I'm starting to get a little more into the community of game dev, and have come across this question about the way the developers implemented random base decay in the original space invaders. To me, this question appears off topic, and mildly counter-productive to the user.
Coming from Arqade, we tend to auto-close anything asking for developer intent. This reason is often disputed; Developer intent often requires a sense of speculation, given that we generally can not directly ask the developers, themselves. In some cases, the questions are met with actual reference to cases where the developers were asked identical questions. Given the answer is thus available, the question usually survives; but not without edit to remove the request for developer intent. I.E. Dev. intent in the question would be removed, but providing dev. intent in the answer is acceptable.
In terms of game developing, using the original code or method to replicate the intended behaviour may constitute breaking copyright. You can get away with cloning a game if you figure it out independently, but directly attempting to copy a games code or method can often lead to severe penalty.
My stance on the subject is that we should help the user figure it out, but not by telling them how the original did so, so they may simply copy it.
However; None of the close votes appear to adequately match any viable reason to close the question. I am use to having an "alt" reason, to allow me to enter my reasoning in a text box; but could not find the option available.
Am I wrong in that these questions are/should be off topic? If not, is there a valid reason I should choose / means to provide an alternate reason?
If such questions are off topic, how should I go about VTCing them?