I am writing on behalf of Munawar, the brains behind bpc programs. Some of you have been asking why he is no longer in the business, Here's the full story in his words. Make sure to read the message thoroughly as we can all learn a thing or too from it. --------------
I started out around 2001 I think. my goal was to create games for blind people. at first they were free, and then suddenly I started charging, because Treasure Hunt had become a real first person shooter complete with an overall objective. That was when I had lots of time, and, most importantly, motivation. I wanted to leave a mark in the so-called blind gaming community, because I realized something quite quickly. We had too many rated E games, games for kids rather than adults. So began my major upgrade to Treasure Hunt. There's a common misconception that I just wanted to expand the game and put more features in it, bringing it up from version three to four. The real reason was that we needed more serious action games; games which run around a storyline. So now we were in the four year round about of BPC's life. Treasure Hunt was released six months later, I believe February of 2005. Now, everyone who followed the evolution of Treasure Hunt remembers the major patch upgrades. The game was quite bug-filled, which showed me that my skills in programming actually weren't as well-planted as I had thought they were. And, of course, my beta testers were jokes, save a select few (you know who you are) So from Feburary 2005 to early 2006, I was releasing patch after patch. That was my job; it wasn't a good experience for me at all, and I quickly realized Treasure Hunt was, in itself, a failure. The game turned out to be rated E although I had hoped it wouldn't be, and some things did not work for no apparent reason. After this period of patch releasing, I arived at the first really stable version of Treasure Hunt, 4.25, and that's when I was able to turn my attention to the finances of the organization. Payments were coming in nicely the first couple months, then declined. They went back up in December of 2005, thanks to Christmas shoppers. Developers love Christmas. Finally, I saw a steady drop of purchases, In March, I made one sale, April was zero, and May was around that number. But then came a further change, and it was not a pleasant one. someone actually filed a charge back against me. Can you believe the morality of this person? I won't name them, but they will know who they are when they read this. This individual had bought a copy of the game from me, and then turned around and claimed that I made an unauthorized purchase to their credit card. Not only did Pay Pal refund their money, they also gave them $10.00 extra. This leech was paid $10.00 for buying my game! I had given them the registration key and everything, I saw no fault with the order. They got what they paid for. Now, Consider all of what I have said. I did consider everything, and I'll briefly recap. Treasure Hunt was a rated E game when it wasn't supposed to be; someone accused me of credit card fraud, something which degraded my reputation greatly; there was no more money being made; I lost my motivation; and, finally, I hated all those 13-year-olds trying to make games. Unfortunately, people seem to trust any word of mouth they get, even if it's from one person only, My sales went down dramatically after the chargeback. So, now it was June. One fine day, I decided to just throw it all away. I will admit it can be called cowardly for me to do so, but I did not really have a choice. Pressing on would have resulted in a lawsuit, which I do not have the money to fund, A plane which started off quickly and then crash landed, that's what happened with BPCPrograms, SD, And that, my fellow gamers, was the story of the BPCPrograms Software Division. message ends I've no idea if Munawar would want to put up treasure hunt for free like what was done with self destruct and danger city but I suspect not considering all that's happened. Take care _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. [email protected] To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
