I’ve heard it has something to do with the Microsoft game pass or whatever it’s called. It doesn’t allow for early access games, so they called it a full release to be able to release it on both platforms simultaneously. Or that might be part of the reasoning at least.
Game Pass allows early access - they just call it Game Preview. So that’s not the reason why
Dang. Doesn’t that only leave incompetence or malice as reasons though?
not necessarily, it’s possible the Microsoft contract they had stipulated that it did have to be a full release and they weren’t willing to budge. Who knows.
Maybe it’s a mix of everything. What I find telling is that they knew they were going to revamp the class system since basically the game came out, but didn’t say a single thing about how they knew that the game was being released with a placeholder system. They intentionally kept that quiet.
Did they keep it quiet because they believe the backlash of the placeholder system itself wouldn’t be as bad as the backlash of them saying they’re intentionally releasing the game with placeholder systems? Tbh I can understand that, although it definitely erodes more trust between the company and the players because they basically lied.
Basically.
The back half of 2022 was an empty desert of nothingness for gamepass and people were starting to complain, so I wouldnt be surprised if microsoft refused to renegotiate with fatshark to let them delay it into 2023.
which at a core level I can understand, but it’s still real shtty.
To me, it just feels scummy to literally run multiple betas, claim “full release” when they 100% knew that they were implementing placeholder systems, and didn’t call it early access or something like that.
If they were contractually required to release it as a full release and not early access, then that sucks. I feel like I would have appreciated the transparency of it. I can understand why they didn’t, the backlash I imagine would not have been good, but at the same time it basically just paints FS as manipulative, untrustworthy, and ultimately, anti-consumer. Which sucks. I don’t want to feel that way but they keep doing stuff like this behind closed doors. How else am I supposed to feel?
I’m 100% with you, but just imagine it for a moment:
"Hello, potential consumers of our product! FS here. We have some interesting news!
We can’t tell you why, but after several delays, we are releasing DT! The game is in a working state but is far from finished, so we hope you stick with us through these trying times. Also, buy our MTX!"
I mean, I’m satirizing here, but you get the idea… Something like this couldn’t happen.
Speaking of - when we come to the idea that releasing wasn’t entirely FS’ fault, perhaps other borderline insulting decisions also weren’t their fault - the predatory GACHA, the MTX shop, the core ideas of the game… Maybe it was all written there, in the fine print of the Investor Studio papers…
Who knows? Imagine, we’re here, dumping post after post in the forums/steam, while FS had very little to do with what happened. They just, developed the game and followed orders…
Makes one think. Unfortunately, until about a decade passes and someone does a YouTube Documentary about the game’s development, we won’t even have a glimpse. And even then…
well if thats the case, its still is their fault for agreeing to a contract that came to bite their arse.
I doubt the deal with microsoft paid off anyway, its hard to quantify but 40k alone has enough traction, and if they hadn’t lost all their goodwill to greedy contracts i think a independent handling of the game could easily been a massive success if they had clearly labeled it for what it is, Eearly acess.
If they said that then I would have stuck with the game, as honesty is the best policy when it comes to such things. Additionally, I, and some others, wouldn’t have been so hard on Darktide because we knew the game was going to better. Unlike how it is now where there’s no information, no communication, no transparency on what’s to come only a hard truth that what we have currently is what we are probably going to be stuck with.
Maybe. I dunno.
Eternal Crusade still lives rent free in my mind. And that project had weekly dev blogs, streams and all that… Ugh…
I definitely would’ve been much more positive towards the game, for sure. Maybe even defended it.
It’s the corpo-speech and the lack of communication that got me after a while! The whole pre-launch campaign about learning from their previous games, looking at other titles in the genre… DAN ABNETT!!
Hmm, I still think it wouldn’t have been possible… And we’re still humoring the idea that FS did nothing wrong and were forced into every circumstance we now view as negative.
It’s also possible that The Investor, GW and whoever else was up there literally didn’t lift a finger and simply received quarterly reports on the development, with reassurances it’s all going according to plan. The last plan! The one before that was tosh and the guy who made it was an amateur! This real plan will bring us MILLIONS of sales AND continued MTX exposure! Trust me, bro!
Or, it was somewhere in the middle 
Probably…
well preferably, i like my games without lead devs running away with all the kickstarter money.
thats sorta a red falg
Yeah… There was that…
Some of that was MY money too! Ah… whatever…
Here, for anyone interested:
When you wipe, resources count for Melk contracts. However, as you wiped, you loose a lot of what you collected.
If you want to do it on 4 (or 5) characters, lowering the difficulty can make it easier (especially the one that ask you to complete a game without any death).
Also, a sedition game is 12-15 minutes. A damnation is often 30 or more. When you have 8 missions to do, it is faster to go for seddition.
Anyways, Melk contracts system is something that needs a total rewrite. Especially when you consider that you can find lot of T4 blessings from it.
One of the idea I have thrown on the scene.
That narrative kind of falls apart when Fatshark doesn’t have a publisher - they’re their own publisher. So they are responsible as well as accountable for any and all hiccups that occurred.
Possible. I don’t think anyone wants to give bad news to leadership about poor performance from a title that was supposed to be a success. So they probably fluffed the reports up to assure reassurances. I’m not sure about this though since I gots no formal edumication and live under a cardboard box with my possessions of Kerillian stock portrait. Let’s summon anime poster @Mayson to edumicate us about corporations.
Maybe one day, 9 years from now, someone can do a deep dive into DT!
And we can watch it, reminiscing about the early patches and the MTX we bought, shaking our heads…
Then again, it won’t be needed, the game is one good patch away from being fully released, or so I’m told…
Even I am beginning to consider the possibility of starting to think about eventually playing again.
Just a couple more big updates.
Kek truth stings.
ThOu HaSt SuMmOnEd Me. I aM hErE. tHoU aRt In My PrEsEnCe.
Well, offering perspective:
A) Success and Failure are a matter of perspective:
Summary
They may not see it as failure, since the biggest point of interest in Gaming is units sold. Darktide outsold Vermintide 2, so it was a new record in terms of units sold for Fatshark.
They then just have to calculate how much of the earnings were off-set by production + ongoing fees. If they do more than break even - It’s a success.
B) Christmas Season is Income Season for small and big Business alike
Summary
The most important time window to sell in Western countries during and before Christmas (in the East it’s Chinese New Year).
For the Western hemisphere - It’s estimated that 1/4th of all sales in retail are made during this period. 25%. So getting the sales from Christmas season with a somewhat botched launch can still be more valuable to a company than getting great reception but going by unnoticed in off-season, such as January or mid-summer (nobody has money in january because they spent it during Christmas, nobody wants to game inside while the sun outside is scorching grass down to a sandy paste).
C) The Fiscal Year.
Summary
We may not know when Fatshark’s Fiscal Year starts and ends. But it is a deciding factor in many big companies how their future plans look.
Sometimes specific events are kept within a business year at all costs, to make write-offs for these positions possible (this depends on the taxation, deductables and what laws are available in the company’s headquarters).
Other things may be pushed specifically to the next fiscal year. For instance, if you can acquire write-offs on the tools for your trade and have your allotted deductable budget expended already, you may push a purchase or sale of something to the next one.
D) Licensing Fees, Licensing Contracts and Copyright:
Summary
We don’t know what the conditions for the contract with GW was, to allow them working on Darktide. But there might have been contractual obligations here, such as release dates or to make a certain number of promotional actions for GW.
We also don’t know if there had previously been any established time-sensitive trademarks for Darktide. Those also cost money and they might have run afoul of one or several of these time limits, had they not pushed the game out.
I believe it’s a mix of B and D as well as the fact they were already delayed multiple times. Fatshark has to prove to Tencent that they’re a viable business, they have to stick to contracts and they have to operate in an economic manner just for their own sake.
Little known (un)Funfact: Most small business owners and self-employed people who fail, do so for these reasons. Not for their work quality, but because they make mistakes in accounting or in other economic formalities that later cost them dearly.
Big Business becomes big because it excels at these things, either by sticking to regulations or manipulating results until the shoe fits. Often that means sacrificing quality of their work or in some other area to make the numbers at the end Black rather than Red.
I liked that game for all its faults. Shame about it being a corpse.