Oh, I agree that it's just a Flash game. That's why I'm not going to great lengths to pursue this, and my article was meant to be my final say on it.
But as for the crediting, with regards to your comment, I still don't see how hard it would have been for Flip to credit me, if they at all knew I made the custom maps, as I have provided evidence to now, even if they somehow didn't know then. Yes, the tiles came from elsewhere, but it still took my time and my effort to select them.
As an example, let's say we all live in a community that includes an apple orchard. I'm planning on making an apple pie. You happen to be picking apples. You spend the time, looking at each tree, picking out the apples you think are the best. I end up making an apple pie with your apples, that I share and everyone else likes, because of the apples you chose, but I never mention once that you helped.
Now, perhaps a strange example, but I'm demonstrating that the "picking" is effort. Sure, I could have at any time picked the same apples myself, but I just took yours. I was the lazy guy who took your effort for granted. How would you feel?
I know that, in your words, "it's a stupid Flash game", and you are only demonstrating that there is always room for the benefit of the doubt, but what really gets me going is the audacity that, if they somehow never saw my maps, that they wouldn't bother to give me some kind of explanation. I gave them gentle reminders for a response, that I doubt could have been as pestering, and I even said I was willing to negotiate the details, and so I think I deserved something. If they had at all responded, I might have had more patience and not gone to such lengths as to write that. Maybe we could've worked out how they could've put my name in there and then we all would have been happy.
I admit that I may have been hasty in posting on forums and the like immediately after seeing the Flash game, before Flip Industries had a chance to respond that only time they did, however, if I didn't get my say in, well, you know how the Internet is, if something's older than a day it's already considered old, and if it's a week old it might as well be ancient. So if I didn't get my say in right away, no one would ever notice or care.
But I guess the real truth is, just like I said in my essay/article/whatever, VGMaps.com may still be nameless to most people, so they wouldn't care much even when they know who really selected those graphics. I was thinking to myself just before this whole Super Kid Icarus situation, that I needed to do something to get VGMaps' name out there. This controversy (if it is even large enough to consider warranting that term) might have slightly raised viewership, but probably not much more than could be attributed to random chance, so though I initially thought I should "watch what I wish for", if I really wanted to increase viewership by considerable bounds, it's going to take a lot more than explaining the truth about the apparent laziness of an amateur Flash game maker. Though the truth, and not hits, was still my primary goal of writing all that.
Besides, it's quite likely that writing my article also brought even more attention to their game. See how nice I still am to Flip Industries, directly or indirectly? And still no credit. You can't blame me for getting a little irked.
(Also, I hope this also discouraged people from taking and (mis)using my The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Hours and Metroid Dread maps.)
But yes, I will eventually let it go, and refocus my energies, perhaps to actually making VGMaps.com more known. I'm not sure what to do in that regard (other than a total site redesign), but I'm sure I'll figure out something if I could devote the time/energy to it.
