Quote:
Originally Posted by Chivas
Those very very bad developers should have told us not to buy their unfinished product...
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+1
Didn't bother to quote the rest since it was mostly rubbish. Even if you honestly believe this sort of deceit is acceptable it failed the ultimate commercial practice test in that it was hugely unintelligent. Consider what has happened to the previously highly-respected IL2 brand over the last few months and then tell me again that the release strategy was for the best.
Basically, the team had a certain amount of trust 'capital' to get them through the release (in one form or another) of what was unarguably a half-finished beta at best. Instead of spending that capital over time by being honest with the customer base and working through the final stages of release with the help of the community they blew it all in a single roll by lying about the state of the game to make money. Openess about the state of the game would have gone a long way toward redirecting anger from the state of the release toward useful discussion.
The reason there is no trust left in the bank is that the dev's view of the world is obvious all to see: truth, community trust and respect < $$$. And this is an extremely short-sighted equation.
I don't know whether contractual obligations meant that a paid beta release was impossible but at the very least the devs should have been honest with their customer base. I bet the reviews would have been more lenient, or possibly the game would not have been reviewed at all until it was actually ready, too.
Unfortunately, it seems as though few lessons have been learnt. The dev presence on the forums has all but disappeared resulting in the trust of the community in the dev team trending in the wrong direction. A decade of hard work pretty much blown, and for what?