[wolfyman]

Originally Posted by CyberLiesh

I really can't believe the attitudes of some people online nowadays. I consider each and every hack as a gift from somebody willing to put time and effort into things I probably couldn't (and certainly don't have time to) tackle myself. I see the same anywhere people are putting work into providing something for free, the trail of people criticising and moaning that it isn't good enough and it drives me nuts.

Some developers provide things free, some choose to charge others choose to release and abandon, some proivide free and charge for support... but in each and every case "you" have the choice to take this gift or not to.

You buy VBulletin you get a message board - end of. Thanks to the community you get to expand it into something so much more. Personally I thought the sites that were charging for games for the arcade were taking things a step further than I was willing to go. So it was simple - I didn't pay them and chose to keep snapping up the free releases that appeared every now and again.

With the new arcade that is coming I will take the free option to try it out then I'll decide if I think the extras that payed subs bring are worth paying for. It's quite straight forward - the choice is mine. If there was no free version it wouldn't change things a bit - the choice would still be mine to decide if I felt the added value of the arcade to my boards was worth the outlay.

Well done to John and everybody else involved for continuing to develop a good hack. I think you may have lost some ground during the time the site was down but reaction to date (ignoring the ingrates) seems to suggest it's going to be as popular as ever.

Good post.