Really, anyone that is unhappy can vote with his Blog Reader. You don’t have to subscribe anymore. I orginally started monitoring this blog because Steve was known as a shareware marketing expert. I wish he had written his book, but it is not the end of the world. Here is another book that you may want to consider:

http://www.aegis-resources.com/product_marketing_handbook_fou.htm

It is very good!

Personally, I have been pleased with the direction that Steve has taken this blog. His insights have been useful to me.

Keep up the good work Steve!

And all the talk about “commitment” from a Bush blogger is deliciously ironic. Perhaps we should all bash Steve for failing to properly fund his “No indie game developer left behind” program?

How has Steve abandoned anyone? Did I accidentally delete the voicemail where Steve called and told me he was “on my side?”

I’d characterize the situation somewhat less generously.

A few people were envious of Steve’s success and desirous of the wealth they imagined his knowledge would bring them. They became attached to the images of their new life, so they feel afflicted by the cancellation of the book.

For everyone who is authentically angry about the book cancellation, there is already a book for you! I think it was called, “Who Moved My Cheese?” And it’s probably available right now in your local bookstore!

Okay, enough negative energy from me…

I stumbled upon Steves articles a few days ago and would have liked a book, but as other posters and Steve already pointed out: You shouldnt read only one book and hope for all your answers, you should read lots. And the ones that wont be written will probably be missed, but you probably read most of it in other forms elsewhere.

More power to you, Steve. I’ve been there and I know the awareness factor. It has nothing to do with being selfish. If I was incredible at mowing lawns, but it simply didn’t make me happy, I would find a different way to give to the world that would be more rewarding for me. This blog seems to be your way. Nobody can doubt your charity. You have submitted more free knowledge to the world than all these Anonymouses put together. You could call it all quits, right now, and your contributions would be placed easily in the top 1% of honorables. Bah to those who get upset because you only mowed their lawn 5+ years for free. To them I say, how dare you? Learn to accept the gift you have been given graciously and without greed. Watch the lawnmower while he shows you the way. Put forth the effort into applying what you’ve learned. Use your own brain. That way, when the lawnmower needs to walk away from something, you won’t say, “I can’t believe you’re walking away from my lawn!”. Instead, you’ll simply say, “Whatever you need to do, I’m behind you. And hey… thanks.”

There is a difference between a plan and a commitment. A plan is merely a sequence of events one has determined as the best course of action to accomplish a goal. One may change the events or goal at will. This is merely a change of plans.

However a commitment is an agreement in which your word is given that you will accomplish some task. When a commitment is broken, a trust has been violated unless the other parties have released you from your commitment. If you had a contract to deliver a book and then refused to deliver it, that would be a violation of commitment. If you merely planned to write a book and then changed your plans that would not be violating a commitment.

However, the idea that commitment can be broke for higher good is no commitment at all. It is often perceived as (and usually is) self-serving. A person who says he will violate a commitment for the greater good has just announced that you cannot trust him, for he may regard YOU as the lesser good.

What of the case of the slave trader? He is engaged in a moral wrong that should be corrected. Such is not the breaking of a proper commitment but the repentance of an evil act. Unless the writing of a book is an evil of itself, breaking a commitment to write it is hardly comparable to righting grievous wrongs

Commitments may be renegotiated or sometimes circumstances may occur which render us unable to keep a commitment, but true commitments should not be violated.

But, I was wondering, what will you do with Dexterity Software? Will someone else take over the business or will you phase it out of existence? I guess that you’d have to really trust someone to take over your business so I assume that that won’t happen? (Though we all know about assumptions..)

@Michael Le: it’s hard for me to understand why everyone’s blaming EA so much. Sure they’re bastards, but the re-evaluation of commitments should be done by the employees. They’re the ones who let EA do this to them. The nice thing about capitalism is that you don’t have to work for someone if you don’t want to. If I was working at EA and didn’t like the conditions I would’ve simply left. The fact that there are people out there who’d happily work in such ridiculous conditions says more about how screwed up the game industry (and people who work there) is in general than about how bad EA is. This is actually one of the major reasons why after graduating from college I got a “regular job” before starting my own business instead of getting a job in the game industry. I knew how bad the conditions were, and I knew that I didn’t want to work in these conditions.