Who cares about boxes these days? Can you even buy a fucking PC game, especially an obscure indie one, in a store these days? Digital is where the action is and that's the main reason why publishers lost influence - the traditional distribution channels are simply not needed anymore.
Well I don't care about that either. But I do care about WHEN. As an independent project it should be shipped when done and ready. Now, Grunker, didn't they tell you in person that it would be done and ready on February 28th? Why the hell didn't I get the game then?
First and foremost, creating an impression that they don't care about the backers and breaking a promise made to said backers was a mistake. Reputation, goodwill, and such are very important factors for an indie developer and damaging them in exchange for some unclear benefits should never be done lightly.Steam is the biggest distribution platform and could be decisive of a financial success of a game. Now, if any of you were at the head of a company, who just realized that by your own means you won't get into Steam - would you go and try to get there through another distributor or a publisher? Yes, it means a lower royalty percentage on your income from Steam, but lower royalty is better than none (and with good marketing the actual money earned could be more that if you did it yourself) and I definitely would have made the choice they did. Now you can yell at me tooI was warned about it last year when registerting here, I guess the time has come
If the game wasn't ready and simply needed more time, nobody would have said a word. The issue here is that the game was ready but held back, despite the commitment to the backers, because of a last-minute deal with a publisher.
Ah, good, Grunker has finally embraced the spirit of potatos defending Twitcher to the last breath
Come on guys, I think you are too much here into conspiracy theories. I asked Logic Artists at some point how well they were doing on Steam and they told me that it was not that good. They probably planned to release E: C themselves on smaller platforms like Desura and Gamersgate and if I knew they exact situation, I actually would recommend them talking to someone like bitComposer. The terms they describe in the update seem good and fair and while the communication could have been handled better, I think they did the right thing.
Steam is the biggest distribution platform and could be decisive of a financial success of a game. Now, if any of you were at the head of a company, who just realized that by your own means you won't get into Steam - would you go and try to get there through another distributor or a publisher? Yes, it means a lower royalty percentage on your income from Steam, but lower royalty is better than none (and with good marketing the actual money earned could be more that if you did it yourself) and I definitely would have made the choice they did. Now you can yell at me too
Thanks to our Kickstarter supporters, to you guys, to many others our game (Legends of Eisenwald - thanks, Infinitron to remind include the name) is right now at place #11 at Greenlight so there is a good chance we will be greenlit soon. I am happy and proud about this but at the same time I am relieved that we don't have to face a choice like Logic Artists and our delay by now is longer than what they had. I am actually impressed they almost finished the game already, I wish I could say about our game the same thing.
About adding a multi-player. In a hypothetical situation someone would request me to do a multiplayer now, I'd say our game would be delayed by a year or longer. Why? Because the game engine and tools are not made for multi-player and none of the game design solution included something like this. So, if they are adding a multiplayer, they probably planned it quite some time ago and implemented at least support for it. In indie game development adding multi-player in a month? This is just undoable... I don't know their exact situation but my guess would be that they implemented multi-user support from the beginning with a thought that if they have some spare time, they would add it. It obviously depends on the multi-player scope but that's what I think.
Our next big update is in the works, we will talk about delay too, prepare your tough words, gentlemen!
Ah, good, Grunker has finally embraced the spirit of potatos defending Twitcher to the last breath
This one I think everyone is in agreement. Sometimes it just gets too stressful, so I personally can easily forgive them for this little thing. They must be doing lots of stuff at the moment...
Well, I definitely would love to get some advise on marketing effort. We wrote press releases, contacted many sites, and response so far has been not so big. Partially, that is probably result of the state of our game (which is still raw in some aspects). But in general - it's not so easy to get press write about you. Now, with the Greenlight campaign, I feel like it's Kickstarter all over again. None of the big sites wants to write about us and it's actually them who create the biggest influence. Hopefully, it changes when our game is more solid, but still, that's not something that is very easy to do.
Exactly, so they should have delivered the single-player game they promised to their kickstarter backers, when they promised it without the unexplained last minute delay due to the publishing deal. After that they were free to do whatever deal they wanted with publishers, including taking on board the 'publisher influence' and adding multiplayer or whatever else the publisher required before agreeing a deal. Instead we got this:
The Article said:
The delay is due to distribution shenanigans, but we will of course make use of it to fix bugs and apply polish. Because of said shenanigans, I can't give you a new release date yet, because it's out of our hands - we're waiting on word from above (or below, depending on how you look at it). We're aiming for mid-March, but please don't hold me to that, you never know what calamity will hit us next
I understand that they need to get a distribution deal besides just sending the game out to backers. I understand that delays happen in game development and bugs need to be fixed. But the above examples of the communication we've received seem like a pretty shitty way to treat people who've backed your project. If they'd updated us a few weeks before it was due, to explain they needed a bit more time for bug fixes I'm sure noone would have complained (much). But if your aim is to 'polish' and 'fix bugs' you don't then keep implementing new multiplayer features. If you've raised funds on the premise of a single-player game then getting that right should be your priority.
Do I really have to explain this one? I understand that you met them and like them and ate their doritos, but surely you see that what they did wasn't the best move?
I thought that their KS was fairly successful, no? Almost 80k for virtually unknown developers. I thought that was the very idea - crowd-fund our game and we'll make it for you (not some publisher).
So, the KS promises mean nothing to you?
This. Compounded with his utter inability to communicate and say things in a straight manner. I know that games get delayed. Shit happens. But when the delay is because back alley deals and when the supposedly indie and community-aware developer just take a dump on its backers... Well
This.
It IS a big deal!!!