Surveys says two-thirds of the people who replied to your poll are 19 or under. So I'm definitely a minority viewpoint in responding to your analysis.

I don't visit CricketGames.com as often as I should--busy with other stuff. But now that I am belatedly on the mailing list, I'm keeping up a lot better. Every time I update the site I send a summary of the updates to the Mailing List so subscribing does help.

Rather than answer everything you wrote about, I'll just make some general remarks.

I appreciate your efforts in trying to get an accurate reading of your website visitors' opinions. I hope you didn't find it too frustrating or exasperating. One very obvious thing is that you're not going to please everybody. There are going to be people who like to see little batsmen running back and forth and the fielders placed just so. And there are others who want the ultimate statistical realism. I count myself in the latter category. That's what attracted me to ITC. That's what attracted me to my favourite baseball game, Diamond Mind baseball. www.diamond-mind.com. It's a DOS-based game, even less graphic than ITC. But it's very dedicated to realism, and it's much more to me than any of the many graphic-based baseball games on the market--and there are some graphically good ones. I've seen enough baseball and heard enough radio broadcasts to be able to see the game in my mind--hence the name, perhaps. I am firmly in the statistical camp as shown by ITC. Games like Brian Lara Cricket are fun for a short while but I always prefer the realism that statistical games can offer.

Anyway, to ITC. I think you will agree that you aren't going to be able to put out everybody's dream game. It's impossible to please everybody. So I think you would be better off if you make ITC (and Cricket Manager, when it's time to develop that) the way you think it should be. It's not that you shouldn't be open to ideas or suggestions from others. But, in the end, it's you who has the creative vision of how the game should be. I think you just have to trust your heart and not let the other viewpoints bother you. Of course, I'm not trying to sell a product to people. I will write the game as I feel it should be written. If enough people request a feature that is both feasible and fits in with the game's concept and style I will try and include it. Fancy match highlight animations will not be included as I feel they actually distract from the game rather than improve it.

As for CricketGames.com, you did a wise thing in keeping it "graphics-challenged." It may look a little dull to some people, but the pages load quickly. I think the bane of the Internet are graphics-intensive sites that take a year and a half to load. Not all of us have Pentium IIIs or cable modem or T-1 lines. All I could suggest is that the font could be a little larger. But that's being a little picky. I have mentioned that I would be interested in a FrontPage 98 theme to move to a more graphical base but none have been forth coming. I don't think most people realise that adding graphical buttons would dramtically slow down the site.

I hear what you are saying about your frustration in getting a little co-operation from the makes of other commercial games--Brian Lara, EA World Cup 99, for instance. I wonder what their problem is--bias against independent developers? Perhaps you should write and post your own reviews of the commercial games, with your own frank analysis of what's right and wrong with them. (Maybe you do already--not sure. Haven't had that much time to really study them.) These commercial developers perhaps don't know that your site is practically the only way I know what's going on in the cricket games world. That's where I find the links that take me to their websites. Maybe if I'm impressed enough, I'll place an order. It's not hard. I really don't know what the commercial companies think. Codemasters are now ignoring emails which is just plain rude. Despite phone calls to EA and leaving messages they have not yet replied. Creative Assembly have ignored all emails and their phone number isn't even available from Directory Enquiries.

By the way, I'll take your word that you're not an artist, but you seem to write pretty well, so I wouldn't be afraid to do things like that. Well no-one has yet responded to the one article I did write on what should be in cricket games. I would be happy to have other people write articles but most people can't be bothered. Most want the downloads only and quite a few expect all the games to be free!

I'm sorry so few of your respondents have registered ITC or have ordered the CD-ROM. They don't know what they're missing. I've invested in the full, enhanced version, and I haven't been sorry a moment. Great fun. Thanks for the endorsement. Whilst some people might not like ITC and that is their choice I would have thought the CD-ROM would appeal to any cricket fan and it is considerably cheaper than ITC.

The comments about more stuff for people in the States is a lot of hooey. Cricket is practically invisible over here, and there's no sense in denying it. So tell me what you can do about it? I can write a letter every day of the year to ESPN, and it's not going to make any difference--you won't be able to find cricket on TV here. The TV networks are hung up in their very parochial vision of what sports entails in the U.S. and what is commercial. Then you take that and you ADD to it the horrible ineptitude of the U.S.A.C.A., very well described by the U.S. site developer on CricInfo. Oh, let's get off that soapbox--it won't change anything. But, as I say to anyone who will listen, it is VERY hard to be a cricket fan in the U.S. So thank God for the Internet.

As for today's comment about the delay in ITC 1.30 or the Cricket Manager program, people don't seem to understand that you are doing this in your spare time, away from the job. Realise that a lot of your readers seem to be a bit on the young side and may not have grasped the necessity of adults being able to put food on the table. I mean, that's why this response is so delayed--I had a bunch of night meetings to cover last week. (True, the week before, I was studying for my baseball draft!) Oh to be young again with loads of spare time and no commitments.

("FIFA 99"? Isn't FIFA the international soccer governing body? Or did I miss something?) No you did not miss anything, FIFA is the international soccer governing body.

Contribute? I would if I had something worth saying. Time is a problem, but a bigger one is access to the games. I don't buy a lot of games. It cuts into the rest of the family budget. I don't know. Do you have any ideas I haven't thought of?

Simulated tests. I played a few and sent in scorecards and articles. But that was between my sports seasons, a little down time. There have been too many tests, all in a short period of time. And my other duties picked back up--the winter sports season started. The last one I simulated had two full days wiped out by rain and two-thirds of another day. Oh well. That much rain could happen (did several times with tests this year in New Zealand). There did seem to be a lot of tests - sometimes it was hard keeping up with them all.

I didn't mention Cricket Manager as an awaited game because my impression is that its development is on the slow track for now. In other words, it won't be out for a while. I think most of us who visit the site and play ITC would like nothing better than to see Cricket Manager come out. But, like I said before, you have to put bread on the table. Admittedly development on Cricket Manager is a little slow at the moment. I do want to try and get ITC v1.30 (probably the last release) out first and will then continue with Cricket Manager.

As for PBeM: First of all, belated thanks for your kind comments about my Frozen North league. I enjoyed it a lot, and I hope to run another league this fall--starting in early November, after the World Series is over. Apologies for only announcing the league on the PBeM mailing list and not mailing you directly. We didn't have an England side, but I guess we muddled through. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I enjoyed running it, too. PBeM is great fun and I hope to start a fairly large one here as soon as possible.

About playing PBeM: I understand why you don't allow bad light or rain to shorten matches and create so many draws. But I think it would be good to have more weather effects, if only for the fact that the outfields are usually very fast. The wickets do deteriorate and lose their bounce, but there should be slow outfields at time--I suppose you could say that it rained overnight. Will have a think about that - it is normally the rain that slows the outfield.