PR & Community Trust Repair

[StealthyDaz]

I won't lie, Santiago's post made me genuinely think the game had died, and now with the video release of the rework, I don't really know what to believe with KK Studio.

Community communication, particularly on Steam, has been lacking, resulting in consistently negative reviews for Freeman: GW. This lack of communication is undoubtedly hindering new sales.

Alongside this, community trust has also been wavering, with players labeling this game as a 'scam' and a 'money grab,' further tarnishing its reputation. To be honest, I can't blame them. The last time we saw an update was basically two years ago (June 2022).

What is KK Studio's plan going forward in regards to community communication and trust?

[baddoggs]

Remember this is not the only game they started and walked out on.
What about the others? They have a track record and this community
has serious trust issues now.
I would like to believe them but, It's been literally years with nothing..
Even their own staff here for the forum lost faith in them.

[G Willikers]

It's kind of a common early access story and the reason having a community/PR manager is so important to a game in development (one that you keep in the loop of development). I've seen this play out before where someone just stops posting updates, the community reaches out time and again, and then they pop back in a year or two later with an update expecting a hero's welcome and rightly get panned.

At the point your reviews dip to mostly negative and are full of "abandoned game" it doesn't really matter if you were working on it or not, people are going to avoid not only because of those reviews but because now the developers have a track record of abandoning the community for years. When you're asking for money from people the expectation is for you to value that investment and that didn't really happen here.

They said they stopped coming and communicating because of the toxicity but they had someone who was willing to post on their behalf if they had just kept them updated, probably could have even put together some screenshots and info posts on what a full remake entails and why it was a good idea in this case as well as typical timelines.

They had the tools to avoid this and chose not to because of "toxicity", which is how they refer to people who paid them for something and by all appearances they took the money and disappeared.

That's the risk of early access though. Yeah you get money but you also get reviewed while in development. I actually believe the developers but it doesn't really matter, at this point the game's been buried. Something like 15k games came out last year alone while this was by all appearances a dead project, old players are gone and have moved on while new players aren't going to find it under all the other indie projects coming out.

[seashell]

but today is fool's day
if they wanted to be serious, why don't they pick a normal day to announce it?

[G Willikers]

Originally posted by seashell:

but today is fool's day
if they wanted to be serious, why don't they pick a normal day to announce it?

Not every country knows what april fools day is, let alone celebrates it. You don't think it's possible that they were focused on other things and didn't realize their announcement fell on a weird, niche holiday until after it was made?

[Tina]

Our plan is just to keep focusing on the development and showcase the progress accordingly. I’ll try my best to participate in discussions when it’s possible too.

[Tina]

Originally posted by G Willikers:

Originally posted by seashell:

but today is fool's day
if they wanted to be serious, why don't they pick a normal day to announce it?

Not every country knows what april fools day is, let alone celebrates it. You don't think it's possible that they were focused on other things and didn't realize their announcement fell on a weird, niche holiday until after it was made?

Thank you, yes.

[baddoggs]

Originally posted by Tina:

Our plan is just to keep focusing on the development and showcase the progress accordingly. I’ll try my best to participate in discussions when it’s possible too.

With respect, it is not that hard to log into steam and type a few words.
I would be willing to bet you manage at least 5000 words per day on "social media".
Please remember, most of us actually BOUGHT your product and are still waiting for it.

[Voidrend]

Originally posted by Tina:

Originally posted by G Willikers:

Not every country knows what april fools day is, let alone celebrates it. You don't think it's possible that they were focused on other things and didn't realize their announcement fell on a weird, niche holiday until after it was made?

Thank you, yes.

this is such a bot response, it literally doesnt address the question at all

[Caligula]

The new update footage is awesome, but it is worrying that it never even gave us an idea of when it'll become available, even in a testing capacity.

While we are talking about a small studio, that's a LOT of stuff being added and I'm sure it took a long time to get all of that ready, breaking that into smaller updates and even just letting people know the game IS alive, just undergoing an overhaul would do wonders.

They also used Freeman Guerrilla Warfare REMASTER a lot in that update, which can be seen as the studio intending to just release that as a new game, having people pay for it again, which is also really concerning.

[Tina]

Originally posted by Caligula:

The new update footage is awesome, but it is worrying that it never even gave us an idea of when it'll become available, even in a testing capacity.

While we are talking about a small studio, that's a LOT of stuff being added and I'm sure it took a long time to get all of that ready, breaking that into smaller updates and even just letting people know the game IS alive, just undergoing an overhaul would do wonders.

They also used Freeman Guerrilla Warfare REMASTER a lot in that update, which can be seen as the studio intending to just release that as a new game, having people pay for it again, which is also really concerning.

We would want to give an idea of when it will become available, but based on how many changes we had to do throughout the development process which have delayed it so much compared to the planned timeline, we are staying away from announcing it for now.
And no, it won’t be a new game, it would be as a separate build within this original game.