How to NOT PR:

Ah! In that case, my apologies. 

These things can happen especially when there was no way of us knowing that.   Communication breakdown on both sides! 

I don't. Not by someone who's paid to be the PR guy.

simon22cans - I hope you can forgive me taking a while to get back to you on this, but I had to consult my mates about a gut feeling I've been having for some time. I don't think you're trying to be an asshole, but mentioning the Early Access caveats while not following the Early Access Rules and Guidelines really does come across as a dick move.  Especially when your customers have basically bought a Free2Play game with a debug/edit mode for $20/£15.

Since you've been rather forward with us so far, I don't think you're trying to be an asshole, but what you said REALLY could be taken as a "Well, you bought it - SUCKER!" to one of the numerous people 22cans has fucked over - a company you're now the director of.  So I take your responses to them on the Steam forums to be from one of a position of ignorance rather than spite towards your company's customers.

It is clear that you haven't been given full disclosure of company and products by the former and current staff of 22cans, and now you're expected to administer the legacy they have provided for you.

That wouldn't surprise me, as traditionally honesty hasn't been what anyone could consider a strength of 22cans, though I hope they at least remembered to mention Bryan Henderson to you.  Any word on how his life is "changing" this year?

This may be of legal importance to you; this failure to fully disclose company information of this sort by the effective owners of the company may in one way bite you in the arse, or may be of some defence to claim that the same owners' witholding of information negatively impacted your ability to perform as director of the company and therefore you shouldn't be held accountable for any action taken against the company involving those matters. It would depend upon the laws involved, and I'm not going to pretend to be fully knowledgeable about all that may pertain, but uh...how 22cans has conducted business hasn't just stepped over the line, it wiped its arse across that line like a dog with worms.

It is folly to pretend that 22cans hasn't lied to their Kickstarters and defrauded the Early Access program when there's tons of evidence - including Peter admitting outright to a lot of this.

Now about company policy, which should be within purview of your duties as director, and be of interest to you:

The reason why I persistently mention refunds is not just for PR reasons, but it also releases 22cans from a ton of legal problems, on both sides of the pond. One from UK/EU consumer laws for bait and switch fraud in Early Access(1), but also in the States for contract fraud amounting to several hundred thousand US dollars(2).

A refund policy should really be common sense at this point - even Steam had to follow suit, and it had generally been the digital distribution trend-setter. In this case, it had to play catch-up. The main reason for a refund policy for a faulty product is not just to appease customers - it allows those customers who are so dissatisfied, likely abused as I have documented, to be inclined to raise formal complaints (in various forms) against 22cans a reason to NOT continue to want to do so.

Without such policy, 22cans looks like they're inferior to the likes of those who have done similar but have been brought under publisher review:  www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1069874

"Reboot" isn't going to hold off legal responsibilities and problems for 22cans, only actually addressing those problems will work.

You might even get thanked, which as you might know by now, is not often received by 22cans.

The perception of 22cans' old info, without really being replaced except for "Look at future updates!"(3) is quite noticeable upon Steam now that folks are able to speak about such matters a bit more openly (the 24 hours from love to hate thread). They're just pointing out the huge information gaps still left that need to be filled, and in some cases, replaced. That old roadmap, for example - people still think that applies without it being noted as obsolete on the document itself!

If this really is a "reboot" of 22cans then it needs to actually be something of the sort, as expecting folks to forgive without 22cans changing much of anything of how they operate is...well, then that "reboot" just becomes a flimsy ploy to make people think that something is going to change when it really is not.

"Chinese Fire Drill" to use one phrase.


1 - 1.3 vs the current state of the game. 1.3 was around the time I wishlisted Godus on Steam. It looked promising, but I was going to hold off on it for a while to see how development went - turns out that was a smart move.

What people originally bought has since been replaced by an inferior version that removed features in favour of F2P mechanics and barely-disguised paywall mechanics that STILL really invalidate Steam's refund policy because they are so drawn-out.

How the hell do you think people NOW are going to feel after they realise they've bought a F2P title with simply sped-up timers and the ability to edit?

How are people supposed to react when they were coaxed into buying the current state of the product long ago...only to now somehow have the red ring of doom turn the Xbox into a literal brick with no return policy?

THIS is 22cans' crime of bait & switch, on top of the shit with the Kickstarter. Any intent on Linux, since that's in the Kickstarter contract, or is it just another "oopsie" through shite planning?

The bait:  web.archive.org/web/20130921080229/http://store.steampowered.com/app/232810

The switch:  store.steampowered.com/app/232810/  A game that is just a F2P title with some cheats enabled/available, which doesn't do anything about the game otherwise.

How Godus is still being sold upon several sites:  www.gamestop.com/pc/games/godus/113571  According to this, multiplayer battles are already in the game.

People already understand the potential burns of Early Access development and those who might abuse it - 22cans gave it to them well. They can be reminded of this by the likes of Fragglerock Ampersand, and have been by that fellow and others for quite a few months by the allowances of the moderators and 22cans, though coming from a developer themselves...comes across as quite the "fuck you" to the customer.

You're also getting the filtered version of customer ire in many cases - I often get to read a lot of the unfiltered stuff, and it's nowhere as kind.   But I do wonder why it appears that 22cans wants to retain those so thoroughly dissatisfied with 22cans.

2 - The State of New York - but since this is over the internet involving parties from both US and other countries...the FBI might like to get involved.

3 - The Steam Early Access rule changes(4) also say to not have people bet on future development, so...sorry, that doesn't quite work anymore. Expecting your customers to shoulder the financial risks for your company is similarly addressed by the Early Access rule changes.

4 - Expectation of what Godus is desired to look like as a finished product by the developer is a wee bit more fundamental of an expectation to have than if saves will be wiped.

I actually agree with their statement as well, that Simon and Colin HAVE been far more active with the community than patronising videos that do little but insult the intelligence of the viewer, along with what often seemed like begrudging interaction like how dare 22cans have to deal with customers after taking money from them. Along with delivering a PC title.

I actually would like to see matters improve for the overall community tone to improve. But that isn't going to happen if folks are going to receive basically the same thing they could receive from those who go "LOL you bought Early Access, you have no right to be angry." while seeing the developer yet again passing the buck about company refund policy.

I think colin22cans and simon22cans have seen how irate some folks are over this. Telling people to go kill themselves isn't nice nor acceptable, but that is how irate some customers are over being scammed, and they might have been Kickstarter backers (who REALLY have reason to be irate). The previous CM/PR folks tried...but then burned out when they had to try and enforce two narratives completely at odds with each other. When you're on your fourth community manager in a bit over a year...there's a problem. (A bit more here about why ex-Lionhead SamVT left: steamcommunity.com/app/232810/discussions/0/558747922964281598/ )

This is why I am inviting them to directly address the issue, and part of it was showing them how it looked, along with pointing out solutions for these problems. I have also pointed out the core reasons why folks are completely fucked off from 22cans since it appears that others at 22cans are still in "kid hiding mummy's broken vase behind the sofa" mode to keep details hidden from the person expected to direct the company. THAT is giving them a fair shake, as otherwise if they continued to run through the Bullshit Bingo of Early Access dirt merchants...it would have eventually resulted in a far bigger mess and more direct ire at them, ruining what good they are doing.

 A "fair shake" for 22Cans requires a paradigm shift for many people here, as it appears all of you seem to have continued to misunderstand the context we find ourselves in. An awful number of community members seem to have gotten into their heads the idea that a "fair shake"  means expecting 22Cans to engage in a Pyrrhic redemption of engaging the community on honest terms and working in good faith at a time when it is least financially viable for them to do so. That is, for lack of a better word, idiotic.

    22Cans has declared the game to be finished, barring content patches centered around the "real"(their words, not mine) version of the game on mobile. Said mobile version provides the revenue that keeps 22Cans afloat until the Trial, and holds a spending audience that, by and large, is unaware of anything Godus-related beyond the updates that make their way to mobile. The new CEO of 22Cans, Simon Phillips, has a lovely history of developing cheap shovelware and most recently headed up a now-defunct mobile games company. Under his leadership, Godus' combat seems to be no better than the mobile-focused "feature" we were led to expect by the prior team, and even seems to have been drastically downgraded into a slapped-on minigame. Former employees  have raised post-mortem concerns regarding the ascension of 22Cans into just another dime-a-dozen freemium mobile developer.

    In the context of that rather droll outline, we can fill in the rest of the puzzle from there. The investors/board/leadership of 22Cans presumably want to keep their company alive, and the transition we are currently witnessing is a direct result of that. The necessity of making the shift from "that game company run by Peter Moyneux that screwed up on Kickstarter" to "indie mobile games developer making the Trial" defined the last couple of months for 22Cans in the same way Double Fine Productions was (successfully) obliged to go beyond Spacebase DF-9. Mr. Molyneux has been moved out of the spotlight, though remaining generously compensated, in order to prevent him making any more nasty promises 22Cans has no intention of keeping, such as "Multiplayer by Easter" and "All the Kickstarter goals are going to get done", as in his second-to-last interview.

    The new and improved face of 22Cans are Simon and Colin. No longer does 22Cans have to leave the PR to the heavy-handed antics of Aynen and Muir, what with their history of carrying water for shady companies and lying about employee departures. Instead, Colin is here to deliver the company line with a smile on his face and Vaseline in hand. Simon, though, is the real deal. Whereas Molyneux kept up the pretense of actually fulfilling Kickstarter rewards and insisted on making a show of holding 22Cans to the promises it had made, Simon has mastered the art of corporate messaging. Assurances of dedication and hard work abound, but whenever there's a promise to be kept, Simon cheerfully affirms his absolute devotion to meeting Kickstarter goals and then makes a point of qualifying his almost-promises with neat little asides about "constant commercial realities" and "commercial views". At the end of the day, when you can't afford to make real changes to development, the next best thing to do is sexing up the existing hackery with a nice splashy show of communication with all sorts of explanations for mobile simplifications and design charts to make sure people know 22Cans is working like dogs to make Godus great.

    I suppose the opportunity for the "fair shake" much of the community envisions passed away a long time ago. No sane person here could expect 22Cans to make any sort of PC sprint, in the same way no sane person here could expect the "Making Of" documentary to catalog the side of 22Cans that induced Sam and Fabs to quit. An honest fair shake at this point would be to keep trying to nail our elusive friends to their promised PC sprint, and hope that Simon does the same number on 22Cans as he did at his last job. Only thing we can do before The Trial arrives and a new mobile revenue stream frees them from any Godus promises.

If anything else, I'd like everyone to consider a question before they go back to manning the walls of One Last Time. Would Simon's horse-and-pony show of concerned communication and extensive explanations have made the Story any different? Or would it still be a monetized abortion "edited" by James Leach? Somehow I don't think the new CEO's catalog of weasel words and design charts might've made a difference either way.

Without my going into a huge diatribe and rehash of it all again....I can sum up in one word what upset me the most about backing Godus.



Deception.

I think the most telling thing about our new friends at 22Cans is that Simon keeps qualifying his posts with quiet asides about the "business view" when promising/referencing/outlining development. That tells me more than his recent history at a defunct mobile shovelware studio does.

It really boggles the mind how  it is considered "better communication" to carry on the same practices as the prior administration, ignore player feedback in lieu of PR excuses, and explain development with creative deception about the reasons behind carrying on said practices. I mean, even Peter Molyneux promised to fulfill all Kickstarter goals, the fact that Simon refuses to is rather eye-opening.

Game is to start with 22Cans of laeger. For times when you can't just stop laughing.