Official Insel Games statement

[76561198384888008]

Dear Community,

there are several accusations and a Steam statement that we want to respond to.

At the day of the Wild Buster EA launch in December an email was sent to everyone in the company telling staff (about 20 people including freelancers) how important reviews are in the Steam ecosystem and that a failure of Wild Buster would mean the company was in jeopardy. It was meant to rally people’s support, including advertising the game to their family and friends, in the hope to simply get more reviews.

It was never intended to threaten anyone but just state the importance of reviews for the whole company. No staff has received penalties for not buying the game or writing a review. There also never were texts or instructions provided for reviews. We sincerely apologize for the misleading wording in the email and the practice in general.

We, the complete team behind Insel Games, will keep working on improving Guardians of Ember and Wild Buster while still providing access to our games through other channels. We hope to regain the trust of players through our future actions and are further in discussion with Steam about this incident.

Until then current Steam owners or those in possession of a Steam key can continue to play normally.

Sincerely yours,
InselGames

[Ordack]

This seems serious to you?

This seems serious to you?

http://steamcommunity.com/games/681860/announcements/detail/1680276769864923201

I read this post today, and IG only delete post about this, they do not give explanations, Here nothing happens?
I do not expect much from you, but those practices speak very badly, but the bad reputation that drags, you can not afford this.
After GoE's failure, people continue to support him, and he rewards them with another scam.

I await your news about this, and what you intend to do.

[jooozek]

this was a tutorial on how to screw yourself and your employes over

[SaintPhillip]

Insel games KICKED OFF STEAM

man you guys are desperate to try and hide the truth...How many times you going to delete this discussion? You're pathetic at this point.

I'll keep posting this until you ban me or I have to leave (can you even ban anymore or did steam remove that power from you as well as your ability to sell games here) and then by that time others will start doing the same.

Trying to censor this (like you did with any criticism of your games) is just going to make matters worse and makes you look pathetic. This is even being covered by mmorpg.com now.

https://www.vg247.com/2018/02/14/game-developer-games-removed-steam-manipulating-review-score/

[Demon]

WOW facts are facts its was 100% cash grab what the @#$%!!!!!!!

[dgc1980]

There also never were texts or instructions provided for reviews

the email stated for the staff to purchase their own copy and you would reimburse them, because you know for a fact that key reviews mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥,

the only hope you have now, is to sell the game to another publisher

[SaintPhillip]

-Well tbh I'm pretty sure this is a widespread practice and you just caught doing it. My assumption is that a good portion of indies probably do this.

The problem IMHO, is less about this incident and rather about how Insel has handled almost everything in the past with regards to criticism, censoring and banning- Like how my friend Tincup was banned on GOE probably 6-9 months ago for pointing out that some shills accounts had so many hours on the game it would have been impossible (It was like level 0 accounts with 16 hours/day 7 days a week 365 days/year since launch or something crazy on this game only edit- I'm speaking about GOE right now )- We all knew what was going on way back then and just kept getting banned and censored .

You guys have done yourselves no favors in how you've handled everything on these forums (I'm speaking mostly of the GOE forum since I think today is the first time ive posted here although I somehow have this game and I dont remember ever buying it) and ticked alot of people off with undeserved bans so you could make sales with the impression that everything was rosy.

I personally hope you guys evaluate everything here and start being honest and not all about spin and perception- If/when steam reinstates you (which I'm sure they will) I hope you see this as a 'wake up call' and opportunity to change alot of things.

Thats my opinion- Take its for what its worth and good luck.

edit- Alot of my friends actually bought GOE and became so disgusted with your company, the censorship, the bans and trying to make everything look like things were 'great' that we never even went back to try the updates and figured that no matter what you did to fix the game we wouldnt play because of the company behind it- Even though most of us had paid full price over a year ago...Nobody wants to throw money away or be so disgusted in a company that they dont even care about fixes or updates to a game they have already paid for...It was that bad.

You guys have alot of work to do with your reputation and this doesnt have to be a bad thing that happened here- Just start being honest and earn some respect back and people may be a hell of a lot more willing to give you another chance.

[76561198384888008]

I get that this is a good opportunity to spread some negative stuff about the past but if we have banned someone, it was because of telling untrue things, spamming or hurting our forum rules in another way. Everyone is welcome to tell their opinion on this topic. Please also understand that we needet to clearify things first.

[Seovik]

You should refund every player that bought your cash grab game.

[Shoppa]

Valve wouldn't just ban a game if they had no 100% proof for them self the reviews were fake

[Wilfrid Wong]

Just wondering. Will we be able to reinstall this game again from Steam? I presume it is a yes since it is still in our library?

[SaintPhillip]

Publicado originalmente por Elder:

I get that this is a good opportunity to spread some negative stuff about the past but if we have banned someone, it was because of telling untrue things, spamming or hurting our forum rules in another way. Everyone is welcome to tell their opinion on this topic. Please also understand that we needet to clearify things first.

Well I was banned and not for "spreading untrue things" along with many of my friends.

Nothing to clarify- Its was a bunch of BS.

I'm not going to go into everything but I lived through it and so did others I know.

[SaintPhillip]

Publicado originalmente por Wilfrid Wong:

Just wondering. Will we be able to reinstall this game again from Steam? I presume it is a yes since it is still in our library?

Yes, once Steam stops selling a game you wont lose it here (or the right to redownload it when needed)- I have a couple games that were pulled for other reasons (like KOTR 2 I believe) and I can still access them.

This wont affect anyone who already owns the game it just means nobody new can purchase it here.

[Pangolin Legends: Arceus]

So are we allowed to post about this now without getting our posts deleted ?

[DaRealPJ]

1. Bad Drop Rates from Weappens,2.Quest Boss Items, 3.No Drops off Secondary Weappens, 4.Raidbosses there are to Hard,5 lvl 50er haves no Content Only Farming the Same Maps:P,6.i Spend More Than 100k Tokens for a Weappen and i get Yellow and Unique ♥♥♥♥:P.Make a Guild vs Guild Pvp System.

Thanks an d Good Night.

[Dortnose]

Must've been a disgruntled employee or something who sent out the company email. I'm sure it happens all the time. Not that big a deal. Hopefully the Steam relationship can be fixed soon. I really like the game.