When people come at you unexpectedly with heads full of steam and vitriol what kind of response do you think he'd give?
A professional one.
Or would you expect your lawyer, accountant, doctor, plumber to tell you to 'F off' if you came at them with 'a head of steam'? And would you continue your patronage of them if they did so?
I like SD. I like that Mr Wardell (It feels weird to me to call someone by their first name when I have not been properly introduced to them), Kael and others take the time to interact with the community. I am sure that part of it is for PR/marketing reasons ('Hey the guys at SD are really cool and every now and again they will come on the boards and actually converse with you!'), but I am also certain that part of it is a genuine enjoyment of chatting with the interesting people who make up this board.
I like indie PC gaming companies. I want to support SD. I THINK they are not ready to produce a major game yet; I think they may need one more iteration of a less ambitious game, assess how successful it is, have another round of hiring and then look to tackle the likes of Firaxis or Paradox, making good games with the level of polish seen in games by bigger companies. I think SD is really good. I LOVE the idea of SD. I do not want this post to be construed as anything but positive.
But when Wardell said that he would not WASTE anymore time programming AI, I was disappointed to hear that. I won't buy from EA because of things like abandoning servers or from other companies that end support for one product prematurely to start on another. As I get older, it is not money that is the rate-limiting step in my videogaming hobby; it is time. And if a dev tells me that s/he won't waste anymore time on something s/he created, why should I waste my money or time buying it?
Have we all wanted to tell someone to 'kiss off' when we were irritated at work? I know I have. But for many of us (no matter what we do) we are involved in customer service to a degree. If the situation starts to escalate, the person playing the role of professional should try to deescalate the situation. Silence (on the internet, that is easy to do), give a standard CS line-'I am sorry you were dissatisfied with our product. Is there anything else I can help you with?'
Wardell is an adult. He doesn't need my advice. And my gut feeling is that he is a good guy. He probably behaves the same way he does on the net as he does in real life. That is fine. And I find it REALLY hard to believe that he would jeopardize the good will he has generated over this time by telling us to 'kiss off' and meaning it. If he did, I'm sure the backlash would be swift, both here and on other forums. What I do know is that LH went from a first day purchase, sight unseen, to me waiting to see if it is worth my money and time because of that statement.