We interrupt this game development blog with an uncharacteristically political announcement:

SOPA and PIPA are two dubiously-named and appallingly-written bills that various corporations in the U.S. would like very much to see signed into law. While they purport to aim at stopping online piracy, the vague and poorly-considered language in these bills would actually be far more effective towards the goal of stifling expression and innovation on the internet at large.

Wikipedia has a nice write-up here that should get you up to speed.

As a struggling start-up game company that relies entirely on the digital sale of our content to make a living, Final Form knows the impact of online piracy better than most of these bills’ authors. Our first (and so far, only) game Jamestown has been downloaded illegally countless times, so please believe that we understand that piracy can make life hard for creative industries.

However: even though we think the bulk of online piracy is categorically lame, the SOPA and PIPA bills are not going to do anything useful to solve this problem. Moreover, we would never trade in the internet’s freedom of speech in exchange for what they seek to accomplish. Someday, there may indeed be legislation that takes a responsible and technically-informed run at creating enforceable intellectual property protections online, but today is not that day. What we need is a scalpel, and what we’re getting from our government is a diesel backhoe.

So if you’re interested in supporting the continued existence of the open, secure, and free Internet that you’re reading this on right now, please join us in the fight to stop these bills from being signed into law.

And so it ends…

Today marks our first full-team workday back in the office since the Holiday Juggernaut Of Savings started to drive its promotional deep-discount drillbit through the month of December. Thanks to its tireless efforts, we have emerged here in 2012 with a few updates to share:

• We were fortunate enough to participate in the most successful Humble Indie Bundle to date! In addition to being very good for a deserving charity or two, the bundle’s sales also made a real difference for several indie studios (including us!). Thanks for your support, Humble Bundlers!

• Also fortunate: our participation in Steam’s Holiday Sale, complete with special gift pile achievement and a daily deal on Christmas Eve! We thank you also, Steam cheeve-sploiters!

• Jamestown (and its DLC) is now available on PC, Mac, AND Linux! Thanks for waiting, you bosom friends from distant shores!

• Main effect of being involved in those promotions: lots of new users! Welcome! Thank you!

• Side effect of all those new users: lots of new bugs! Dang it!

As you might expect, we’re about to embark on Jamestown BugBash 2012: The Bashening. In the coming weeks, we’ll do our best to address as many of the known issues as we can. We hope to patch soon on all platforms, and will let you know (where you = the internet at large) as soon as the first batch of fixes goes hot. For your patience, know that you have our thanks.

BONUS NEWS:

• We’d like to introduce our very first official programming intern, the extremely talented and also-still-in-high-school Drew Wallace! He’ll be working with us for the month of January, and by “working with us,” of course I mean “hurtling at breakneck speeds through a terrifyingly dense and complicated game-programming boot-camp/obstacle-course/torture-chamber of Tim’s devilish design.” Nevertheless, we have high hopes that his dishwashing skills will soon rival our own. Programming! Programming skills! Did I say dishwashing?

• Displaying what can only be described as sound judgement (PUN 2X!), indie-darling-to-be Tom Francis has selected a trio of musicians for his upcoming master-spy-meets-malevolent-electrician espionage game Gunpoint, and our very own Francisco Cerda is among them! Well done, Francisco! We are now even more excited about this game than we already were!

FINALLY:

This is just to say, to all our players, contributors, reviewers, distributors, friends, and most of all our families: thank you for your support. The possibilities of 2012 seem to stretch out towards the horizon in all directions, and we can’t wait to pick a heading and start putting more miles on this company’s tires.

We’re glad to be with you, friends of Final Form, here at the beginning of the next thing.

Sincerely,
Mike, Tim, and Hal