Well, like it or not, the Manifesto Games website is open to the public. And Slashdot is already knocking on its door. The comments on Slashdot are a little low on the supportive side, but actually very similar to my thoughts as well. In addition, some of the comments over on Greg’s blog are serving to point out some obvious technical/aesthetic/usability issues.
Of course, as Greg points out, it should be considered beta. But one lesson everyone should learn from “Web 2.0″ is that you often only get one shot at a first impression with “the masses,” even if it is your beta. Folks like Google and Flickr have really upped the ante on what quality people expect in a “beta.” (Beta, the new 1.0.)
I hope Greg listens to some of the initial complaints. I agree that the site design and aesthetic aren’t competitive with other online shopping portals, nor is the usability. The registration requirement for downloading a demo is a killer that I’m sure he’ll have to change if we wants any success; these are already “high risk” titles to dedicate any time to — asking the user to jump through one more hoop is easily the nail in the coffin.
And, as I expected, the whole “sticking it to the man” attitude wears thin very quickly. I find it hard enough to swallow all the open source machismo I get from the Linux crowd, et al, and this utterly won’t work for gathering a larger audience for games. It may work for street culture like music, fashion or art, but that’s only because there’s some sincerity behind it (and some deep roots) — this feels shallow and parroted (though I do know that Greg’s hatred of mainstream game development is pretty sincere). As I described it elsehwere, it’s just your classic emo/angst/rebel shit that only serves to attract the least desirable (i.e., pennyless) customer. Do you think folks with $20 burning a hole in their pocket and some spare time are looking to stick it to the man? More likely torrenters and folks like myself satisfied with just a demo…
Like most angst-driven aesthetics, it will wither under its own pretenciousness. It happened to socialism, it happened to the grunge scene, it’s happening/happened to emo, and I’m guessing it’ll happen to Manifesto. But, there was one comment that was absolutely on target: Greg is absolutely putting his money (and time and effort) where his mouth is, and I applaud that.
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