And it was bound to happen. After the release of its illegal version, Ska Studios announced that a Director’s Cut version of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile will be officially released on the PC. Kudos to both of our readers ‘Gianluca Manocchio’ and ‘Harris Iqbal’ for spotting and informing us.
Ska founder James Silva stated:
“Porting Vampire Smile to PC as an enhanced Director’s Cut has been something I’ve been wanting to do since launch. We had actually broached the subject with Microsoft last Friday, almost a week before this [the hacker port] happened. Nothing’s set in stone, but we got the go ahead to make a pre-announcement: we’ll be working with Microsoft to bring our stuff to PC.”
Okay, we are grateful that The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is officially coming to the PC, but this a just a bunch of crap. The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile was released almost two years ago on XBLA, and we are almost certain that the PC version would be coming way earlier provided Ska Studios had not signed a deal with Microsoft (hint: MS is the publisher for this game).
Yes yes yes, by now it’s obvious that The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile was timely exclusive to XBLA. James claims that he wanted to port the game to the PC from the beginning, though you have to wonder why it took him and his team two whole years to announced something like that.
James tried to explain that delay by stating that the porting would take a lot of time; time that would hurt the development of Ska Studios’ upcoming title, Charlie Murder. James contradicted himself though when he posted on NeoGAF.
“The reason The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is not on PC is not because of something secret and evil. Porting is a huge hassle, it’s not trivial, and I simply haven’t made time for it.
And as someone who grew up wanting to make Nintendo games, I really really really wanted this as a console title first. The thought of playing it with a keyboard gives me a nervous tick. Now that Xbox360 gamepads have become so ubiquitous, it’s all more or less water under the bridge (the last shooter I played on PC that I used mouse+keyboard for was System Shock 2), but the thought of anyone playing Vampire Smile with a keyboard is still not super pleasant.”
So, let me get this straight. Ska Studios wanted from the very start to port the game to the PC, but did not find time to actually do the port (before developing Charlie Murder)? And if they wanted to port the game from the very start, why didn’t they port it immediately? This would obviously save them time and effort. What’s also funny is that James is glad now that Xbox360 gamepads have become so ubiquitous, but he still wanted from the very start to release this game on the PC? Despite the fact that the thought of playing it with a keyboard gave him a nervous tick (hint no2: gamepads are a common thing on the PC, and existed way before the X360 controller arrived). Come ooooooooon.
And let’s make it crystal clear; we really don’t mind when there are exclusivity deals. But at least be honest with your fan base and don’t resort on PR crap. That’s not what we want to see from indie developers. We want honest opinions about why you did this and why you did that.
Are we asking for THAT much?
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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