GR Mailbag: When Good Letters Go Bad!

From: "Matthew Norman" 
Subject: what is this game revolution that you speak 
so highly of? Well, you should be damn happy with yourself,
you jerks got me hooked on your reliable reviews and your 
good standard for your works quality. I hope you cry at night 
knowing that I check your page every day and appreciate it. 
Now your probably asking "Why in the blast did this child 
write this to me?". Simple my furry feathered friend, for 
two reasons. Reason number one, I want to thank you for your 
accurate reviews. Reason number two, I am a big Johnny Liu 
and Jet Li, so I get a rush when I read Johnny's reviews and 
see Mr.KickAss Has The Best Movies In Existence Jet Li. Third, 
HOW IN THE HELL CAN ANYONE LIVE KNOWING YOU GAVE ANY OF THE 
FALLOUT GAMES LESS THAN AN A+? And finaly, I really need to 
know more about 'RUN LIKE HELL' besides the general info 
because it looks so ejactulicious! Anyways, thanks for being 
the best sight, and thanks Johnny for having kick bottem reviews 
with kick the bottem portrait.
Matthew Conquerer of Alaska!

Hey, you wrote to us for only TWO reasons, then you went and gave us FOUR. We're busy people here, so we're only paying attention to the first two reasons. So...

You're welcome for the reviews, and Johnny says "thanks!"

- GR

P.S. Congrats on conquering Alaska. Like that was hard. What, did you just bring a lighter or something?

From: ********@aol.com 
Subject: (no subject)
If I threatened to bring some of my Tesla Trooper Friends 
to kick y'all's ass would you pay me. And if you did pay, 
would you pay for a prostitute too? 

Tesla Trooper friends? Spare me. Even if they made it past the guard towers, mage citadel, harpy nests and cyclops cave, they'd surely perish at the decaying paws of the giant, drunken four-headed zombie robot dog. We're quite well insulated here at the compound.

Would we pay for a prostitute too? Well, part of what makes a prostitute a prostitue is that she costs money, so sure, we'd pay for that. By the way, what does she look like? Is she cute? Does she like me, or like LIKE me?

-GR

From: "Greg McGraw" 
Subject: Help! Belgium trouble!
Oh no you gotta do something! My brother is being 
held in Belgium and they sentenced him to death by 
public waffle-ing! They say the crime is making fun 
of their chocolates but thats not fair because the 
chocolates really didn't taste good!

He made fun of their chocolates?! Is he totally mad? Does he just simply want to die? You can't make fun of food in Belgium without expecting some sort of nasty payback...and few things are nastier than a waffling.

This is bad news! We gotta get your brother outta there. Belgian waffles may seem like a big joke to some, but they're not...they're REALLY not.

-GR

From: ********@aol.com 
Subject: i bet ill woop yor a$$ in like 2 seconds
your week dood ken is wy better than u e- mail me back 
saying something asap 

Something.

Love,
GR

P.S. Lern to spel bettr.

From: ************@aol.com 
Subject: question
Hello GR people. just wanna say that im glad i found your 
site. After CNET Gamecenter closed own (sob sob) i was 
wondering WHAT THE HELL is was gonna do for game reviews 
and whatnot. well, i used gamespot for awhile, but they 
suck ass, but eventually i fouond GR. Your site really 
kicks ass and your almost as good as Gamecenter (thats 
the highest praise i can give) but anyway, i was just 
wondering, what the hell do companies mean when like, 
one company is gonna publish a game and another company 
is designing it, im confused?! 
thanx 
david 

Thanks for the praise. We liked Gamecenter as well and were quite friendly with the editors. It's too bad they couldn't stay around after CNET bought Ziff Davis and Gamespot.

Your question is one we get pretty often and have actually answered here before. But since it's so confusing to so many gamers, we'll clarify again the differences between publishers and developers.

Most gamers are familiar with publishers - Activision, Konami, Sony, Microsoft, Eidos, Interplay - these are just a few of the big boys responsible for funding the distribution of a game. Publishers are large and scary.

Publishers also invest money in the developers, who are the folks who actually make the games. They're the programmers, the coders, the artists, musicians and general nerds who create the games themselves. Famous developers include Square, Bioware, Naughty Dog and Sonic Team. They are smaller and less scary than publishers.

Often the line is blurred between publisher and developer. Rare is a developer and Nintendo is a publisher, but Nintendo owns a portion of Rare, leading to exclusive content for Nintendo systems. In some instances, the publisher and developer is actually one in the same, like Capcom.

Hope that clears some of this stuff up. If not, we'd be happy to show you the scribblings on the GR blackboard. We're experts at new math, y'know.

-GR