New Facebook post regarding the 'radio silence'.
https://www.facebook.com/R8Games/posts/987614194594442
(recommend reading the post on facebook as it has formatting)
So. Apologies for the radio silence, it was not intentional. We had to make a few tweaks in the office recently including letting a few people go in favour of concentrating on the core development side of things and protecting the product. That included Aaron, the community manager (unfortunately) as it was felt that we could cover that aspect, at least until we have a more stable cash flow. I think you can all appreciate that staying independent is a rough task and to get this point is no mean feat, but I made the mistake of ramping up too early to try and meet the demand for content on steam and this was the consequence. I believe in being honest so that's why I am making this announcement.
Since we delivered on Early Access, which was a version of the game that represented moving out of pre-production and into production, I will be honest with you, we ‘were’ expecting more sales – but at the same time we fully realised the predicament we had put ourselves in - going out at the high price point we set – which was in reaction to our kickstarter campaign and not wanting to piss you good people off. In doing so we kind of shot ourselves in the foot. The content doesn’t justify the price point (I think that’s pretty obvious) – but still – we’ve had a great reaction so far and we also have nearly 5500 people with the game on their wish list, which is fantastic and whilst content is a concern we have proven we have a good base to work from.
We are continuing to look at how we can balance that and for now we have brought forward our plans to sort the multiplayer side of it out, which seems an important side of the game and one that I hope (along with new content) will encourage more sales. You will also see more craft designs which we will nail down based on your input (we do read everything). It is also very important to us that we feed the QA/Test Pilot resource we have and I will communicate the plan on how we will do this with you as a sort of promise from us to you.
We may make a temporary price reduction on Steam soon to try and attract a new adopters but we also need to make sure that people that have parted with hard earned cash don’t feel disadvantaged, so we will work with you on that.
As an independent studio we have to react month by month – strategically – to make sure there’s enough cash in the vaults to support our plans, it’s a constant juggling act based on our ambitions and the reality of where we are right now. I always said I would prop up the studio by selling equity if needed but recently we had to stem the costs of the studio and bring things back in line with a more realistic approach until we get the level of investment we need to push on like crazy people again.
This week I have been trying hard to join the dots up to guarantee the console versions and the box versions and to set an ETA and I have made quite a bit of progress – it’s too early to let you know the details but I am hoping for more news early/mid next week. Making sure these products are secure means we can focus more on the core PC product. No one wants to develop hand to mouth and I am hoping that next week I will also have news to guarantee the full product in time with our plan for early Q2 next year. I can tell you that as part of the PC side we are also looking to deliver a MAC version – this will also be confirmed.
Kickstarter lit the fire and as I always said the journey at times may be hard. But for the £71k or so that we got from that campaign we should soon be able to give you a secure full product road map with all the things we had planned including the stretch goals.
Please have a little patience – we will get there..
Best,
Andrew.
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Originally Posted by Cipher
