Void Interactive is officially "invested in other games through a few other teams in different game genres"

[soulicro | TAMA]

Despite assurances on this forum that Void Interactive isn't diverting efforts onto other projects[1], and despite a disclaimer on their website that "the proceeds of this presale will go entirely towards supporting the development of Ready or Not"[2], Void Interactive has confirmed in their interview with "80 Level" that they "are also now invested in other games through a few other teams in different game genres"[3].

In addition, despite not having released an update in six months and the small team's ongoing delay in releasing version 1.0, they have managed to put aside the time to be in the early stages of planning Ready or Not's DLC. The full quote is as follows (emphasis mine):

Originally posted by Void Interactive via 80 Level Interview:

VOID Interactive's Future Plans

The most important thing we have in front of us now is completing all the levels, content, and upgrades we have in store for 1.0. We continue to focus on gameplay, performance, and on creating immersive environments. While we will continue to maintain and improve Ready or Not beyond 1.0, we also plan to create additional features and levels to be offered as DLC.

We also are in the early stages of planning the Ready or Not expansion, which will take the same SWAT concept to another country, using their Special Response Teams and scenarios that are reflective of that locale. We are also now invested in other games through a few other teams in different game genres (more on that later).

We have also been seeing incredible demand to take RON to consoles and other platforms and hope to make announcements about that soon.

Thought people might want this pointed out and that this might merit a discussion.

[1] https://steamcommunity.com/app/1144200/discussions/0/3820788154591443790/
[2] https://voidinteractive.net/
[3] https://80.lv/articles/ready-or-not-devs-on-the-game-s-mechanics-npc-ai-early-access-experience/

[soulicro | TAMA]

Not sure why the formatting isn't being parsed properly, trying to fix it.

*Edit*

Fixed.

[Rox]

DEAD GAME

[XŦĦ§¥]

It's been obvious for a while, but white knights and anti-complaints activist are rampant around here.

It's been ages since we had any solid news, OTHER THAN:
-Discover the amazing recent MODS !!
-Hottest screenshots of the month !!

There is absolutely no excuses, for not keeping your playerbase informed.
No matter if updates are delayed by a long shot.

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

As Kaminsky already confirmed in the other thread, which you linked to but didn't include:

Originally posted by Kaminsky:

VOID has not and will not abandon the game, the problems do stem from a variety of sources but that has done nothing but slow the pace of development. I did go into some of them in our 'State of the Game' newsletter, but not all of it, as some of it is some complex issues that I do not have the character limit to fully explain.

As for the accusation of OP centering around there being a 'Skeleton Crew' left working on RON, that could not be farther from the truth. In fact the team has grown from the start of the year to include many incredibly talented individuals from our incredible modding community, industry veterans, and promising new developers, and unfortunately on boarding their skills into our work flow and structure takes time which has been a slight cause of work flow disruption.

I do genuinely understand users frustration, as does the studio, the most I can ask of all of you is to please be patient as we work to bring you the game we have promised you.

Originally posted by Question:

So are you, or are you not at VOID, now also working on another project, instead of having 100% of your crew working to get this one where it was supposed to be?

Originally posted by Kaminsky:

We have 100% of our Development team working on Ready or Not, yes.
Everything the studio, which in this context means the community team and business dev team, is working on with outside contractors and other companies is directly to support Ready or Not, its' full release, coming updates, and post 1.0 updates.

[Sgt. Osiris]

You guys really need to find more hard hitting evidence if you want to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the developers. I am sure you can find something, things like this just make your hatred against VOID look like a vendetta instead of being legitimate.

We are also now invested in other games through a few other teams in different game genres

This is called publishing. Will be neat to see what VOID decides to publish considering their history with their previous publisher.

We also are in the early stages of planning the Ready or Not expansion, which will take the same SWAT concept to another country, using their Special Response Teams and scenarios that are reflective of that locale.

The direction they have planned for the DLC has been known for sometime. This is a throwaway quote.

I think your guys' grievances would be much more impactful if you focused on actual issues. For example, the lighting and the AI being the way they are. Flashlights are almost useless compared to how they were in the previous update and the SWAT AI have gotten worse. What is the reason fixes for these issues could not have been rolled out already? Focus on that.

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Originally posted by Liberty Prime:

Wait Sinner. We might have different opinions but I don't believe you are disingenuous or a liar. So I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Do you dispute that the interview OP posted is real? Because if it is real, then it IS true they've been developing other games. If it's not true, then just say it's not true and let's be done with it. If that interview actually happened and those words were said, that means that people were banned for speculation and we're actually right. And even more seriously, the devs lied.

He took exact quotes from the interview and websites, so I'd be lying if I said he was lying about them. However where we differ is with the interpretation, as Kaminsky clarified, with 100% of Voids development team remaining on RoN while their business/community teams are supporting outside "contractors/companies." The exacts I know as much as the community does.

And no, Wacky will not be unbanned. His post is very different from this one, and the claims he made are very different. Void investing into other teams =/= Void has abandoned the game and left a "skeleton crew"

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Originally posted by Sgt. Osiris:

We also are in the early stages of planning the Ready or Not expansion, which will take the same SWAT concept to another country, using their Special Response Teams and scenarios that are reflective of that locale.

The direction they have planned for the DLC has been known for sometime. This is a throwaway quote.

Osiris is correct here. Ready or Not has been planned to receive at least one DLC. I forgot the exact phrasing of it, but it's been known since I believe the closed alpha days that RoN would receive one DLC set in an "international" theme, or something along those lines.

Going through Supporter Discord, I can't find anything confirming any progress on any DLCs besides Ropolio mentioning that he was working on his concept art to replace the placeholder models in-game and potentially moving onto concepts for future expansions afterwards. Was about a month ago.

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Originally posted by Liberty Prime:

Cut for space

Steams page mentions nothing about that. What the quote is from is from Voids external website where you had to pre-order the game ($40) or buy Supporter Edition ($120) to access the closed alpha, that page is heavily out of date and does not reflect current Ready or Not. The only up to date thing on that website is pretty much the Twitter embed integration. It is planned for an update, but I do not know the specifics or the timeframe.

The interviewee actually spoke on the topic of funding and confirmed RoN has generated more than enough funding to get them to 1.0, and I would imagine the extra money will be used to support the game past 1.0 as well as whatever outside teams they're supporting.

Originally posted by Level 80 Interview:

As the pre-sales funds began to dry up, we had a short stint with a publisher in 2021 which was ended through a mutual agreement later in that same year. We had always resisted going into the Steam early access program too early, as we were afraid that bad reviews for a very rough and buggy game would hurt our chances of success in the future. As such, we are incredibly grateful to Steam for giving us enough runway and development keys even though the game was not yet available for sale on Steam.

So while the game was still not ready, we felt it was in a good enough state to finally launch it into early access on Steam on December 17, 2021. Being on Early Access has helped us generate the necessary additional funding to continue to grow the team and invest in our game without the need for a publisher. Our game launch on Steam Early Access was so successful that it has guaranteed that we have the resources to get to 1.0 full release on PC and even to eventually take it to other platforms.

Basically, I have confidence in the team based on speaking to the devs and previous interactions to finish the game. I am also excited for any future content they bring post 1.0, which includes the PVP, as well as future plans for Void as a company. There's a lot of room for speculation on this, so I'll have to keep an eye out for more info drops as they come

[soulicro | TAMA]

Originally posted by 『Sinner』:

As Kaminsky already confirmed in the other thread, which you linked to but didn't include:

Originally posted by Kaminsky:

VOID has not and will not abandon the game, the problems do stem from a variety of sources but that has done nothing but slow the pace of development. I did go into some of them in our 'State of the Game' newsletter, but not all of it, as some of it is some complex issues that I do not have the character limit to fully explain.

As for the accusation of OP centering around there being a 'Skeleton Crew' left working on RON, that could not be farther from the truth. In fact the team has grown from the start of the year to include many incredibly talented individuals from our incredible modding community, industry veterans, and promising new developers, and unfortunately on boarding their skills into our work flow and structure takes time which has been a slight cause of work flow disruption.

I do genuinely understand users frustration, as does the studio, the most I can ask of all of you is to please be patient as we work to bring you the game we have promised you.

Originally posted by Question:

So are you, or are you not at VOID, now also working on another project, instead of having 100% of your crew working to get this one where it was supposed to be?

Originally posted by Kaminsky:

We have 100% of our Development team working on Ready or Not, yes.
Everything the studio, which in this context means the community team and business dev team, is working on with outside contractors and other companies is directly to support Ready or Not, its' full release, coming updates, and post 1.0 updates.

Again you're putting forth the exact thing I said and again you're trying to put a positive PR spin on it (at least this time you didn't start out by calling me "very disingenuous"), except this time you've also went ahead and declared your own answer as the "answer to this post", which I've now removed as it most certainly isn't:

Literally the first thing I put forward is that Void has assured customers they aren't diverting efforts from the development of Ready or Not, with a source to back it up (which also had a developer put forth his own answer as the "answer to the post", meaning the the text you quoted is prominently showcased on the very first reply).

In addition, the last quote you posted literally states that everything the studio is working on, including work with outside contractors and other companies, is directly related to "supporting Ready or Not, its full release, coming updates, and post 1.0 updates". This was directly in response to a question that asks if "100% of your crew working to get [Ready or Not to] where it was supposed to be". This isn't down to interpretation, it's down to reading comprehension.

In any case you've failed to address the second issue, which is that Void clearly states that all the funds from the presale of the game will go towards "supporting the development of Ready or Not". This leaves us with a glaring contradiction on Void Interactive's part - either Void's own attention being solely directed towards the development of Ready or Not is false, or Ready or Not's early access revenue going solely towards Ready or Not's development is false. Both of these aren't answered by your own post which you've marked as "the answer".

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Originally posted by Liberty Prime:

It's not just a matter of money, it's also manpower. Investing resources into other games with other teams means that those resources aren't being used for RoN and can obviously delay the game and updates further. This might explain the slow development, and it's what a lot of people speculated before VOID came out and admitted it themselves

I'll refer back to Kaminsky's quote

Originally posted by Question:

So are you, or are you not at VOID, now also working on another project, instead of having 100% of your crew working to get this one where it was supposed to be?

Originally posted by Kaminsky:

We have 100% of our Development team working on Ready or Not, yes.
Everything the studio, which in this context means the community team and business dev team, is working on with outside contractors and other companies is directly to support Ready or Not, its' full release, coming updates, and post 1.0 updates.

And again from the quote from the Level 80 Interview

Originally posted by Level 80 Interview:

We are also now invested in other games through a few other teams in different game genres (more on that later).

For the same reason that I've had to clarify in the past that doing community events doesn't affect development, investing in other teams (to what extent isn't clarified) doesn't mean that the RoN development team isn't hard at work. You can have business teams working with others games to fund them/invest into them, and you can also have Game Producers working with the development team to deliver Ready or Not. Void has already confirmed they hired on new staff directly for RoNs development in the past.

And to finalize this, because this thread will likely go in circles repeatedly, as they've said in the same interview

Originally posted by Level 80 interview:

The most important thing we have in front of us now is completing all the levels, content, and upgrades we have in store for 1.0. We continue to focus on gameplay, performance, and on creating immersive environments.

...

We have received a lot of valuable feedback through Early Access (some more scathing than others), which has allowed us to identify and address issues with our AI system that we wouldn’t normally pick up on in our internal QA sessions. For example, players have pointed out instances where the AI was too aggressive, or unreasonably resisting surrender after repeated stun effects (flashbangs, tasers, pepper spray, etc.), which helped us fix and fine-tune their behavior. There are many instances like this, but I would be here all day if I talk about them all.

We collect the most common complaints and make solving them one of the priorities for our upcoming updates. A common example would be how our suspect characters moved way too quickly during combat, which had become a huge issue that people weren't satisfied with, so we put some focus on crafting a new movement system for suspects to slow them down and keep their movements readable, as well as adding "surprise" animations to ensure that there's a grace period for players to understand what situation they're currently in.

[soulicro | TAMA]

Originally posted by Sgt. Osiris:

This is called publishing. Will be neat to see what VOID decides to publish considering their history with their previous publisher.

"Please remember that the Beta build is still an incomplete version of the game. It will still have bugs and quirks, and will require lots of additional content before it is ready for full release. Because of our Supporters and with your help, we will continue to push Ready or Not, adding more content (new maps, missions, characters, weapons, etc.), and further refining it to get the game up to the standard that you deserve. We ultimately want you to be able to turn the lights out, crank up the volume, and be immersed in the action – bringing order to chaos." (Steam page description)

We didn't pay Void to become publishers, we paid Void to develop Ready or Not "to the standards we deserve".

Originally posted by Sgt. Osiris:

We also are in the early stages of planning the Ready or Not expansion, which will take the same SWAT concept to another country, using their Special Response Teams and scenarios that are reflective of that locale.

The direction they have planned for the DLC has been known for sometime. This is a throwaway quote.

Yeah, we knew the direction. We didn't know they were already "in the early stages of planning" it, which directly implies further work has been done.

Originally posted by Sgt. Osiris:

I think your guys' grievances would be much more impactful if you focused on actual issues. For example, the lighting and the AI being the way they are. Flashlights are almost useless compared to how they were in the previous update and the SWAT AI have gotten worse. What is the reason fixes for these issues could not have been rolled out already? Focus on that.

You mean like this? "Is this game a scam?" Part 1, "Is this game a scam?" Part 2.

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Originally posted by soulicro:

Literally the first thing I put forward is that Void has assured customers they aren't diverting efforts from the development of Ready or Not, with a source to back it up

In addition, the last quote you posted literally states that everything the studio is working on, including work with outside contractors and other companies, is directly related to "supporting Ready or Not, its full release, coming updates, and post 1.0 updates".

In any case you've failed to address the second issue, which is that Void clearly states that all the funds from the presale of the game will go towards "supporting the development of Ready or Not".

You quoted a website that is around 2-3 years old, if not older, as mentioned it is severely out of date and was written likely around the time that Void was under a publisher or during the time they were independent. They didn't have guaranteed funding to finish the game, which they even clarified in the interview that they have more than enough to finish the game. They clarified in the interview that they have more than enough funding to get the game to 1.0, and to continue to support the game past 1.0 with DLC and the planned PVP mode.

You also included in the quote, but decided to not comment on, "The most important thing we have in front of us now is completing all the levels, content, and upgrades we have in store for 1.0." Void has repeated repeatedly, through the interview, the community managers, and even developers on the Discords, that their priority is getting RoN to 1.0. This includes new maps (6), more modes for existing maps, replacing placeholder models, new weapons/gear, overhauling the SWAT AI, overhauling voice actor lines, overhauling the suspect/civilian AI to be more diverse, optimizing the game (size and FPS), and delivering a product worth $60 on full release.

They have an internal development team, but they also contract outside people to do things like motion capture (which I believe they showed off in the Sins of the Father letter, but that may be an in-house mocap from what they've said.)

Development plans change, in the same article you quoted they mentioned that early access release they weren't confident the game would take off. For as much as they knew, it could flop and the game would fail because they didn't have secure funding anymore. RoNs success has allowed them to expand their team and scope of the game and deliver on promises like the game, at least one DLC, the PVP mode, and potentially console releases (which they said they'll comment on later.)

As Kaminsky said, not only the CMs but the developers understand that players are frustrated with the pace of development. If you read through the entire article, you will see comments about what they're currently working on, what they're addressing, and the feedback that they've been working to address.

[stburr91]

So Void is taking the money generated from RoN, and investing it in other games instead of RoN...that would explain a lot.

[soulicro | TAMA]

Originally posted by 『𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinn:

You quoted a website that is around 2-3 years old, if not older as mentioned it is severely out of date and was written likely around the time that Void was under a publisher or during the time they were independent.

It most definitely is not 2-3 years old: at minimum it was last modified on Thursday, May 25th, at 08:55:18 GMT (go ahead and check the HTTP header yourself *Edit* actually here,[i.imgur.com] I did it for you) and, at a cursory glance, at maximum it was updated 11 months ago (the trailer posted on the homepage).

they even clarified in the interview that they have more than enough to finish the game

What does this have to do with them allocating funds from the presale in a way they specifically said they wouldn't do?

You also included in the quote, but decided to not comment on, "The most important thing we have in front of us now is completing all the levels, content, and upgrades we have in store for 1.0."

As I said, the very first thing I put forward is that Void has assured customers they are solely focused on getting the game out. What else would you like me to comment on in that regard? Why do you keep bringing this up as if I didn't?

They have an internal development team, but they also contract outside people to do things like motion capture

This is not a response to my criticism of you saying: "However where we differ is with the interpretation, as Kaminsky clarified, with 100% of Voids development team remaining on RoN while their business/community teams are supporting outside "contractors/companies.", which is false according to the quote you referenced yourself.

in the same article you quoted they mentioned that early access release they weren't confident the game would take off.

No, in the same article I quoted they say: "[...] while the game was still not ready, we felt it was in a good enough state to finally launch it into early access on Steam [...]"

RoNs success has allowed them to expand their team and scope of the game and deliver on promises like the game, at least one DLC, the PVP mode, and potentially console releases (which they said they'll comment on later.)

They literally haven't delivered on any of these things, these are all still promises.

As Kaminsky said, not only the CMs but the developers understand that players are frustrated with the pace of development. If you read through the entire article, you will see comments about what they're currently working on, what they're addressing, and the feedback that they've been working to address.

I didn't mention being frustrated with the "pace of development", I feel like the topic I raised was pretty succinct - I'll repeat it again for your convenience: this leaves us with a glaring contradiction on Void Interactive's part - either Void's own attention being solely directed towards the development of Ready or Not is false, or Ready or Not's early access revenue going solely towards Ready or Not's development is false.

[the BIG sloppy]

how dare they cheat on me

now all i have is rosie palm and her five sisters

and my handsome dopey big strong bot AI boys god bless their souls (they're really trying)

as spongebob would say, "The gang's all here" before crying all alone in his dark room with a tissue and rosie palm (and her five sisters)