Douchebag Defined

Recently, a developer (hereafter referred to as “Moron”) posted a tirade about how much better OpenGL is than DirectX. This moron of course got himself linked by another group of morons known as “Slashdot”, and probably some adjunct groups of particularly stupid (but not quite moronic) people such as “Digg”. You’ll note that I am unlikely to be honored by either community. I’m also not going to link this post, because there’s no point generating the trackback or sending any more traffic.

By the way, I wrote about this subject many years back, and very little has changed since.

Now, the problem with Moron is multi-faceted.

• Moron’s post is deliberately inflammatory and attention-whoring. (And as one reader points out, so is mine!) It’s kind of like what Cheney does, in that the post is specifically designed to piss off a bunch of people, while on the surface seeming reasonable.
• Moron’s site happens to have a floating banner in your face, asking you to preorder his game. Isn’t that oddly convenient to have, the same day you get slashdotted?
• Moron’s post does not explain what he does. In fact, it TELLS ME what to do. Fuck you too.
• Moron has clearly bothered to do zero actual research on his subject, claiming that the PS3 and Wii support OpenGL. This is patently false.
• Moron quotes Carmack, out of context, knowing full well that nobody who cares about his bullshit will actually bother to understand the context.
• Moron tacitly implies that DirectX developers – ie, the vast majority of the game development world (on PC anyway) – are stupid and can’t figure out OpenGL is so much better. Coming from a two bit indie studio, that takes balls.
• It’s difficult to accuse someone of spreading FUD when you write this a couple paragraphs later:

Its use is being crushed by a monopolistic attack from a monolithic corporate giant trying to dominate an industry that is too young to protect itself. As Direct3D becomes the only gaming graphics API supported on Windows, Microsoft is gaining a stranglehold on PC gaming.

• And there’s this. I’ve added the bold.

If you're a gamer who uses Windows XP, Mac, or Linux, I hope you can see that DirectX only exists in order to keep new games from reaching your platform, and the only way you can fight back is to support games that use OpenGL. LIKE MINE. CLICK THE PREORDER. BUY MY GAME.

Just say it, you fucking coward.