Bossa Studios, do the right thing here.

[Korben]

You promised us an interesting game and in return, we gave you our money, time and support. At the time, I thought it was a fair exchange. It cost me the same amount as a polished release for a AAA title. The only difference here, is that we had to reply on your promises to get this game to the release phase. In short, we paid for something that we are no longer going to see, for the better interests of your company?

If the company was going under, there would be a different understanding of the current situation, but you told us you were giving up on this game and going to work on your other games instead. Oh and…if we want a refund for the game that was promised and then abandoned…no can do, unless you bought it within the last month. Basically, anyone who supported you does not get a refund?

From my perspective, this feels pretty shady.

- Over the last year there has been a noticeable and declining progression towards production for this game. So slow, it has been nearly non-existent to the end. The cosmetic store could have made you a lot of money, but you abandoned it too, shortly after it was released.

- You deny all refunds at the time of abandonment, unless it was purchased within the last month. I always wondered why you never bothered to advertise this game. Wait, are you using worlds adrift revenue to fund your ‘other’ games? Your actions are answering this question.

Your compensation package:

- Refunds for cosmetic items only; though I really doubt most people would bother themselves to return a 1 or 2 dollar item, I know I won’t and I think you guys knew this when you offered it.

- You offer us 2 games that most people would never play, no matter how free they were. The people who do care about games such as these, probably already own them or have since returned them.

This compensation is unfair to us, insulting even. It is time to do the right thing and let those of us who want our money back to be able to get it. A real and proper compensation, for not holding up your end of the deal. It was your mistakes and poor decision making that led us to this conclusion here. We gave you our money, we tested the game for you and reported the thousands of bugs. We should not be left with nothing to show for it in the end.

How many people do you think are going to continue supporting you after you just scammed your own supporters like this? For the better interests of your company, indeed…

[Nar'Gall]

Imagine this: you hear about a new MMO on the web. You get interested, the game is launched, you buy a copy of it and perhaps a subscription.

For a couple of years, said MMO goes from its early stages, full of exploits and bugs (like most MMOs under the sun, ever) and a year or so in, it stabilises and start to get better. Not perfect, not the final article (because no live MMO is ever the final article, as it keeps forever evolving). Devs continue to work on it.

Yet, not many players buy the game. Eventually, after a couple of years, dev announces it can no longer keep it going, and it's going to shut it down. It stops charging you a subscription, and will keep the game alive for another two or three months for you to play.

This has happened before. A lot of times, to a lot of MMOs.

Now, how's this different from Worlds Adrift on Early Access? We didn't charge a subscription. That's the difference. The only difference.

Case in point, we could just as well take the game out of Early Access a couple of months ago. One would argue that it had bugs, that it wasn't ready. And yet, no MMO ever is. They all need to constantly improve, to patch new exploits, and so on. Some more than others, sure, but still...

The reason why you think we 'scammed' you (which is a pretty lame scam, one where we end up losing 3X what we made in sales, but hey...) is because you have a view of what Early Access should be. But that view is not necessarily what it is.

Early Access is a place for projects, for games, which are not in a state most players are comfortable with: they have too many bugs, they will get wipes, they will change. Not everyone is ready for that.

Apart from this, there is no difference whatsoever from an Early Access launch or a Full Launch or a launch outside of Steam. Well, there is one: some players think that because a game is on Early Access and it gets cancelled, there is a special case in place.

Worlds Adrift was a playable game on day one of EA. Some people has played it for more than 2,000 hours. Will you really say that they didn't get their money's worth out of it? What if we were charging subscription, would that be right then?

EA is a great section of Steam to allow projects to come out earlier, and get player feedback to make them better. It's not some sort of special case where players who bought a game suddenly are entitled to a new layer of protection where if something goes sideways, the developed can never cease to develop. Why would this be when this is not the case outside of EA?

Think about it...

[Korben]

Looks like you prepared this pitiful speech for the onslaught that you knew you would receive for screwing us over. All this reply shows is the type of people you really are. Entitled to our money and will take zero responsibility for it. It is our fault for supporting you, well done. Setting excuses and examples that do not even compare to the situation. Those other MMO's at least released their games, you did not. EA is not a release of the finish product that we were promised.

If you can justify treating your customers this way, you will not have many customers for long. I will never support your shady company again. Thank you for the lesson, it has been hard learned.

Imagine this? Think about it? What the hell is wrong with you?

[Fran]

Originally posted by Nar'Gall:

Imagine this: you hear about a new MMO on the web. You get interested, the game is launched, you buy a copy of it and perhaps a subscription.

For a couple of years, said MMO goes from its early stages, full of exploits and bugs (like most MMOs under the sun, ever) and a year or so in, it stabilises and start to get better. Not perfect, not the final article (because no live MMO is ever the final article, as it keeps forever evolving). Devs continue to work on it.

Yet, not many players buy the game. Eventually, after a couple of years, dev announces it can no longer keep it going, and it's going to shut it down. It stops charging you a subscription, and will keep the game alive for another two or three months for you to play.


Think about it...

I would argue that the game is very close to being finished. You guys have super long patch notes with hundreds of changes in the last two months. The game finally doesn't run like a potato on most hardware. And then the next month you're shutting it down before word of mouth can even reach people that it's finally playable/fixed.

Your studio did an incredible thing crafting this world and it's really cool and all. The game is far beyond 20% finished and it doesn't need monsters or more creatures. It just needs a world where people can actually meet one another, because right now the world is massive, open, and empty.
That is not a good thing for open world PVP.

So here's the test most game devs use: "Would it be better as a Battle Royale?"
If your PVP game is so lame and boring that it'd be better as a BR, then your game needs changes. Sea of Thieves added BR this spring. THAT game didn't really need it. But your game feels 10x more empty than SOT, where the community was already saying to increase the players per server, don't increase the map size ever again. That game has a core gameplay loop of picking up quests that you probably won't finish and then fighting every player ship you meet and maybe some of the NPC ships or monsters. Your game just has like... a vague feeling that the world is beautiful and amazing. And it's so good that it keeps some people glued to it. But most people wanna play a game where there's a lot more player interaction.

[Nadda]

Bossa Studios has the funds to keep the game alive, AND you never properly updated the game to begin with. The game has received minimal updates. Bugs are slow if ever fixed.

Bossa killed the game by barely working on it.The game was supposed to be released 3years ago. You admitted in the video it had only 20% of the planned content for release. 1/5 content 3years late. How about you actually work on the game we purchased?

What I've thought about is how much Bossa has ripped us off. How I will never purchase another Bossa game again. How I will encourage others to not purchase Bossa games again.

Bossa will not update your game. Bossa will not provide promised content. Bossa will then cancel the game when it inevitably fails due to neglect.

[Fran]

Originally posted by Fatikis:

The game has received minimal updates. Bugs are slow if ever fixed.

Bossa killed the game by barely working on it.The game was supposed to be released 3years ago. You admitted in the video it had only 20% of the planned content for release. 1/5 content 3years late. How about you actually work on the game we purchased?

These are the only two things I knew about this game before seeing the announcement that it's shutting down. Word of mouth is just too slow to fix the game's bugs and then next month shut it down.

[Nar'Gall]

Originally posted by Fatikis:

Bossa Studios has the funds to keep the game alive, AND you never properly updated the game to begin with. The game has received minimal updates. Bugs are slow if ever fixed.

Bossa killed the game by barely working on it.The game was supposed to be released 3years ago. You admitted in the video it had only 20% of the planned content for release. 1/5 content 3years late. How about you actually work on the game we purchased?

We updated the game 30 times in the past year, every update meaningful and as large as we could make them. Yet, not large enough, as we stated when saying that 90% of our time was spent on making it work rather than making it better. There isn't much more to say about this, really.

[Nar'Gall]

Originally posted by Korben:

Looks like you prepared this pitiful speech for the onslaught that you knew you would receive for screwing us over. All this reply shows is the type of people you really are. Entitled to our money and will take zero responsibility for it. It is our fault for supporting you, well done. Setting excuses and examples that do not even compare to the situation. Those other MMO's at least released their games, you did not. EA is not a release of the finish product that we were promised.

If you can justify treating your customers this way, you will not have many customers for long. I will never support your shady company again. Thank you for the lesson, it has been hard learned.

Imagine this? Think about it? What the hell is wrong with you?

Korben, I understand you are frustrated, we all are. But that doesn't change what EA is, nor how it works. Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny nor obnoxious here, but the truth is people are turning EA into something it's not.

Here, straight from the EA tag on any game you buy, and from its FAQ:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.

[TescoClubCardUK]

Originally posted by Nar'Gall:

Originally posted by Korben:

Looks like you prepared this pitiful speech for the onslaught that you knew you would receive for screwing us over. All this reply shows is the type of people you really are. Entitled to our money and will take zero responsibility for it. It is our fault for supporting you, well done. Setting excuses and examples that do not even compare to the situation. Those other MMO's at least released their games, you did not. EA is not a release of the finish product that we were promised.

If you can justify treating your customers this way, you will not have many customers for long. I will never support your shady company again. Thank you for the lesson, it has been hard learned.

Imagine this? Think about it? What the hell is wrong with you?

Korben, I understand you are frustrated, we all are. But that doesn't change what EA is, nor how it works. Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny nor obnoxious here, but the truth is people are turning EA into something it's not.

Here, straight from the EA tag on any game you buy, and from its FAQ:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.

Clearly too many companies like yourselves are abusing the whole " This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further "

Just because that is listed in Steam, doesn't mean that it is in anyway legal. Will people seek complete legal action against your company? Probably not, the average gamer doesn't have the cash spare, so you've most probably gotten away with scamming people.

I called B******t on that part about losing 3x what you earned on sales, if anything, I'd say that the money you got from this game, you pumped into developing other games.

For that reason, after taking millions of pounds off of people that supported the development of this game, Early Access needs to be abolished, will stop companies like yours from using it as an excuse for a cash grab.

[Nadda]

Originally posted by Nar'Gall:

We updated the game 30 times in the past year, every update meaningful and as large as we could make them. Yet, not large enough, as we stated when saying that 90% of our time was spent on making it work rather than making it better. There isn't much more to say about this, really.

I don't care about your excuses. I care about you a large company ripping me off like all devs in EA seem to be ok with. 30 tiny updates in a broken game is not anything.

I purchased the game and played 8 buggy unfun hours with the promise the bugs would be fixed, and real content would be added. Heck after playing those 8hours I gave Bossa the benefit of the doubt and didn't even give the game a negative review.

Only after you've ripped me off have I rated the game.

[Nar'Gall]

Originally posted by TescoClubCardUK:

For that reason, after taking millions of pounds off of people that supported the development of this game, Early Access needs to be abolished, will stop companies like yours from using it as an excuse for a cash grab.

That's not the case. Again, we spent on WA's development 3x more than it made in sales, plus years of our time. To suggest this is somewhat profitable... It's not correct.

Making games is hard and expensive. Making an MMO is an order of magnitude so. We had dozens of people working on WA for years, it's not rocket science to multiply their salaries and get to the value.

But that won't ease yours nor anyone's frustration.

[Nar'Gall]

Originally posted by Fatikis:

I don't care about your excuses. I care about you a large company ripping me off like all devs in EA seem to be ok with. 30 tiny updates in a broken game is not anything.

It's very hard to carry on a discussion in any direction if one keeps on going back to something that's factually incorrect. I'll paste below a single changelog of one of the 30 updates you label as tiny (this is not even our largest one...):

https://www.worldsadrift.com/patch-notes/will-of-the-council-update-29-patch-notes/

On your 'all devs in EA seem to be ok with', maybe you expect EA to be something it's not. That's important, because the core of EA is about games that are in development and may not see the light of day, nor be what people want them to be. This is quite clear on every EA disclaimer and in its FAQ, and is quite a contrast. EA tries to put it to players that this situation may indeed happen, and does so a lot:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.

[Alien Queen]

game need true GA to help them to be same as heros and generals they did got less players then this warframe and now they got more players then warframe on this time right now ther liek 60 70 players in wf and in heros and generals tons more game got som potencial and bbe onle fair tell they shud keep game online to players play whit ther frends maybe multi co op somting to keep game online if they go same as evolue they onle lost time and money and game loke nice som stuf cud be change and be greayt but if they give up they never get up agen i may self stard game from one tiny map and end as one big RP survial game with gust form nc soft EA and blizzard on may server dont give up.

[Korben]

Originally posted by Nar'Gall:

Originally posted by Fatikis:

I don't care about your excuses. I care about you a large company ripping me off like all devs in EA seem to be ok with. 30 tiny updates in a broken game is not anything.

It's very hard to carry on a discussion in any direction if one keeps on going back to something that's factually incorrect. I'll paste below a single changelog of one of the 30 updates you label as tiny (this is not even our largest one...):

https://www.worldsadrift.com/patch-notes/will-of-the-council-update-29-patch-notes/

On your 'all devs in EA seem to be ok with', maybe you expect EA to be something it's not. That's important, because the core of EA is about games that are in development and may not see the light of day, nor be what people want them to be. This is quite clear on every EA disclaimer and in its FAQ, and is quite a contrast. EA tries to put it to players that this situation may indeed happen, and does so a lot:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.

Just keep repeating yourself, your shovel is digging a really nice hole. You are using excuses and loop-holes to explain why you scammed us out of a final product. This isn't the US presidency race here.

You are in the wrong here, not us. Your responses read like it is my fault for supporting you in the first place. Why can't you admit that you screwed us and apologize? Stupid question, I know.

I was clearly asking too much when I made this discussion, why in the world could I possibly think that Bossa would do the right thing. I feel like a complete idiot for trusting your company and your responses have been nothing but toxic to read.

[Nica]

Originally posted by Nar'Gall:

Originally posted by Korben:

Looks like you prepared this pitiful speech for the onslaught that you knew you would receive for screwing us over. All this reply shows is the type of people you really are. Entitled to our money and will take zero responsibility for it. It is our fault for supporting you, well done. Setting excuses and examples that do not even compare to the situation. Those other MMO's at least released their games, you did not. EA is not a release of the finish product that we were promised.

If you can justify treating your customers this way, you will not have many customers for long. I will never support your shady company again. Thank you for the lesson, it has been hard learned.

Imagine this? Think about it? What the hell is wrong with you?

Korben, I understand you are frustrated, we all are. But that doesn't change what EA is, nor how it works. Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny nor obnoxious here, but the truth is people are turning EA into something it's not.

Here, straight from the EA tag on any game you buy, and from its FAQ:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.

Doesnt steam equire EA titles to ALWAYS have a working game. If your doesnt after you close down the server service, you might face some legal issues. Not an expert on this though, but just look out for it

[Antuan Cross]

I have played well over 400 hours of this game, and though I would have loved to see a completed version I consider I got my moneys worth.

I am disappointed, this game had incredible potential and I was very excited about it, but for whatever reason it just didn't take off like some other titles do. I don't know if the studios PR department was to blame for not getting the word out effectively enough, or if it was truly as niche as it appeared to be. Whatever the case I don't feel "scammed" or cheated, just disappointed.