Dear Future Gamer,

Re: Ronan Delaney in FG24. Ronan: "What percentage of your readers own a PC/Mac? 100 per cent 'cause it's delivered by email." Me: Not quite 100 per cent - some of us have Amigas.

Ronan: "How many readers has J Nash offended?" Me: I actually thought he was bang on (and not a moron). As soon as you boot up your PC, Windows eats most of its resources, then you have to set up your graphics drivers and joypad. The reason you don't get beat 'em ups on the PC is that the only standard joypad set-up is a keyboard and mouse (great for strategy and Half-Life, adequate for OS apps and useless for anything else).

Ronan: "People don't just buy PCs for games." Me: The article was about which system is better for games, not which'll get you online or render lightwave anims.

Ronan: "the PC is superior to every other game platform. Technically it's so fast I can run a PlayStation, N64, SNES and Mega Drive all at the same time (via emulators) and still run Half-Life." Me: I'd love to see you try. Open a browser and a mail client at the same time and my P233 slows down.

Ronan: "The people who play PlayStations are playing with four-year-old technology." Me: This is what is technically known as "a triumph of excellent hardware design". I could expand on Intel's kludged motherboards and discuss several other points you've made, but only if you bung me that "measly £699" that'll net me a PC that'll play Half-Life without constantly paging the Virtual Memory.

Re: your response to Elhana's letter in FG24. You: "Perhaps there's something in the male psyche that gives men more pleasure if they're acting autonomously and something in the female psyche that gives women more pleasure if they can feel more a part of a community."
Me: I'll bear that in mind when designing some of my future games...

Re: Nat Kent in FG24. Nat: "Could you please stop making fun of the Jaguar?" Me: Your request is wholly unreasonable - the joypad was shaped like a cheap phone - how can we not make fun of it? Seriously though, it would be nice if FG would remove that "did you ever own a Jaguar?" question from the Sex, Lies & Videogames bit, it's a blatant ploy to try to get people to make fun of Atari but no-one goes for it 'cos everyone's forgotten it existed...

Re: Austin in FG24. Austin: "... interview with Gabe Newall, the guy from Valve. He was talking about how he had to personally fund a lot of the development of Half-Life, as he and the team didn't get paid until it shipped." Me: I wish there were more pirates like you (ie. ex-pirates). But this is what it's like for start-up developers. You either sell out to venture capitalists, or you rely on funding from team members. I'm currently involved in four projects that are different (in good ways) to a lot of what is on offer today, propped up by my parents and a £90-a-week job at Tesco. I've been working since February '98 and don't expect any of them to be finished before Christmas. I spent some of that time working on the floor as I couldn't afford furniture (I now have a £10 inflatable armchair).

The fact that so many people are prepared to callously steal something that people (like me) have spent years creating is what makes me so angry that I can't finish this sentence...

Finally (FINALLY!!), I'd just like to say that if people would choose the games they buy more carefully, then they'll find that games can provide months or even years of entertainment, and be money well spent. After 16 months my bro' still plays Jonah Lomu Rugby (PS) and Lemmings (Amiga '91 & PS '99) and Sensible World of Soccer (Amiga '94) - and reckons they're as much fun as they always were... (BTW, I'm not a retro freak, most old games are crap now, only a few gems remain shiny).

Michael Flaherty, Digital Images

FG: Great replies Michael. That should give them all something to think about.