Let's use a car analogy...

So every time someone makes an aftermarket car stereo, Honda/GM/Ford has to stop the assembly lines, and work with the little aftermarket company to change their car's dash design to accommodate that stereo?

The only time you will see a video card manufacturer work with a game developer is when there is some manner of AAA+ title that is going to account for more than 10+ of the gaming market. The Call of Duty and Battlefield series are good examples of this practice because they are a huge portion of the market and it makes sense to cater to them.

AMD/ATI accounts for over 1/2 the graphics market. They're the big dog and they got there not by working with every little blip of a gaming company, but by making excellent hardware and drivers that these companies are supposed to work with. If they did decide they wanted to work with Maddox Games, can you imagine that nightmare? Working with such a buggy game that pretty much changes 1/2 its code with every patch? I honestly think that ATI made the right decicion to ignore MG. Maddox Games can decide to not support ATI, that sounds like a good business decision and one I'm surprised they didn't make given the "great" judgement they have shown so far.

Ati: Ok, we we have decided to work with you to improve Radeon card performance and compatibility with Cliffs of Dover.

Maddox Games: Thanks, we really appreciate that.

Ati: So what's the problem?

Maddox Games: No full screen, FSAA doesn't work, you're leading edge card only gets about 15fps in our game and has blue lines on the horizon, we have issues with objects clipping, shadows flashing, LOD issues, Crossfire doesn't work. . .

Ati: See you later, call us when you have a working game.

The bugs are not ATI/Nvidia's fault. Both companies have tons of cards on the market that work perfectly with hundreds of different game engines (new and old). The fault lies squarely on Maddox Games and their code.