The Historian

On the 26th Acclaim Games Inc. officially shut down its sites and games. I have to admit that part of me is very sad about this. I loved my time there and I had the pleasure of working with many very cool people.

More importantly I’m rather disappointed with Disney in the way things with the players were handled, but then the players of Acclaim were in many ways my best friends and family. I didn’t always agree with them and I was, at times, put in to situations that didn’t allow me to be soft but the most important thing I learn was this:

Your loudest and most obnoxious critics are ultimately on your side. They want things to be better, but they just can’t always communicate this in a way that is constructive. As a Community Manager you have to set aside any emotional response and see what it is that is getting them so riled up.

2Moons, aka Dekaron, has a home with its original developers, 9Dragons is going to GamersFirst, Spellborn is just dead, Bots/Bout is gone forever except on hacked servers and the rest of the games went back to their respective owners.

To everyone who ever played a game with Acclaim, I want to personally thank you. You helped me find a dream job and allowed me to learn a great deal about Community Management, myself and the gaming industry.

Funny how we as humans think we can fully understand the complexities of how our world works. All this just proves that we don’t know as much as we think we do.

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.” - Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” – George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” – Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” – New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” – Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” – Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.” - Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” – Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” - Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” – Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” – Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.” – Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” – Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” – Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” – Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

So over the weekend a lot of retailers broke the street date for Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. GameStop says they “made the decision to break street date and sell reserved copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in select markets where other retailers had broken street date. Our decision followed many conversations with Activision and was an effort to protect our customer base”.

Personally I think the concept is Street Dates is antiquated. I mean I see what they are trying to do; retailers receive shipments of stock prior to its street date release, so that the product can be placed on display shelves for store opening that day. But you know.. we have four time zones here in the US so that means that the East Coasters will get it a full three hours before the West Coast people will. How do the Publishers handle that?

I know, I know.. Retail outlets can be severely punished by publishers for releasing a product even a day before the street date. If a retailer breaches the contract establishing a street date, the publishers may impose fines, may even withdraw privileges to distribute future products from that manufacturer, and may file a lawsuit to enforce the contract. However, there is no documentation of a retail chain or store being fined or any action taken against them. And lets face it.. if the 800 pound gorilla called Wal*Mart decides to break a Street Date there isn’t a company on the planet that is going to even peep about it.

So Publishers and Developers, just get rid of the whole Street Date phenomenon, besides no one really likes to show up for midnight releases when they could have been playing all day while the stock collects dust all day.