I am funding a movie!

I knew when Amazon.com bought Reflexive that my game shoppee’s days where numbered. It is a big reason why I left Vermont and found a “real” job.  Today, my instincts where proven correct, by this email:

Dear Valued Affiliate,

I wanted to write to you today to thank you for your participation in the Game Center Solution Affiliate Program and to inform you that as of June 30, 2010, Reflexive Entertainment, Inc. will be terminating the Game Center Solution Affiliate program to focus entirely on game development.

Between now and June 30, 2010, the Game Center Solution Affiliate Program will continue its business as usual. We will continue to provide web service and support and pay referral fees on every qualified sale through June 30, 2010. We will stop processing sales after that date and our agreement with you governing the Game Center Solution Affiliate Program will terminate on June 30, 2010.

You will continue to have access to the Control Center until July 31, 2010 at which time we will distribute your final royalty report to the email address we have on file and our agreement with you governing the Game Center Solution Affiliate Program will terminate. Please be sure your contact information is current in our system.

We wish you all the best and hope that we will have more opportunities to work together in the future.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxxx.

Sincerely,

Lars Brubaker
CEO – Reflexive Entertainment, Inc.

Moral of the story: Don’t build a business based on something someone else can pull the plug on.

I’ve opened the door to my new website Game Legend It is a place for video gamers to ask for help and help others.

The big news today is that Silverlight 3.0 has been released. This is means a change for Iron Roads. I’ve been working with Silverlight 2.0 and could probably finish it just fine without upgrading to 3.0. There is, however, one feature in particular that compels me to retarget to Silverlight 3.0: Out of Browser Support. This allows users to install Iron Roads as a typical desktop or downloadable game. The real killer part? It doesn’t require any extra downloading. Once they install the Silverlight 3.0 plug-in for the browser nothing new is required to run the desktop version.
So if someone plays Iron Roads in the browsers, they can install the desktop version without needing some prerequisites aka long boring downloads. I’m very exited about this feature, and I will probably put together a prototype demonstrating it this weekend.
You might have noticed I didn’t post anything more about the Mini Ludum Dare weekend. That’s because I ended up throwing the towel in. The theme was just too hard for me to make fun. It was an interesting challenge. The lesson I learned is not to take things in such a serious light. Even the most important or serious topic has a lighter side, and that is where games are meant to live.

I’ve created a new logo for the blog part of the site. What do you think? I think it looks pretty good. I guess my programmer art skills are improving. I wonder if one day I’ll graduate to the next level? I wonder what it is call?

You might also have noticed that I moved the 3rd party games I sell to there own subdomain: games.mrphilgames.com. Changes in the market place have reduced the reward of running that part of the site and so I’ll be deemphasizing it over the next few months. This is good because my energy is going into Iron Roads instead (and hopefully other strategy games titles down the road.)

I’ve also decided to use SilverLight for Iron Roads, which means you’ll be able to play it in the browser. There are two main reasons I choose this. One, is I wanted to work in C#. It is a language I know well, enjoy working in and has the benefit of all the smart people at Microsoft continually improving it and its’ tools. Second, I want the Mac People to be able to play. That’s right! SilverLight works on Apple’s browser too!

There is a sort third thing that was in the back of my mind when I made this decision. SilverLight 3.0 will have an offline mode, that will let applications install to the Start menu. So down the road people will be able to play even if they aren’t connected to the internet!

It has been a while since I’m made any posts because I’ve been so busy with the move.  On April 1st (no fooling) I drove a U-Haul with all my possessions to my new home in Northern Virignia (that’s part of the Washington, DC Metro Area.)  The hardest part is now over and I’m about halfway through the unpacking the boxes.  Soon my computer will be back in action and I’ll be able to continue work on Iron Roads.

PS Notice the new blog tool?  You can comment now!