Silver Dollar Games

I actually bought No Luca No, not because I thought it had a chance of being good, but because my policy here is no demos, full version only.  I had something to say to Silver Dollar.  First, I needed confirmation that their latest release was as intentionally bad as almost everything else they do.  Almost everything.   Sometimes you guys at Silver Dollar do something like write a plot for a game that’s actually halfway compelling and it fools people into thinking you actually give a shit.  You clearly don’t.  Stuff like No Luca No is a prime example.  It’s a game where you press the right analog stick to the right to shoo away a cat from a bowl of cereal.  That’s the plot and the entirety of the gameplay summed up in one sentence.  It’s neither entertaining nor does it try to be.  Absolutely disgraceful.

Before I started Indie Gamer Chick, I was as guilty as most Xbox 360 owners when it comes to ignoring the Indie Games channel.  In fact, I had bought exactly two games from it: I Made a Game with Zombies and Breath of Death VII.  However, I had tried a few demos.  As luck would have it, most of them were made by Silver Dollar Games.  I didn’t realize it at the time, nor did I really care enough to find out that they weren’t representative of the entire scene.  I really did assume 99% of the stuff on the channel was just total no-effort shovelware done by a bunch of glorified trolls.  That was lame of me, but it’s true.  And it’s true of most gamers too.  Since starting Indie Gamer Chick, I’ve talked to a lot of people as far removed from the XBLIG scene as I was and a scary amount of them were turned away by the exact same thing.  That’s no bullshit.  That’s the God’s honest truth.

I would like to think we’re all adults here, but that’s probably giving Silver Dollar Games too much credit.  They make titles with attention-grabbing names and “mature” themes and it lures people in, at least for a demo.  Once they see the shoddy graphics and horrible gameplay, or that the “adult games” have dialog that sounds like a recess time conversation among third graders, they not only quit the game, but they leave the entire channel.  I know it’s true because I did it once, and I am pretty much the average gamer.  So whether you guys at Silver Dollar believe it or not, you’re taking money from other developers by driving players away.  And while you might have one or two “fans” who egg you guys on, so does the slow kid at school who eats worms and touches his tongue to toilet seats.  The thing is, nobody actually likes that kid.  They just want to see what a mess he makes of himself.  And the blunt honest truth is, nobody likes you guys either.  People laugh at you, not with you.  And by the way, it’s not because you’re funny.

I get that you guys actually enjoy playing up the whole troll thing and that you’re in it for the lulz or whatever.  But it stops being funny when people work hard and you, in part, fuck up their chances at success by driving people away.  For people your age to intentionally do so displays an embarrassing amount of growing up that needs to be done.  This is the behavior of children.  For most developers this is (and should be) strictly a hobby, but there’s real money involved in it, and you’re costing others a chance at making more of it.  You clearly have no shame.  Your upcoming Xbox 360 on the Go is proof.  Not only does this have absolutely no practical use or any chance of making you guys money, but it will bump a game that someone else worked hard on off the new release list, which is pretty much the only time most indie games have any visibility to consumers.  What the hell is wrong with you?  Are you guys that self-centered and dickish that you don’t care who you hurt as long as you have your laughs?

The sad thing is, apparently someone somewhere in your team has talent, because I heard a lot of developers tell me that The Jump Hero was one of the better games in the Summer Uprising.  The kicker was, most said it was so good they didn’t realize it was done by you.  See though, that’s not actually praise.  I hope you were smart enough to realize that.  You guys have set yourself to such a low standard that anything remotely decent by you is a shock to everyone.  But because you guys have built up such bad will in the community, most people in the XNA/XBLIG community will boycott it.  The people you should be relying on to spread the word of its value are instead not going to help you.

As for me, I’m said my piece.  I don’t have any jokes or punchlines to go with this.  There’s nothing funny about it.  You guys act like kids, spam the marketplace with stuff you know to be worthless or intentionally unentertaining, and worst of all, drown out other people’s hard work just for laughs.  Shame on you.

Enjoy your $0.70 cut of No Luca No that you got from me.  Because it will be the last you ever get from me.  I will never again mention Silver Dollar Games at IndieGamerChick.com or anywhere else I talk about the XBLIG scene.  I’m sure Silver Dollar will love this article just like they love any attention they get.  But I’m going to quit giving it to them.  And I deeply encourage all serious Xbox Live Indie Game blogs, websites, podcasts, and developers to do the same.  And that even includes their less than sucky games.  As I said above, it stops being funny when people’s hard work is being shoved aside by them just for their own sick pleasure.  If we all ignore them, they will go away.

80 Microsoft Points were spent in the making of this article.