So: LastFootnote, sorry for being unnecessarily dickish.
Likewise, apologies for getting unnecessarily angry.
As a side note, I dug through Goko's code and it looks like it is written entirely in Javascript. This is problematic for a number of reasons. My fear now is that "fixing" Goko will necessitate an entire rewriting of the Dominion code to something more stable and server-side.
This article is fairly non-programmer-friendly which explains the limitations of Javascript: http://programming.oreilly.com/2013/07/javascript-is-way-too-slow-for-what.html
For the coders out there: http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/
EDIT: Oh gosh. Since everything is handled client-side, it's extremely easy to alter certain things. See attachment:
Thanks for the linked articles. Being a software and web developer who has worked nearly exclusively with garbage-collected languages, has spent virtually no time thinking about memory management, and who is now working on a mobile version of our web application, I found it extremely interesting and helpful.
Luckily(?), new management at Goko is already aware that Javascript is not going to work out for making games on mobile devices. Back in August of 2013, they stated that
they're developing a native iOS version of Dominion. Assuming our problems with Goko stem from overload of their servers, this could be good news
as long as the mobile version(s) use the same servers as the web-based version. Since I believe the initial goal was to have desktop players be able to play with mobile players, this is a possibility. It's probably not going to happen, though.
What's probably going to happen is that the two versions will be completely separated and the web-based version will get the bare-minimum attention it needs (or less). Rio Grande will continue to contract with Goko because the iOS version will probably succeed far more than the silly web-based version (unless they totally botch it, which is possible). We will therefore be stuck with laggy, unreliable Dominion Online as it currently exists, since it's pretty cheap to keep those servers running while New Goko works on other, more profitable things. Sorry for being a pessimist, but that's how I see it going down.
One would typically expect contracts like the RGG - Goko contract to contain clauses requiring performance standards. The fact that they haven't been triggered implies one of several possibilities: 1) they are no such clauses; 2) Goko has not breached those performance standards; 3) RGG is unaware that Goko has breached those standards; 4) Goko has not yet had enough time to breach those standards; 5) RGG is unwilling to trigger the clauses; or 6) they have been triggered, and we just haven't heard anything about it.
You are a lawyer, and I am most definitely not, so I'm legitimately curious as to why you think such clauses would exist. It seems to me like there's no guarantee in the contract that Goko would even deliver any sort of product at all, let alone one that meets any standard. They claim to have bought over a hundred licenses for games, yet they have delivered three.
This article seems to indicate that there is no obligation at all on Goko's side. The contract is most likely primarily to protect Goko from any other competing implementations of these games that might arise (like
isotropic).