So far there had been a huge outburst towards the incident with project zomboid and some are still arguing about it, I felt either the opinions were too close to project zomboid or so cruel. There was usually no middle ground, so far I have been going over twitter and emailing the developers my condolences because so far it seems like a shitty day for them (Lemmy shutting his twitter down and is stepping down from the public eye of the Project Zomboid paparazi both very sad.) Here is what I think on the matter.
First I think I should establish where I am coming from, I have developed two games in my life, one was released to a small audience and never garnered much attention after a year of the cycle the site that was hosting the file took it down after inactivity which wasn’t the best day of my life. I have been on 3 modding teams working on HL2 mods which always fell through and currently I am working on a mod single teamed on Crysis 2 trying to get a feel for the engine. I am not an accomplished developer but I always hold the fact that I kept at least one person entertained I would be happy. I have been burglared once and have witnessed quite a few muggings and nearly came victim to one. I am a fan of project zomboid but I haven’t been playing the game as much as I would like. I have written 4 guides for the site and hope to release my 5th very soon. Am I biased? Perhaps. Will I look at this objectively? Most definitely.
So let’s take a look. First lets take a look from the reaction side of things, when people found out that they had been robbed the response was a bit childish but I am willing to chalk this up to the fact that they had anger towards the robber but they didn’t know who he was, so the anger had to be directed to someone. The response from the devs was again misplaced anger, keep in mind these guys had just been robbed and it was going to be a nightmare, organizing locksmiths, cleaning the place, assessing what was gone, getting in contact with the police and insurance and then finding out the chances of the person being caught would be pretty slim. They had anger and needed to vent and the last thing these guys needed to see were people tweeting how they were rank amateurs these guys stay in contact with the community and this being so soon after the big delayed update they were probably so pissed off they had been drinking and hit the internet. Was the response Professional? No. However these guys are not the professional company you may be forgetting these guys are independent, while they shouldn’t hide behind this word (many people draw the comparison with notch) they aren’t perfect, these are 5 people who have quit there job and are only focused on the game, they do not have a stable job they took a risk and if this goes south there is no telling how much this could damage their lives. They can not afford things like this to happen to them because that is more money they have to spend to get things back in order. They should have done something more PR friendly to keep faith in the community, which they did eventually do but these were two pissed off guys most likely drunk and now dearly regret the action they took (except Binky and good for him!) These are flawed individuals who took the wrong course of action. Also I want you people to look me in the eye and haven’t been pissed off or even gotten in a fight because someone insulted you.
Refunds- I don’t like to say this and this only probably the only time I condone it I will admit that people may have been hurt from how the developers reacted, just or unjust I feel they are well within their rights to get a refund on this as long as they do it in a calm and collected with a nice email not something that will really distress the developers beyond what has already happened. I will say the following I feel the game at the current state is well worth the money that I had payed and will never ever ask for a refund. After this however in my eyes I see no reason for a refund you have seen the developers true colours (UK) after this you can complain all you want but I feel it is well within the rights to just say to you “No.” after a certain amount of time has passed. (Say 30 days)
THEY SHOULD HAVE BACKED UP!!!- While I do agree with this on one hand I don’t hate the developers because after all humans do make mistakes, they really should have because you can never predict the future, keep in mind they haven’t lost so much to garner such a big back lash, so they may have lost the most recent update keep in mind what about Mash? Her computer I am sure still contains some fragments of things or at least all her stuff for the update so at least that is something. Never lose hope with this sort of thing and honestly how many of you make backups of your important work and keep it in a safe place. You always think that you will never get robbed then when it does it comes with more regret and anger than you can ever imagine.
In the end, they could have been a bit more professional and Independant is not something you should hide behind but you also have to cut them some slack for being human. Lemmy has apologized and Binky kind of did but is still sticking to his guns and to be fair good for him he believes he is in the right and people aren’t going to make him fold on it. In the end these guys do not have the resources to really keep themselves going nor the personnel to organize backings and what not.
People aren’t perfect, you aren’t, I ain’t they aren’t. It’s time we got through this and come out the other side bigger and better than ever. Good luck to the developers, and again have my condolences.
-Your friendly user Connall
Connall is trying to get his foot in the door with gaming publications, and is about to write for The Escapist (hopefully) @conmanvalvefan 