New Interview with CEO about Molyneux, 22Cans, and Godus

Gmr Leon, I don't think anyone's honestly suggesting that 22Cans is engaging in any of this for the sake of cartoon villainy. If anything, one would like to think that the community takes issue with the fact that Simon and Colin have been perfectly willing to continue the unscrupulous behavior Molyneux pioneered, even taking it to the next level in certain respects, while the former taunts/belittles users on the Steam forums and the latter refuses to engage with the community in good faith. We would like some honesty, and there are plenty of "moves" 22Cans could take without spending a dime that could repair the customer-developer relationship, but they choose not to do so. We're not just blindly condemning them for everything that isn't a miracle. Mandrake has articulated this point quite well in that regard.

I'm still at a loss to what either of you are expecting and/or pressing for. When I said that much of the negativity we're reading into it was due to its context, I was mostly trying to indicate that "better" projects/developers (e.g. EA/Ubisoft/etc.) behave in a similar fashion yet aren't often called out for it, mostly because they at least partially deliver on their bullshit spin. However, we continue to spin in critical place here because they haven't even come close to partially delivering and toss up the same old crap as if it's getting us anywhere.

Incidentally, it's a highly mutual relationship of throwing crap around, as we've all noticed. The solutions to avoid this are pretty simple, and no, it wouldn't necessarily take miracles, but it seems pretty evident at this point that 22cans has no real intention to nor perhaps any belief that it can turn its worst critics around without either of the extreme solutions I've mentioned here and there (refund/salvage the game).

All this implies is that they're probably resigned to the same old crap development pattern we're accustomed to of neglect design feedback, release and only half-polish it, continue to next feature and rinse and repeat. Any pushes to see them change that have shown only a willingness to say they will and subsequently fail to do so, so...Yeah, what's the plan for all this posting we're doing?

Until 22cans breaks their habits and plays ball, it's all just us waving warning signs to anyone that may have missed the shitshow. If 22cans is adamant about anything, it's about maintaining their precarious status quo of opacity and neglect despite themselves.

What do I expect? Some simple, basic solutions they keep tap-dancing around, and those solutions do not need to involve the evil "r word".

It involves 22cans to be honest, which is why we're not going to see the likes of EA or Ubisoft use Kickstarter or Early Access, because their development style is obviously unsuitable for either.

The whole obfuscation around the development, along with the crap around why the dev team is so small, appears to be the main problems I've seen expressed lately and for quite a time. That is easily changeable and none of us here are the ones who decide it, so whenever 22cans is tired of having pessimism about their operations then they know where to start.

It would be the first step towards open communication and honesty, which is an obligation on 22cans' part for participating in the Early Access program.  When the least bit of that showed up in the past the community was right behind it and appreciated it to the point that era is fondly remembered. Therefore it only seems logical for 22cans to try for that again as any means of mending anything with the community.

That would go a long way, but it appears that 22cans would rather believe everyone is telling them that they suck without any useful information to offer.

I am tempted to lock this thread, it has been run into the ground.

Does anyone have anything that is not, "I hate 22cans, 22cans sucks, or F@ck 22cans" to say? If not, please take all bashing about 22cans to the "How not to PR" thread.

Look guys, if you want say this stuff, feel free, but we don't want 10 threads of it. I will be looking into merging some threads in the next few days.

I don't think anyone has said anything like that in this thread, but rather have discussed the problems around the development of the game and how 22cans operates - this time about the CEO completely misrepresenting the community.

I dunno...folks have written what they expect for quite a while, though with a bit of grumbling at how 22cans repeatedly makes mistakes, only for 22cans to indeed think the quoted is all they have to say.

I'll have to bring in an example from the Steam forums of the feedback they've been continually ignoring:

Which threads?