[DEC 2023 Update] News on Drift Stage publishing talks and information.

[DelkoDuck]

[AUG 2023]
Greetings and salutations, thank you for allowing this release to go as smoothly as possible, and helping me put a dent in my medical bills. I can say that end has been successful, though I wouldn't report Drift Stage's early-access release as a financial spectacle.

I've decided to make this sticky post going over the publishing talks before posting a news feed update. It's very wordy and details some of the issue's I previously couldn't speak on, so please give it a read - it accounts for a lot the silence around why Drift Stage never came out, and why updates stopped in 2019.

The organization and ability to communicate allowed by the Steam platform has made releasing new information a lot easier then what I was facing in 2018/2019 - with announcements spread out between 3 very public social media accounts, and one very private Kickstarter. So with everything finally released, the last of the backer keys distributed - and a reliable refund mechanism in place through Steam, I can finally speak on what has been causing all of the silence and lack of updates to Drift Stage, despite having nothing but interest and hype surroundings it existence since 2014. A trait I have yet to see repeated since, by any project. Even the unannounced Steam release from earlier this year saw multitudes more positive reactions then i was expecting - but that makes the following update all the more important.


Cont.

[DelkoDuck]

UPDATE STARTS HERE:

Due to the interest around the early-access release of Drift Stage earlier this year, an informal agreement was reached with an yet unnamed publishing company in May 2023, along with an estimate of resources required, necessary budget to complete what was left unfinished, and a timeline to release; but we've been held up by more issues regarding the games original programmer - so nothing can be signed or formalized yet - and they can't work on Drift Stage until its settled.

The need for a formal document signing off on the code from Drift Stage's former programmer "Chase" is necessary if a new entity acquires the game, as it would in a publishing agreement of this nature. Something "Chase" has never delivered, even after his departure in 2019.

Please understand "Chase's" departure was not smooth or professional, and had come after years of absence and a very public, very unaccounted for admission on his social media. This lead to a lot of unnecessary expenses, a lot of confusion that required counsel from our legal partners. it was unclear how we could proceed, as no formal process was undertaken by the exiting partners.

The subsequent missed release goals, and difficult nature of the programmer and musician abandoning the project - lead to the decision of having to cancel the game's early-access release in 2019.

I had no options but to do so without any notice, as things had moved into legal counsel, as the absence of these key team members and their contributions made operating the company impossible. During this process I was told not to speak on the subject.

"Chase" was simply not delivering finished or releasable builds of Drift Stage, and the features needed to meet those release goals were left unfinished or ended up broken due to the addition of new features, that "Chase" chose to add without any discussion; all of which were outside of the budget and scope or Drift Stage's initial funding and design documentation, especially at that point - where we were four years behind original projections.

This caused a lot of confusion and controversy - so having the opportunity to account for this and give context to what was going on has been on my mind for the past four years. That isn't how I wanted to handle things, and it wasn't an easy thing to do. None of this was easy, after crunching for six years (2014-2019) with a budget meant to last one year. A lot of the actions taken by the individuals that I used to work with on Drift Stage, as a team and as people I had considered friends, still make no sense to me.

With that said, here is where Drift Stage stands:

Two months ago, in May, after successfully concluding talks with an interested publishing company, I sent Chase a clear and simple release that would allow for the immediate restart of the project, but so far I've heard nothing back.

This isn't too surprising, considering his past behavior and the lack of communication - but its very time consuming and very disappointing - after all of this time, to continue to prevent the immediate conclusion to this project, and a full release - as was intended in 2016.

This issue prevented a possible publishing deal in 2020 as well, and the delays and setbacks of the initial release windows in 2016-2017; So I hope this information brings better context to the lack of updates or activity since 2019.

With all of this going on, there is too much liability to speak on behalf of the actions of someone who left the project and has been otherwise uncooperative, and any publishers interested feel the same way regarding his contributions to the game. These same concerns are echoed by individual programmers who have contacted me regarding taking up the job themselves. Even if they're willing, they're unable to once they understand the situation.

Concerning the lack of updates during all of this, I can only make announcements regarding what the operations of the company and project entail, and what I plan to do to meet those goals. Not the personal issues or disputes of someone who won't communicate, has come forward publicly with undisclosed mental health issues, and generally has not been forthcoming or realistic with the needs and responsibility of delivering a project like Drift Stage, or even accounting for set-backs. That task was left to me.

This has made updating or keeping people informed about Drift Stage almost impossible, I legally couldn't speak on the matters relating to "Chase" until very recently - and bad news with no solutions or context isn't what people what to read - so I opted to account for everything before releasing the Steam version, and before publishing any information on the problems with "Chase" and his abandoned source code.

As soon as I hear back from Chase - I can contact the publisher and we can see if we can still work the game into their schedule. We missed the 2023 Q2 window, with talks starting just after Q1, in Feb 2023 - right after the Steam release went live. Anything that develops from this point forward would need to fit into a feasible timeline. Usually within the same year, so I don't know how long it could take, even if we get the document we need from Chase before the fall (Q3/Q4).

Had I received a release from Chase in June or July, work would already have started on finishing Drift Stage, and you would have seen a return to the operations you all enjoyed in 2016/2017, with backing by an organized studio with management and resources.

I hope Chase can overcome whatever issues he's having and stop preventing Drift Stage from living up to its potential. I want to finish what we started and keep what we had in 2015 going. Its all very possible right now, but the window of opportunity is closing the longer I have to wait for Chase - or if he chooses to ignore everything and never respond.

Thank you for your time, with any luck public support will get this pushed through.

- Super Systems Softworks

[Edited for grammar.]

[DelkoDuck]

[Update}
As of Nov 2023 the document required to publish Drift Stage has been obtained. There won't be any need or reason to take the current version off the store.

Here's whats happened:

I've re-initiated discussions with the publishers - the amount of time taken to get the document we needed signed has effectively restarted the process - so we're looking at Q1 2024 before any decisions will be made (next month). I'll be contacting the other studios who were interested as well, but that was years ago. I don't know if they're looking to pick up anything as of recent. What with all of the diabolical schemes and otherwise "bad circumstances" that have resulted from the most auspicious year of 2020.

Just to let them know we have the paperwork they wanted.

Certain individuals reviewing the source code have been notified, allowing for more options outside of publishing. The goal is to finish the original game and hand the code off to a professional studio with the right backing and staff to handle a project with Drift Stage's audience and demand; but logic would dictate porting the games engine to something more modern, given we're nearing the 10 year anniversary of the first build of the game.

____________________________________________________

Thats the end of this post-interim-pre-update-recap-forum-post overview. If you have any ideas or requests for the website, steam page, or content that's included with the Steam version - please feel free to post them in a new thread.

[Edited for grammar & relevance].

[DelkoDuck]

Please check out the new website: https://driftstageofficial.com/

The new site has only been live for about a two months - so I'll be adding new features and pages as they're needed - in the future posts like this can be posted directly to the website instead of the steam forums.

This template was developed in 2018 as a solution for the twitter account and the website. Serving all of the purposes and needs of the original 3 social media accounts, while linking into the download pages, and Youtube.

Thus reuniting the web-ring and creating a stable loop from one presence to the next, meaning you can circumnavigate from one page to the other, and back.

If I'm successful in getting the page back up, I wont be updating it much, as I feel social media is counter productive when there isn't any viable development - but we had a good following on there and a lot of people are still active on it vs Twitter now known as "Ex", spelled capital "x", or "X" for short; but otherwise know as capital "x" app, or "X app" but never "X App" as title conventions dictate.

The official Youtube channel will be reactivated as well - that has been low on the agenda - considering the combination of subscriptions on old personal account and the official DS account there's over over 1K subscriptions. I think we (meaning myself, and you. the games player and fan base) should try and capitalize on that and see if we can still get 100K+ view videos.

I'll be addressing the Steam Trading cards and emojis as well, the files required for the backdrops needed to be remade - I've had them finished since June or maybe even May of this year, but I haven't set up any of the cars and scenes for the actual content - only some test renders that went into my portfolio.

---- End Post.