Help pay my Friend's Ransom!

Though it has been 15 years or so since I have lived in the same town as Greg Stolze, I remain friends with him still today. Sure I don't get to see him as much as I did in high school, but we keep in touch and visit on occasion. Heck, his first kid was concieved at my wedding. That's what I call a friend. Uhhh.. Ok, that sounded bad.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I figure he's the closest thing to a famous person I will ever know personally. A lot of you (that aren't family & mutual friends, that is) may not know who he is, so let me tell you. He's an author. He mostly writes gaming materials but he has also written several excellent novels (at least one of which is available online). The point is you can see his name in the big print at a book store. And that's cool.

So there is this new game he has written, called Meatbot Massacre that is being distributed in a rather unique way. The hows and whys are best explained at the web site, but to sum it up, you pay what you think is fair and/or can afford and if they get their "ransom" by September 1st, everyone who paid gets the game, but also the game will be released into the public domain. Read the description on the web page, and gaze upon the cover picture below and tell me it isn't worth a few bucks at least. And you get that good feeling that the creators actually get the money, not some middleman.



PS. Greg didn't ask me to do this. I'm sure he can advertise better than my pathetic blog can (notice the ransom isn't too far from being met). I'm writing this because I think it is a great idea, and an excellent experiment in how the internet can change the "old way" of business models.