I think your heart is in the right place with this article, but you are a bit misguided in my mind.

C+C R3 is satirical. It makes fun of stuff. It is light hearted. I don't see why you think Japanese culture should be immune. A fascination with schoolgirls and the "reputation for manga,‭ ‬robots and strange uses of USB cables" is a part of Japanese contemporary culture, like it or not. I think you are a bit offended that there is a small, tiny kernel of truth in the satire.

I could respectfully argue with almost every paragraph you've written here. But I think that would be the waste of time.

But for example, in paragraph one, you call "difficulty with the letters‭ ‘‬r‭’ ‬and‭ ‘‬l‭’ ‬" an "xenophobic cliche." I'm sorry, but that is retarded. I've made tons of literally dozens of people visiting from Japan from the hear and this isn't a cliche that they have extreme difficulty pronouncing l's and r's. This is a fact. I'm not sure how you would consider it an cliche or why this would be found somehow offensive in anyway.

I think your heart is in the right place with this article, but you are a bit misguided in my mind.

C+C R3 is satirical. It makes fun of stuff. It is light hearted. I don't see why you think Japanese culture should be immune. A fascination with schoolgirls and the "reputation for manga,‭ ‬robots and strange uses of USB cables" is a part of Japanese contemporary culture, like it or not. I think you are a bit offended that there is a small, tiny kernel of truth in the satire.

I could respectfully argue with almost every paragraph you've written here. But I think that would be the waste of time.

But for example, in paragraph one, you call "difficulty with the letters‭ ‘‬r‭’ ‬and‭ ‘‬l‭’ ‬" an "xenophobic cliche." I'm sorry, but that is retarded. I've made tons of literally dozens of people visiting from Japan from the hear and this isn't a cliche that they have extreme difficulty pronouncing l's and r's. This is a fact. I'm not sure how you would consider it an cliche or why this would be found somehow offensive in anyway.

I have a possible answer to the question in your last paragraph -- but I can't claim credit for coming up with it myself.

For Turkish developer TaleWorlds, maker of the awesome and recently Mount and Blade, they had a good system going. The first few beta's of the game, (like versions .1, .2. .3, .4) they made available for free to get interest in the game.

By around the mid-point, version .5 or whatever, they had enough of a game that was fun to play that people were willing to buy the beta for a low price (~10, ~15 ? not sure -- wasn't there that early myself.) With each subsequent release, they raised the price. Buying the game in beta entitled that user to download the full commercial release for free when it eventually came out.

Not only is this a great business model that apparently worked well for these guys, but it also drums up appreciation and interest in your game, helps you in bug testing, and helps you mold and shape your game to deliver to your intended audience. Taleworlds has said that the mass of feedback from the various beta versions of the game was instrumental in making the final product all it is today.

Long live indie games and long live Introversion and please make Uplink 2 :) !