This link appears to have gotten nuked, had to go to google cache to find it -- so for convenience, here's a copy paste of the text from the cache:
Please note these opinions are purely my own and not necessarily shared by any other member of Indie Stone.
Okay I’m gonna bitch again. It’s what I do from time to time. I know I’m bleating on about a massive minority and the vast vast majority of people who have bought our game are sexy awesome people.
So yesterday we spent £800 quid on a new Mac Book so we could finally give Mac users the support they deserve for the game. We have no love for Macs, personally, so this is not a toy or gadget. That Mac Book was bought purely for testing the game on, and developing a launcher for the game on. Nothing else. It’s not the first substantial expense we’ve made for the sake of the game, either.
So today, Saturday, I set my alarm for 9am. We got this update to get out there, you see. The big update. The one that makes the game more like our original vision. Gotta get it out! We’ve been working pretty solidly on it since it was announced. When you have a 9-5 job you leave at 5 (ignoring overtime) and don’t take your work home with you. In our case the work is at home, literally, and is close to your heart, so you end up working ridiculous amount of hours on it.
If I were working for an actual boss the amount of hours a week I work would likely get that boss into a lot of trouble.
But it’s okay, because I love it. This is the most exciting part of my life. So I get up on Saturday at 9am and sit down at my PC to work on the update. Then, at some stage, I check my mail.
Hi there,
Not sure if this is possible but at this moment in time I feel that is game isn’t getting as much love as it used to before it went massively popular (by that I mean less and less updates from the devs) and at this moment in time I would like to request a refund on the game if possible please.
This is by no means the first, and it definitely won’t be the last, I think if people knew the volume of this kinda crap they would be astonished. It’s just the particular wording that curdles my stomach to the point of writing a blog post to vent it. But here lies the one downfall of this distribution model. This guy paid £5 for our game. £5…
Even though I would have argued against the prospect when we first released, at this stage there are hours of gameplay to be had playing the game. Pound for pound compared to AAA titles, I think the money per hour cost of the game is already pretty damn good. Just to these people, the fact that there ARE going to be updates means somehow there has to be a constant unending stream of substantial updates otherwise suddenly the existing game is worth nothing. Despite the fact that 99% of games you purchase you do so and that’s it. DLC and expansions and patches aside, they never improve. And that’s fine.
If he’d spent £5 on a game from Steam, he would not get the option of a refund. They say:
As with most downloadable software products, we do not offer refunds for purchases made through Steam
Most downloadable software products, eh? Well through ‘the dark ages’ where we had all those issues, we offered refunds because we felt it was fair. That being, that people who purchased the game had absolutely nothing to show for it, since the most up to date version was the demo version. However now people who purchase have character customization and extensive modding (as well as an already substantial and growing number of mods available) so people have got something for their £5. And in the non-too-distant future they will have saving, a new map section (that’s taken bloody ages to make and the solid work of half the dev team for weeks) and quite substantial NPC improvements.
The game it will be then will definitely be worth £5, in fact we’re considering (after some warning after the update goes out) increasing the price a little at that stage. Truth is that despite being “massively popular” as this fellow says (I think we have different definitions of ‘massively’. Minecraft is ‘massively popular’, we’re ‘quite popular’) we’re still at the stage where we worry about spending £800 out of the blue on a Mac Book, and while comfortable we are by no means rolling about in cash. We can’t keep it at a fiver forever simply because there are a lot of us working on this game, it’s not just one guy needing an income here.
And we can’t afford to give everyone a refund just because they think the next update is taking a little longer than you’d like to come out. Especially when the bloody update is only taking so long because it’s so damn substantial. Unlike last time, where we were full of apologies, I make NO apologies for the length of time this update takes to come out. None whatsoever. Even if it were another week, or another two. It’s damn worth the wait, I know it is, and the body of work involved in getting it out there had been immense, and also has gotten to the stage where we couldn’t do it in the background and release updates alongside it. It was all or nothing.
We’re always quick to hold our hands up when we feel we’ve failed or taken too long. People who have followed the game will know how pathetically apologetic we tend to get. Well not this time, no siree.
If you want save on quit, multiple map sections and clever NPCs, this is just the wait you need to endure, and you should be pleased you’re enduring it now and not in six months time, since it means after enduring it you have those features soon and not in 6 months time… you know, the #1 requested features by our community beside multiplayer?
So, sat here at 2pm on a Saturday, after working since 9am and I read that mail telling me I’m not showing the game enough love. What do I do then?
I write this blog post, and then I go sit on the sofa to play Deus Ex.
Well done dickhead, the update’s just been delayed because the guy coding the saving and the NPCs has decided that instead of slogging through it all weekend, he should instead have the rest of the weekend off and finally relax a bit, because he’ll only get accused of ‘having less love’ by somebody, regardless. And all that poor awesome majority who have been nothing but supportive will probably have to wait a bit longer for the update, and will likely still be supportive of us and the project. How’s that fair?
Well, it’s fair to me, because I could use a few hours playing Deus Ex to unwind, to be honest. And ironically, by not only chilling out playing games all weekend but also gloating over the fact I’m going to do so in this blog, the only people who I’m probably like to piss off are those who are mean, rude, impatient and tend to make me feel bad, and those who are supportive and cool will likely be all for me taking the weekend off anyway. Awesome!
And that goes to everyone who starts getting all grumpy because they feel their £5 should entitle them to 24/7 development from the dev team and daily updates and start sending us emails or making antagonistic posts on our forum or blog. You’re not ‘giving us a kick up the arse’ and making us work harder to get the update our quicker. That’s not possible. All you do is stress us out, piss us off and make us feel less inclined to work around the clock. That’s the moral of this story.
Any one else want to send an email?
TL;DR: Man, Deus Ex is so much more fun than fixing saving bugs. PEW PEW PEW!
Player
