A Game Maker Book to Avoid: Game Maker Language by Alphascript
January 28, 2011
When you discover that someone has put their name to thousands of titles on topics as diverse as Laser Engraving, Jet Fuel, the Birds of Switzerland, Audi RS6 oh and Game Maker Language you are right to worry.
Alexander Aris brought to my attention the fact that print on demand publisher Alphascript are selling a copied-from-Wikipedia paperback which masquerades as a guide to GML [Amazon.co.uk|Amazon.com].
The company seems to specialise in grabbing collections of articles off Wikipedia, sticking them into a book barely edited and charging top whack for them (the GML book costs upwards of £30).
A quick Google reveals that they’ve pissed off a fair few people interested in a wide variety of topics (including librarians!) and Alexander is one of the latest to have the misfortune to come across one of their 100,000 plus products.
The hundred page book features Wikipedia articles around and very loosely connected to Game Maker Language including Mark Overmars, the history of Pascal, C++, Microsoft Direct3D and APIs.
To be fair the book does have a small circle splashed on its front cover which states “High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!” but even so sticking this book on Amazon is cheeky and I presume, given the rate at which they churn out titles, quite lucrative.
On top of that the people responsible for this can’t even decide whether they are called Alphascript or Betascript publishing.
Stay away from this one. If you are looking to learn Game Maker try the beginners level Getting Started with Game Maker or the more advanced Game Maker’s Companion.
Avoid? I can’t read from the screen for some long period that’s why I prefer reading from paper where I can make notes or something. So the question really is: ‘Is it worthy?’
Paper, ink,cover, Wiki… Not for me, because my laserjet can do much better and save me some £30))
“…try (…)the more advanced Game Maker’s Companion”?! Are you mocking or just humiliating? Oh, I see–just advertising.
Apparently someone buys it! Otherwise they wouldn’t be making them. lol
I wouldn’t buy them.
Really? Is this Saturday Night Live? How the hell can you be so UNPROFESSIONAL as to put an eyecatcher on your book that says you took it from wikipedia?! WHO THE HELL WOULD BUY THIS CRAP?!
I hope they will go bankrupt !
With 100.000 products? Wish that was true..
Let’s say, all 100.000 are books, and they cost $30 each, and every book is bought 1 times on average, that’s $30 * 100.000 = $3.000.000…
Wikipedia hasn’t sued them yet?
No because Wikipedia content is licensed under a Creative Commons license which allows commercial re-use http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use
GML is still such an obscure language, I probably wouldn’t trust any books from anyone except Mark / YYG, more well-known publishers of programming / game dev books, or anything that’s officially sanctioned by YYG itself.
… Alexander Aris bought to my attention …
Maybe ‘brought’, and not ‘bought’?
There are always strange publishers of anything. Everyone search for their own way to make money, and they sometimes find it.
Correct, thanks. Sadly he also bought the book!
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