Dear Future Gamer

Congratulations on the truly superb 'The Importance of Marketing' feature. It really did point out the style over content attitude of some publishers, if not developers. In response to the 'Innovation in the UK' letter (FG61), there are some excellent, innovative UK developers out there (apart from Rare). Two examples spring immediately to mind: Particle Systems, responsible for the top notch space sim I-War, which as far as I know suffered from a lack of real advertising here in the UK; and Software Refinery who developed Hard War, mentioned in the article.

Andrew Walsh

FG: Glad you liked the feature, Andrew. Yes, there are innovative developers around but, as the feature pointed out, they're in great danger of being strangled by publishers eager to eschew risk and walk a safe path. This is short-sighted and, for us gamers, not A Good Thing.