So it was just a take the money and run scam.
I wonder how much they really will get. As per Steam’s policy, they won’t receive the payments until January 30th. By then, tons of people have time to request for a refund. They are also apparently more generous on the refund window. (more than 2 hours)
Uh, have you not seen how many game studios are collapsing? It’s more likely an “oh crap we’re bankrupt interest rates jumped and we can no longer pay our loans’ carrying costs”.
The interest rate jump screwed a lot of businesses that depend heavily on loans to make it to profitability.
They probably took one look at their launch-day take, compared it against their loans, and said “fuck this we’re filing for bankruptcy and I’m and going to go get a regular-ass job”.
Lol no, not for this one. This was scammy from the start. The weird thing is they had decent games out before this. Why would they intentionally screw up so badly idk.
Why would they intentionally screw up so badly idk.
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
They probably started with an overambitious design, took some ill-advised short-cuts, and pivoted the to the “extraction” format after they’d already marketed it as a different concept, and made a bad gamble or two. Normal gamedev stuff. Same as every Molyneux game.
A few years back this could’ve been another No Man’s Sky story where they fix it after launch… but that means going deeper and deeper into debt while you salvage the mess you’ve made. Post-COVID interest rates make that impossible. So now they’re broke and the project they spent the last years on is a stinker and they don’t have enough runway to fix it.
So they’re done.
I first learned about the patient gamer lifestyle in like 2017.
I’ve been through No Man Skies, through Fallout 76s. I been seen big budget AAA games take over TV and now aren’t even heard of again (Anthem, all those superhero games like Gotham Knights and Avengers, Babylon’s Fall). I’ve watched multiplayer games rise and fall.
And if I’m ever curious, I wait and pick up the best version of the game when it is at 90% off.
And best part of this patient gamer lifestyle - games like this, I never even have to bother with. Doesn’t even phase me.
Join one of the PatientGamer communities, usually a good way to find out interesting older games you may have missed in the current and/or previous hype cycles.
I didn’t even LEARN about the patient gamer lifestyle, just fell into it. There’s too many games and not enough time.
Also discovered my local library system, which has pretty much every game. Just borrow and played resident evil 4 remake from the library and I already have a hold placed on Mario rpg, so even new games I can get there
I’m in the same boat, and I have been for a loooong time. It’s awesome, because, half the time, I see a game get super cheap, and I’m like, I’ve been waiting for this moment for 5 years (eg, Skyrim.) Then, the other half the time, some amazing game will just fly by my head and I won’t even notice, like, huh, wtf is this, $5 and like 50,000 YouTube videos about it…? (Eg, Just Cause 2.)
I put hundreds of hours into both Skyrim and JC2, for a total of like $10.
I’m playing Yakuza series at the moment and never even knew this game existed until I heard how shit it was.
I’m not always a patient gamer, but I’m never disappointed when I am one
The problem is many multiplayer games are fun on release and for a few months and then die off. If I get my moneys worth during that time im willing to pay full price. But I usually buy the game after a few days/weeks. But for single player games I also go the patient route.
Yet another reason to never buy games on release.
Now they can’t get sued for not doing anything with the kickstarter money yay!
People are so desperate to never experience a moment of FOMO in their whole life that they’ll buy some terrible looking game like The Day Before. Rips off TLOU like crazy, but otherwise looks like complete shit. You’re not going to be a popular youtuber. Stop trying to keep up with youtubers who get sent games for free.
There is never any reason to pre-order a game. Like, ever. It’s always stupid and reinforces terrible incentives that drive the enshittification of gaming. Even when the devs aren’t straight up scammers, preorders mean they can be profitable before they’ve even released anything so they’re incentivized to put out whatever half-baked garbage they can.
