If there's one thing I've come to expect about the tiff between David Allen and Derek Smart, it's continued drama. Derek Smart certainly delivered over the weekend and I enjoyed reading his public response to the latest bomb from David Allen. I literally couldn't stop reading this last night while I was supposed to be leveling and healing. I found myself HOT'ing up the tank then alt-tabbing out to read another sentence or two before I'd tab back into WoW. I was just that enthralled by the drama. The only thing I was lacking was a good tub of lightly buttered popcorn and some iced tea.
To be honest I really don't know what to think about the dueling accusations. All we have are the competing statements with no real facts, but if things keep heading in the direction they seem to be heading, those will come in time in the form of publicly accessible information submitted to the court. I will say this however; I'm amazed - no, UTTERLY AMAZED - that professionals would be airing all this dirty laundry to the public like this. That Derek Smart is doing it so well, and with such relish, leads me to make assumptions that he is being nothing but truthful. It's the detail he's releasing which makes me think he's more credible than David Allen and keep in mind I don't know either of them. Until now my only real knowledge of Derek Smart was my remembrance of his first game 3000AD back in the 90's. I followed news about it while it was still in development but I never actually played it. I did have a friend that played it and really loved it, and I can recall having enough interest in it that I actually have strong recollections of it today. But I don't remember who the developer(s) were and so I'm not certain if I ever even heard the name Derek Smart until just recently. I've also never heard the name David Allen but a cursory reading indicates he's been associated with at least three melt-downs now. My assumptions lead me to believe that if Derek were saying the things he's saying about David Allen right now, and wasn't being completely honest and forthcoming that his career in the industry would be severely damaged.
Aside from the excoriation of David Allen personally, what I found most amusing in Derek’s posts was about the technologies. Its rare to see a company President cast aspersions about the company’s IP, regardless of whether or not he had a hand in actually creating it or not. That IP has value to the company, yet we see Derek Smart basically saying it’s crap. It would be hard, having said all that, for me to envision much of a future for technologies that millions have been now spent in creating. Which essentially telegraphs that QOL would have to completely start from scratch if they somehow survive their immediate situation and seek to develop new projects in the future. That of course means millions of additional dollars would have to be invested that otherwise might have had to been the case. Derek’s assessment could, probably more realistically, be the nail in the coffin for QOL indicating the real outlook here is to recoup as much of the investment capital as possible and then bail. Not a very encouraging prospect for what I’d assume QOL would like to see – players.
