WarHorse Studio’s, and any entity financially backing WarHorse Studio’s, this may very well be what is looks like to lose future profits. The product you released has serious problems preventing a large amount of your install base from building a positive experience with it. Nearly two months later, game breaking bugs are preventing a sizeable amount of Xbox and PlayStation players from making progress. While the nature and scope of your open-world sandbox rpg is expected have bugs similar to every other attempt made by any studio in this genre, the mishandling of information regarding when the consoles are receiving updates, and the lack of transparency as to why these updates are being delayed has reached a critical level in the mind of at least one of your fans. I am now spending more time actively posting my complaints about your product than I am playing it.
While others may defend your release of Kingdom Come Deliverance with comparisons to the state of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series upon release, I refuse to put your company on the same level. You’re the new kid on the block, and I wanted to fall in love with WarHorse like I once did with BioWare and KOTOR, Naughty Dog with Uncharted, or Bungie with Halo. I believed you when you made Kickstarter promises and forgave you when a good deal of them never materialized. I supported you vocally during the first month after launch despite being unable to complete most of the game on xbox one and 1X. I even purchased the Steam version, along with a new video card and PSU to bring my pc up to par with your graphically astounding game. I wanted to enjoy KC:D so much that I justified spending more than one thousand dollars to do so in the best possible state that I could afford.
Now, nobody forced me to spend that much, and I doubt your game will be the precipitating factor for many others to do as I have. It was my choice. I am not the victim of my own circumstance. And now its time for the big reveal to my blathering…
WARHORSE STUDIOS IS NOT A VICTIM OF THEIR OWN CIRCUMSTANCE. THEY CHOSE TO RELEASE IN THE STATE THEY DID, AND NOW ITS TIME TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE.
Its true that WarHorse ran out of funding for their game, and they were forced to decide between releasing it the way it was or potentially never at all. I am still a vocal proponent of their decision to release it. It was the right move for a studio who has their passion and commitment to the project. They’ve shown a great deal energy in releasing pactches for PCand attempting to patch the console versions, all while replying to posts in their official forum, Reddit, and Twitter. Nobody wants this game to succeed more than they do. So, instead of calling for a boycott of this game until the studio fixes their consoles version, I’m going to go the exact opposite direction.
Kingdom Come Deliverance is amazing but seriously needs our support, and by that I mean it needs anyone on the fence about this game to buy it now, regardless of the bugs. It’s become painfully obvious that Warhorse Studio’s lack of capital is a primary reason for the delay in patches still needed to fix game breaking bugs, especially on consoles. Its also possible that the studio and its investors fail to fully understand how much complaining an unhappy person does versus a satisfied one. And I am certain there are many more complex reasons why “fixing” KC:D is harder than simply hiring additional staff or keeping the complainers (like myself) quarantined. Whatever it takes, I hope the diamond in the rough that is Kingdom Come Deliverance emerges in the near future as a polished gem worthy of praise, because right now I’m more concerned about that diamond cracking in half before it really shines.
Opinions like mine can help your sales if you address them properly, hurt your future sales if you ignore them, or do nothing and anything between. I can’t say what effect this will have on WarHorse Studios, if any effect at all. I will say a good business model doesn’t make a business succeed, but bad management will almost always make a good idea fail until managed properly. I’ll end on my heaviest opinions:
-
Whoever is handling the PR for this game should either be fired or retrained, preferably the latter. (I like you Rick, but damn it took you two months to refund me when I had beta access on PC, and I’m still advocating for you to be the one to turn this around!)
-
Go take your CFO out to a nice lunch and thank them for the constant anxiety they must be under, then have an outside company audit your finances. Either the CFO needs some help or should be completely replaced. When a company doesn’t have the funds to properly support their ONE AND ONLY PRODUCT TO DATE, its time to start asking some hard questions and making tough decisions.
-
Take away Dan Vavra’s Twitter access until a patch is ACTUALLY released that doesn’t screw up your game worse than before. Tell him I won’t take his beard seriously until he starts living up to his words. I’d rather him be completely silent until something actually happens at this point. Either follow through on your words, or stop saying them, and once he’s actually followed through in the ways he said he would (a few times), then maybe, MAYBE he should start speculating about future DLC and “wish-lists”. Until then he’s more like my dreamer kid who would rather draw designs for a dump truck with wings than actually take out the trash as requested.
-
Please take this as tough criticism from a huge fan. I’m going to take a ton of shit for posting my thoughts here and elsewhere, and I’m going to continue to take a ton of shit for continuing to post until I see movement I consider positive. I am not your average player, and I have more time to pursue this than the average person, but I do speak for all your average player base. We remember how you treat us, what your say, and what you fail to live up to. We will buy many more games in our lives, and whether or not we continue buying your games directly relates to how much we receive from you. And how much we receive from you, whether chicken before the egg or not, directly affects how much we believe in you, Jesus Christ be Praised!