SA Goon notifies Team Meat about open backdoor, gets ignored.

[Kekvit Irae]

In case you haven't been following what has been happening, a SA Goon recently discovered a backdoor exploit in the game Super Meat Boy that allows him, or anyone else with a bit of tech knowledge, to get admin access to the main SMB database, the one that controls the user-made levels and scoreboard. Now, anyone with any sort of tech knowledge will tell you that making a game that connects directly to a remote database with the admin password and username embedded directly into the game's code is a VERY BAD IDEA.

Here's the rub: Instead of being a jerk and exploiting this for his own ill gotten pleasure, he kindly tweeted to Team Meat's devs about the problem. Team Meat, unfortunately, was too hard-headed to see any problem. Again, the Goon tweeted that it WAS a problem. And, once again, the dev replied that there wasn't a problem, even when given proof.

The result of the dev's passive-aggressive "I don't care about security or the hand-built levels of customers" attitude? The exploit was released to the public, with hilarious results.

This whole episode has left a rotten taste in my mouth, and I promptly uninstalled SMB. A dev that does not care about fixing an exploit that could destroy thousands of man-hours is not going to get any purchases from me in the future.

Links: (language warning, obviously)
Image: https://img820.imageshack.us/img820/...inetrustme.png
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comme..._left_open_to/
SomethingAwful: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...#post398884189

[Husar]

After watching the dev's video that is linked in the Reddit conversation, I'm convinced he deserved that...

I'm not one to support people who bash developers, but then again whining about your customers who complain about your game being faulty is just...arrogant?

But yeah, sometimes you get good advice and ignore it, and then you reap what you sow.

[Kekvit Irae]

After watching the dev's video that is linked in the Reddit conversation, I'm convinced he deserved that...

That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

[Monk]

...

Have indy developers always been this arrogant...?

Yes, a large quantity of them are absolutely insufferable. You could power small countries off the amount of smug they produce.

[Kekvit Irae]

Yes, a large quantity of them are absolutely insufferable. You could power small countries off the amount of smug they produce.

It's the reason I hate Minecraft; not because the "game" is boring, but because Notch thinks he's god's gift to developers. And it's not just about him being lazy ("Oh hey, new patch! What? Sheers? I waited several months for SHEERS?!"), but the fact he refuses to hire a PR specialist to handle his tweets. Read: This and this. (language warning)

[a completely inoffensive name]

Too bad you already gave him your money. So uninstalling a perfectly good game out of contempt is kind of silly.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

D'oh. Arrogance strikes again. Have indy developers always been this arrogant, or is it a new phenomena? Over at the Kerberos forums, for example, you'll find developers engaging in bullying their own fanbase from time to time--and the fan base likes it. Despite being an SotS fan, I find that creepy.

I doubt they are more or less arrogant than AAA studio developers. It's possible that it seems like they are worse because they have less (or no) PR enforcers between themselves and the general public, but there are plenty of soulless suits amongst the publishers and large developers that see you as a wallet to be exploited and have no problem telling you about it. Which strikes me as arrogant.