I want to address what seems to be a lot of concentrated negativity towards AHC of late. Some of this is going to focus around the comments of fairly specific individuals (and will bridge several forum topics), and some of it will focus on the misperceptions (is that a word?) of several gamers.
1. I've seen select individuals in various other topics attack the beta testing program for AHC. It seems that said individuals must be sporting a chip on their shoulder, harbouring some degree of animosity because they were not personally selected to be a member of the beta testing team. They've argued that selection by merit of contribution to the Kickstarter was the driving force behind the beta tester choices, decrying this as unfair.
I want to address this disparity, since the individual in question once stated that they didn't see the Kickstarter until it was over. I happen to know from observing the forums that said individual is relatively active on the site, so his missing the Kickstarter must have been by design, rather than by accident. I furthermore believe this was but a convenient arguing point to attempt and back his claim of supposed favouritism. Even assuming the individual did miss the Kickstarter legitimately, it seems rather unfair to then continue to attack the project based on the fact that he missed the contribution window. Did the individual ever make a donation to the project? That avenue was still available to them, and may have assuaged their doubts about the favouritism for contributors conspiracy.
There also seems to be a notion that people only contributed to the Kickstarter so they could become beta testers. I wonder if the individual who made this claim did his research? At no point during the kickstarter were we promised that by contributing, we'd be elected for beta testing roles. In fact, I fully expected to give my money to the project, then relax and wait for the finished project. Making uneducated guesses and statements of this nature, and worse yet attempting to convince people of their voracity, is what may irrevocably convince the good folks at Out Of Sight that maybe the audio gaming community doesn't really need a high quality game. Maybe they don't really need to deal with these headaches and all the negativity. Would you volunteer for it?
On favouritism for Kickstarter donators: Even if preferential treatment were given to Kickstarter contributors (which it wasn't), are you really going to fault someone for preferring a financial contributor over someone who didn't? You can't seriously tell me that, given two individuals, one who paid you a hundred dollars to help you build your store, and one that just walked in off the street, you'd give the free walk-in a discount before offering it to the one who contributed to the finances of the establishment.
To then further harbour this negativity on the basis of not being elected for a testing role to further spread negativity about a product is I believe in poor taste, and is an exemplifying reason why people aren't exactly jumping at the bit to develop games for the blind community. That sense of entitlement and desire to attack any margin of error or perceived injustice in order to kill a game is why even prominent contributors to the audio gaming community have become reluctant to pursue the cause.
2. People seem to have expected an A-list title from AHC, despite the fact that AHC initially only asked for about 2,000 dollars on the Kickstarter. With such a low request, it should have been relatively self evident that AHC was not going to be the RPG bible, would not contain 7000 quests and 8 million NPC's, items, and voice actors. It should have been self evident that being a first title release under the brand, AHC would've been a lighter title.
Despite all this, people seem disappointed that AHC doesn't have more than it already has. Never mind that it has hours of invested labor, tons of recorded voices, a pretty epic musical score, several wide areas to explore, a plethora of quests to pursue, multiple Easter eggs, and a continuing goal to improve and make additions and updates.
I must honestly wonder: Will gamers ever be satisfied? Can they just appreciate a game for what it is, rather than bashing it for what they think it should be instead?
To underline the point about costs even more: Remember Something Else, makers of Papa Sangre and other games. Their kickstarters I believe ran for 30,000 or so. I seem to remember those kickstarters failing. The same can be said for another game proposed a long time ago... Three Monkeys, if I remember correctly. It's a pretty clear indication that the audio game community might not be willing to put its money where its mouth is.
These other kickstarters were asking for magnitudes more than AHC was and failed. AHC asked for relatively little and succeeded, but can you really expected a Warner Brothers or EA level game from a kickstarter that asked for 2000 dollars? And even at 2000 dollars, I believe AHC delivered above and beyond its asking price and its receiving price, with several people volunteering their time and effort just so you guys can say the game isn't that great.
I personally love AHC. I do not regret contributing my funds to the project, and I do not regret my enthusiasm for it either. I really think some people need to reassess their comprehension of monetary costs for hiring voice actors, for paying people to code, for hiring artists, for hiring audio engineers, for hiring publicists... and for any number of other unforeseen costs before they make a sport out of criticizing that which they don't understand.
In no way am I saying AHC is flawless, and in no way am I saying AHC is the be-all and end-all of audio games. What I am saying is that, for the budget, AHC is a pretty damn awesome game, and people should be playing it, rather than trolling it.
Kai
Spill chuck you spots!