Blame PlayWay, not RedDot.

[Badger]

I've been reading a lot of threads tonight, In particular the Performance parts DLC thread.

To be fair to Red Dot, most of the blame falls on PlayWay.
Yes, Red Dot as created the buggy mess that is CMS2018, However PlayWay, Being the Publisher dictates quite a lot of things, So I'll take this oppurtunity to explain how a lot of games ( but not all ) get to be produced and how things have ( seemingly ) turned as the way they have.

1. Deciding to create a game: This can go two ways, either a publisher has an idea for a game and goes to a developer ( generally already on their 'books' but not always ) or a developer wants to create a game and pitches their idea to a publisher.

2. After a game has been given the ' go ahead ': Sourcing of tools and the actual game creation falls directly on the Developer. Publisher will pay for anything required by the Devs and also pay the Devs bills ( salaries etc ) while the game is made. ( Publisher normally gets the lions share of income once game is released in exchange for cash upfront ). Also I'll point out that the Publisher will give a Developer a strict budget, anything over that is a cost that generally will need to be covered by the Developer, as the game contract would already be agreed opon.

3. Features and game direction: Mostly this falls on the developer, Although often it's a joint decision with the Developer mapping out the direction and timeline of features and the Publisher adding further input. Decisions on what will be DLC and won't be, would generally be a Publisher decision as they need to make money back and they form the decision based on sales projections.

4. Marketing: Purely Publisher. The Developers generally have no say on how the game is marketed, although they can suggest ideas, that sole decsion falls on the Publisher. Any advertisments on features and any trailers made is generally made by the Publisher. ( Although in some games, NMS comes to mind. The Developer can make statements on possible features and possible release dates.

5. Beta Testing: This is normally carried out by the Developer but can also be undertaken by the Publisher ( depending on size of the company ) as a addional QC method.

6. Release: This one kinda falls in both camps. The Developer will give a ( sometimes rough ) estimate on when a game should be ready for release. The Publisher will then set a release date based on said prediction. Once a game is ready for release both Developer and Publisher should test out the entire game, to ensure no bugs.

As you can see, the decision on DLC ( as stated by Red Dot too ) is purely PlayWays one. RedDot may make the features, but PlayWay would ultimatly control how and when they are implemented.
So I don't blame Red Dot for that.

The Bugs? Both of them are to blame. But i do suspect that CMS2018 was running quite behind schedule and PlayWay wanted something to release and somewhat forced Red Dots hand, with Red Dot then playing catchup and using us as testers, instead of beta testing themselves.
As PlayWay holds the ' red button ' for release, I'd still blame PlayWay more as if they had even one staff member spend a day playing it, they would've known not to release it.
Not only that, but I'm sure Red Dot would've warned them that the game wasn't ready.

Anyway thats my 2c for this evening lol

[Morocka]

I blame em both. Red Dot should of had the balls to tell Playway to F U C K O F F the game isn't ready and won't be for 6 months but didn't. Red Dot is now a dieing game maker and will not recover from this.

[Badger]

Originally posted by Morocka:

I blame em both. Red Dot should of had the balls to tell Playway to F U C K O F F the game isn't ready and won't be for 6 months but didn't. Red Dot is now a dieing game maker and will not recover from this.

I gotta say i tend to agree with you on all points. PlayWay will live, but yeah, Red Dot could be in doubt.

[Luna Sakara]

Originally posted by Morocka:

I blame em both. Red Dot should of had the balls to tell Playway to F U C K O F F the game isn't ready and won't be for 6 months but didn't. Red Dot is now a dieing game maker and will not recover from this.

Yeah that's the right attitude to take when your livelyhood is on the line (Sarcasim) ; I can't say I blame anyone at RedDot for doing what they are told from the god hand of the Publisher. But I guess you've never worked a day in your life to know that, if you need work, you don't tell your boss to feck off, and you don't make problems if you want to be re-hireable in the future.

Not saying it's right, but, this is literally the game industry now days; I'm getting absolutly sick of Publishers, In almost all cases the devse spend so long on a game and care about it so much; but it's just a cash out to the publishers; no save for face, no care about the customers. It's just money.

The fact that I'm seeing almost daily updates; I mean, some one at RedDot cares about this game. right? Can't say the same for PW; they just ♥♥♥♥ on this franchise, and have undoubtedly ruined themselfs for it; unfortunatly the hoards of idiots will just blame the devs because they can't fathom the Publisher/Developer relationship. So effectivly, RedDot is going to suffer too; and with the daily updates, maybe thats an indication of the level of overworking PW has been pushing on them.

[Badger]

No doubt PW has been working them hard, You don't release 10 patches in less than a week without burning the midnight oil! Bet the staff get paid SFA too.

[Steele]

It doesn't matter who's to blame. It's not like you can decide to give the purchase price of the games to only the devs and not the publisher. If the publisher is that bad, then maybe they shoudl work for someone else. Free market m8

[Badger]

Originally posted by Steele:

It doesn't matter who's to blame. It's not like you can decide to give the purchase price of the games to only the devs and not the publisher. If the publisher is that bad, then maybe they shoudl work for someone else. Free market m8

True, but how many other publishers are eastern europe based? It's a lot easier to communicate problems if you at least live in the same region. Plus both PlayWay and RD are both Polish and all speak fairly broken english, so theres the language barrier too.

[b0nehead]

You guys are absolutely clueless to know what going on behind the closed doors and should close your mouths accordingly or at least take it in priv.

[Twisted Minds]

what i really would like to see here is an official statement from playway. or did i miss it between the thousands of bug/missing content/whatever else threads and messages ?

[Steele]

Actually, I know exactly what's going on behind closed doors. An unfinished game got released, missing many promised features, and now it's coming out that some of said features will actually be DLC after the publisher has bragged that most other companies would release all of this content as DLC instead of in the base game.

Now they're scrambling to cover their asses because the gamer base is appropriately pissed about a bait-and-switch and a game that was obviously not play tested on more than one computer.

They literally said in a facebook comment that they don't know why there are so many issues, it worked on the one computer they tested it on so they're not sure why it's being so broken on other configurations.

[Badger]

Originally posted by twist187:

what i really would like to see here is an official statement from playway. or did i miss it between the thousands of bug/missing content/whatever else threads and messages ?

To be fair, Wanted514 kinda said it all. We don't/won't know what happens behind closed doors and as such, I doubt apart from their existing apology, we'll hear anything else other than patch notes and ' we're working on it '