Lost Labyrinth - always opens website on exit

[Legend]

I've been playing Lost Labyrinth a bit lately for it's short and sweet quick gameplay, but I noticed every time I exit out of the game, it opens my web browser and goes to the Lost Labyrinth website. Is there any way to disable this?

[Slash]

Well, may be the developers just want you to get the latest news and versions for the game. I see no evil here

[Fenrir]

Maybe not evil, but I would find such a thing obnoxious. I'll get the latest news and versions when I want them. I would say that the developers made a design mistake. Legend, I'm afraid I don't know how to disable it; you should probably mention it to the developers.

[Legend]

It is very annoying. I tried looking in the ini and config setting, but no luck. Think I will try to contact the creator. Unfortunately, even if they do decide to remove it, I'd still have to wait for the new version.

http://www.lostlabyrinth.com/

This is the game in case anyone wanted to try it despite the little annoying website launch upon exiting.

[Legend]

Well, I got hold of the author. Here's the email:

Am 12.01.2011 14:56, schrieb Legend Getitright:

    I wanted to say that I really enjoy your game, but is there a way to stop the game from launching the website every time I exit the game? It's very annoying.

no

Nice short sweet answer. lol. Hopefully enough other people bring it up and it may get removed. It's not really a big deal, but just really annoying. If someone likes the game enough, they will go to the site and check for updates on their own.

[Fenrir]

It baffles me as to why developers would be so rude to their players. With all the discussion about advertising games around here, I expect that players are an especially precious resource in this niche.

[chooseusername]

It baffles me as to why developers would be so rude to their players. With all the discussion about advertising games around here, I expect that players are an especially precious resource in this niche.

Egads!  The sheer entitlement of thinking you can tell a developer what to do with their masterpieces..  Why, when I release my game, I am going to open three web pages.  One will be my web page where I piteously ask for donations, and provide game news and updates.  The second shall be a stern lecture about how the user should be grateful for even playing my game, and should proceed to appreciate the privilege of having web pages opened for them.  And the third shall be a rambling diatribe on the evils of agile programming, linking it to the downfall of modern society through the misguided doctrines of taylorism.

[Ancient]

Either version for Linux does not contain this evil or my system is somehow immune to this. Good for me.

[Legend]

I posted the same thread on the lost labyrinth forum on the games site. This is the reply that the admin wrote.

This way we pay for the homepage and the traffic.
Consider using the "Donate" Button.
When enough people donated to the project I will remove this.

It's a shame I think. I can understand the want and need for donations, but forcing traffic to the website is a bit lame. Especially since the site also often has what seems like russian pop ups. At least when I visit it.

It also doesn't specify that donating will disable it for each user who does donate. Only if enough people donate all together to equal some unknown sum, then it will be disabled all together.

I imagine a better way of doing it would be to simply have an in-game ad screen with a link to the site come up before the game fully exits. This wouldn't be quite as annoying.

[mariodonick]

Some days ago, I read that the Lost Labyrinth devs were a little pissed that so few people donate for their game.

[Slash]

I like Legend's idea... may be they should provide activation to those who donate so that they don't have to see this screen.

Also, redirecting to a browser seems clumsy, yet it may be the cheaper way to show the latest info/donation links

[Legend]

Some days ago, I read that the Lost Labyrinth devs were a little pissed that so few people donate for their game.

I don't really see how they can be upset about lack of donations. Donations are not obligatory. People donate because they feel like it out of the goodness of their heart, not because they are required to. Plus, not everyone can afford to donate especially these days when dollars need to be pinched where they can like myself.

If the main focus on the project is to make money, then they may as well make it shareware by providing a free version of the game with limited features, and people who register for a fee of $5 or so, will get the full version with more features, levels, options, etc.  It's still no guarantee that they will make the amount of money that they hope to, but I'm sure it will be a bit more likely. If they do go that route, then the website pop up should still definitely be removed from both versions.

They might take a look at how DoomRL handles donations. People who donate get access to newer versions of the game before they go public and they also have the bounty board for in game features and requests. I don't know how many donations Kornel gets, but he never seems to complain about lack of donations.

I would probably spare $5 dollars to donate if I could spare it and I knew for a fact that it would remove the website pop up. If they wanted donations so much, there should at least be some sort of incentive like those mentioned above. I'me sure they would get more that may. More flies with honey.

[Bear]

If the main focus on the project is to make money, then they may as well make it shareware by providing a free version of the game with limited features, and people who register for a fee of $5 or so, will get the full version with more features, levels, options, etc. 

Well, I suppose that could work, but really, if the main focus of the project was to make money, then they oughtn't have made a roguelike game in the first place.  Roguelikes have a community and a LONG-established culture that fairly well presumes these games are free.  If they wanted money they should have made an MMO a shooter or a Wii version of Lemmings or something that would appeal to people who expect to pay for their games.

If you're going to make money from a roguelike game, you have to bypass the established community of roguelike players who expect free games and can easily find really excellent free games that suit their tastes elsewhere.  So you're pretty well going to have to make your money from people who aren't already into roguelike games, and that's a hard proposition.

I mean, face it.  Why would people who KNOW about roguelikes pay for Lost Labyrinth while Nethack is free, deeper, more debugged, doesn't open a website on exit, and doesn't guilt them about not paying?

Bear

[Bear]

Either version for Linux does not contain this evil or my system is somehow immune to this. Good for me.

Heh.  You're either using a browser they don't script for, or your browser is configured to block popups. 

Anyway, I guess I can't leave this topic alone.  There are a number of non-evil ways to solicit donations.  Unlocking additional content is one of them, but to do it in a non-evil way means the game has to be winnable, and not particularly harder to win, without the additional content.  Nobody (except collectible card game and MMO players, I guess) is interested in a game where winning only means you've paid more. 

Another thing that would work for a lot of players is cheap access to an internet host.  Being able to telnet/ssh to a host and play without a local installation, having access to a "ladder" of high scores, knowing that you're competing against other players on the hosted machine who haven't faked their scores with savescumming etc, is worth $10 a year to a lot of players. You'd have to worry about someone setting up a competing server, but honestly?  Setting up a competing server when the author is running a server for non-extortionate money would be a certifiable asshole move and I'd expect people to boycott the competitor.  On the other hand if the author were charging $5 a month, then yeah, people would go to the competitor instead, and it wouldn't bother them a bit.

You could merge the donations interface with your bug/feature expansion database, prioritizing bugs that people pledge money to get fixed or feature requests that people pledge money to get implemented. If it's closed-source and you're the only person who can fix bugs or implement new features, I guess that's working for a living -- a fair business.

But if the game is open source, you're not the only person who can fix things. If there's even a hint of obstructiveness on your part, people will just fork it and community development will leave your version in the dust.  The non-evil way to do it means that whoever fixes the bug or implements the feature gets the money pledged.  And if that's not you, you need to do the honorable thing and forward the money to the person who actually implemented the fix. A 10% fee for maintaining the bug and pledge database and integrating the fix into the official build is reasonable, I guess, but after that you're looking at the possibility of "evil" or "obstructiveness" again. Likewise if you ignore known patches that fix things because you want the money for fixing it yourself, or any other kind of behavior that serves only to increase your profits while working to the detriment of the users.

[Legend]

if the main focus of the project was to make money, then they oughtn't have made a roguelike game in the first place.  Roguelikes have a community and a LONG-established culture that fairly well presumes these games are free.

That is a very good point.

I know there are a few roguelike developers who take donations and use bounty systems as a way of getting some extra income to compensate for their time spent developing their games. But none of them seem to get upset if they don't receive a large amount of donations and feel the need to add something annoying like the pop up browser window like the Lost Labyrinth guy does.

I like Lost labyrinth cause it fills a bit of a niche for having a very quick roguelike experience. They also have some unique features that are not seen in most other roguelikes. The graphical representation is also better than most other tile based roguelikes. I think so anyways. But it's still not a very good excuse for the attitude the developer has about donations. On the other hand, it is their game and their prerogative to have that attitude.