they put forth (e.g., he thinks war is bad because he is Irish). At times it does and motives are applicable to a discussion (e.g., he thinks it is a great book because he sells it). I don't see how a motive changes the idea I am using Harvey's interview to support.

Why did THERE.com fail? Lessons? Harvey Interview

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