update on bass.dll:

http://www.un4seen.com/

It turns out, bass.dll is a product that can be rather costly if you make use of it for non-commercial products(it is free for non-commercial products). It is 100 euros for a shareware license, 850 euros for a single commercial product, or 2250 euros to do whatever the hell you want to with it.

So, if I desire to sell my own stuff made with the popcap framework, I either have to buy the bass license (not likely), or figure out how to rip it out of the code (ding ding ding!)

However, at this point, I'm really not interested in selling my own stuff, so I'd submit a game to popcap for publication, which means I don't have to pay anything to use bass.dll anyway.

Q: "Why don't you want to sell your own stuff?"

A: Because I don't have a sales and support department.

Q: "But... couldn't you be your own sales and support department?"

A: Yep, and I could also hammer nails into my skull, but that doesn't mean I should do it.

Q: "How is being a sales and support department like hammering nails into your skull?"

A: I'm glad you asked... you see, filling orders and handling customer service emails is about as fun as... well, hammering nails into your skull.

Q: "But filling orders is automatically taken care of by some online product, isn't it?"

A: True enough, but somewhere between 1 in 10 to 1 in 1000 orders get Screwed Up Somehow(tm), and the idiot who didn't fill in the proper ZIP code in the right box is emailing you, whining about it, and threatening to write the Better Business Bureau and sue you for damages.

Q: "And shouldn't you, as the creator of a game, be the one to provide customer support?"

A: No. My job is to write the game and to fix any bugs that come up. This does not mean that I have to hear about the bug from the customer.

Q: "You just don't like people, right?"

A: Bingo.