Gamasutra Expert Blogs: From Beat Hazard to being taken seriously

In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including platform sales data from indie hit Beat Hazard, how to be taken seriously by publishers or funders, and more. In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the latest official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs Most Programmers Can't Read Code (Robert Dieterich) It seems like a paradox, but it just might be true: most programmers can't read code (effectively), according to Robert Dieterich. For many programmers, it's much easier to write code than to read it. It's also more dangerous. So, what's a poor coder to do? Learn to read, of course! Crash and Churn (Simon Ludgate) When players churn out of your game before they get past the load screen, you have a major problem. How novice game designers can be taken seriously by publishers and funders (Lewis Pulsipher) Lewis Pulsipher offers some advice to novice game developers to help them be taken seriously by publishers or funders, and shares a cautionary tale about designers who spent "seven years and a million dollars" to make a game. Beat Hazard grosses $2 Million - A sales comparison (Steve Hunt) Beat Hazard is the first game Steve Hunt released as a solo Indie Developer. It's nearly three years old and is out on XBLIG, PC, Mac, PSN, iOS, and Android. Here he compares his sales data from the different platforms.