"If you disagree with me, you do so at your own peril. The industry is in a malaise. As you know, most game publishers are losing money and have cut back on advertising. Many magazines and webzines have perished. What seems needless to me is the often overly negative tone that gaming editorial takes.

Most of you have editorial staffs that are dominated by angry young men that are poorly trained and represent a narrow and anarchistic element of the world's population. They have a negative attitude and are looking for what is wrong with something, instead of looking for what is right and who might like it.

It reminds me of boys at junior high school dance. With their fragile egos, they stay on the sideline and say the band sucks, the girls are ugly, and that those brave enough to dance are lousy dancers. Your reviewers have no idea how to make a great game. None of them have ever made one. But they sure have fun telling us in a nasty tone how inferior we are to them.

I truly find it astonishing that magazines like yours seem willing to slit your own throats on occasions like this. You have so much more to gain if you are enthusiasts for gaming, and try to find the audience for a new game. You are so much better off if you do not bite the hand that feeds you. And do not patronize me by telling me the reader is the customer--your real customer is the one that pays you your revenue. And it is game industry advertisers. If you need to be able to be constantly negative you need to accept that you are like a parasite that is killing its host. In God's millions of years he has not created nor evolved a creature that would have such a stupid strategy for survival. But it is a common attitude among game magazines, despite the evidence all around them that it drives many of them into bankruptcy. You have been around long enough to know that this is true, but you have not adapted your publication."

3D0's bossman writes to GamesPro over a 2/5 review circa 2001.

I've had worse arrive in my inbox, in my time. But it's still funny.