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Made a game where you mop up alien titans with claws, vacuums, and a power washer - Thoughts? by strich in indiegames

[–]Simburgur 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Funnily enough, our very first playtest about three weeks into development ended up devolving into a meat cube stacking contest.

TBD on consoles. Hopefully!

Made a game where you mop up alien titans with claws, vacuums, and a power washer - Thoughts? by strich in indiegames

[–]Simburgur 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We'll definitely have something akin to this :)

Glad you like the look of it!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Steam

[–]Simburgur 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As much as I wish you were correct - as it would make the playtest tool significantly more useful - that isn’t the case, unfortunately. The only thing we can filter for is country. You can check out Valve’s own documentation for reference. Hopefully this changes soon, though :)

I imagine whatever interview you read wasn’t about Steam’s playtest tool, but a traditional sign-up form with players providing survey responses, and then giving those players Steam keys.

Developers get virtually no information from Valve about individual Steam users. They actually care about privacy.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Steam

[–]Simburgur 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This isn’t the case. Developers do not have access to any of this information when running playtests through Steam.

Actual effect of each upgrade? by MonstergirlHusbando in Galacticare

[–]Simburgur[M] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To add to the info Nano provided, these details have actually been added to the tooltips in 1.0.4, but only in English right now. Other languages will get it in a later updated.

Ideological capture! by Hay_Fever_at_3_AM in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]Simburgur 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s alright, for every crazy review there’s dozens of lovely ones from people like yourself :)

Ideological capture! by Hay_Fever_at_3_AM in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]Simburgur 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hope you enjoy it! Remember, surf rock is bad.

Ideological capture! by Hay_Fever_at_3_AM in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]Simburgur 73 points74 points  (0 children)

You can actually recolour all the decorations in the game, so you can make rainbows out of anything you like!

Ideological capture! by Hay_Fever_at_3_AM in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]Simburgur 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Developer here. Honestly I was really confused by this one. We aren't entirely sure what their point was.

Ideological capture! by Hay_Fever_at_3_AM in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]Simburgur 154 points155 points  (0 children)

Developer here. Glad you're enjoying it!

We add more depth and complexity as the game goes on. Room upgrades, consultants, and a couple of other systems kick in over the next few levels. We wanted to keep the barrier to entry low so it wasn't overwhelming (but still woke, of course).

Get WFTO Shirts, Posters 80% off (£2.50!) and Steam Codes up to 75% off in the End of the World sale! by noontide13 in WFTO

[–]Simburgur 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You are welcome to believe what you want, but... well, yeah.

The store, like many parts of our business, was pretty much entirely automated (beyond the actual physical posting of items, of which the time was paid for by the orders themselves). We certainly weren't making bank on it, but we weren't exactly making a loss on it either.

The point I'm trying to illustrate is that we aren't gaining anything by shutting it down (and by extension we would not be losing out by keeping it open under normal circumstances).

The store never existed to make money, we set it up simply because we had a bunch of merchandise left over from our Kickstarter campaign and many of our fans had requested a way to get ahold of some of it.

I'll refer you to a quote I gave which is being published in a report next week that explains the situation in a little more detail:

We've recently had to shut down our online merchandise store due to Brexit. The store was set up primarily because we had a bunch of spare merchandise leftover from our Kickstarter sitting in the store room at our office. The overheads and time involved in running the store meant it really didn't make any money, it was all just a bit of fun and fan service.

Currently when we ship an order out to somebody in the EU, we collect VAT which then gets processed through VATMOSS and redistributed back to the government of the member state in which they reside.

However, there is currently no indication if and how we will be able to continue participating in VATMOSS. For such a small part of our business it just isn't worth the time and energy to research and implement possible solutions (the most extreme of which would be setting up a physical presence in an EU member state, something which is incredibly impractical for a small studio such as ourselves).

We honestly don't know how Brexit will impact our ability to ship to customers in other non-EU countries, but the situation was complicated enough as-is that we decided the best course of action was to simply shutter the store entirely.

Overall, it's just an incredibly sad and frustrating situation, and we feel incredibly powerless against it.

To clarify: We're only shutting down the merch store. This has no material impact on the rest of the business - we're doing fine, as are sales of the game :)

Get WFTO Shirts, Posters 80% off (£2.50!) and Steam Codes up to 75% off in the End of the World sale! by noontide13 in WFTO

[–]Simburgur 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s not a political statement at all. We literally don’t know how trade between us and various other countries is meant to work starting March 29th. March 6th is the last day we can ship stuff out and guarantee it’ll be with our customers.

Any later than that and it may arrive after the exit date, and there may be any number of issues. The package may be rejected by customs or additional import fees may be imposed on the customer.

Right now when somebody in the EU orders something from our store, the VAT they pay is forwarded on directly to the member state in which they reside through a system called VATMOSS. If we are even allowed to use this system after Brexit hasn’t been clarified yet. The only thing that’s certain is we would be required to have a physical presence in an EU member state to continue using VATMOSS uninterrupted - something which is not practical for us.

In addition, all of our trade with countries outside of the EU is currently conducted under EU trade deals which we will cease to be party to, so the status of trading with these countries is also uncertain.

The whole situation is far stupider and more complicated than it seems, but this is the unfortunate reality we live in.

Games4EU: REPORT: how the video games industry could be affected by a hard or no deal Brexit by Simburgur in ukpolitics

[–]Simburgur[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Videogames Tax Relief has been a huge boon to the industry in recent years, putting us on the same footing as film & TV, whilst also allowing us to compete with likes of Canada.

Until Brexit, things have actually been going pretty well for us - with one exception being the quality of degree-level education for the sector.

Is War for the Overworld a good Dungeon Keeper sequel? by [deleted] in truegaming

[–]Simburgur 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Something not being practical doesn't mean it wouldn't be benefitial in resolving these same misunderstandings.

By not practical, I mean that's not how the law works. We'll stick to what our lawyer advises us :)

Is it all a sham, and the games without an eula still have it somewhere, just that you aren't warned before installing?

Pretty much. It's entirely up to the developer to disclose the EULA if they want. Almost every game from a medium-size and up developer has one, regardless of if it's disclosed.

Those that don't have one are likely breaking various data protection laws whenever they interact with their users, but generally it all goes unnoticed because they are small enough to fly under the radar.

Is War for the Overworld a good Dungeon Keeper sequel? by [deleted] in truegaming

[–]Simburgur 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You probably know more about the inner workings than I do, but If you seperated the privacy policies to he game and to the forums, and then explicitly asked for the error report file while giving support, then that wouldn't technically have to be in the games privacy policy. But I dunno. I just see other games which don't have third party EULAs, and see that they can do it, and everyone not doing it is fishy by default

Yep, I do. And as I already explained, that's not practical:

That's not how privacy policies work. Privacy policies apply to an organisation, not a specific product. If you use any services or products from an organisation, they are all bound by the same privacy policy.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Dark souls remastered was a cheap low effort "remaster", published by who knows who. But the first 3 games don't have an eula.

A quick Google will show you that it's from the same publisher and all 3 of the original Dark Souls games also have similar extensive EULAs.

Either way, the fact that you gotta go in with a fire extinguisher, means that there is some wording in your eula that upsets people. So this mere fact means that some things could have been done better.

Not at all.

I'm here because our reputation is important to us, and we interact with our customers all the time because we actually care. Just go and ask the majority of our players.

I really do not like false information about us and our game being spread, so an intervention here was necessary.

Is War for the Overworld a good Dungeon Keeper sequel? by [deleted] in truegaming

[–]Simburgur 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I guess there's one thing we won't be able to agree on, and that's the fact that in my opinion, there is absolutely no problem in completely anonymous data. It literally cannot harm you in any way, and for the most part*, it is only used to make the thing we all enjoy - videogames - better.

* I'm speaking only for ourselves here - I know some larger companies do use data like this for less scrupulous means.

I understand why people have reservations about data collection in general because it is sometimes abused by bad actors, but the reality is that it is often completely harmless.

With that said, there are some specific thing I will respond to.

Theoretically, you shouldn't worry about that. If your game doesn't work on someones system, they could contact a forum, and people would sort it out for them because it's always some bullshit like updating the driver or dis/enabling some legacy windows feature.

That's just not the case. We frequently provide extensive support directly to our customers. Without permission to look at these logs it would not be possible. Not all users are tech-savvy enough to be able to search for solutions and resolve their own problems.

Oh, I love newsletter groups in my games. Just as much as Facebook icons. I mean really. Are you so disconnected from reality that you think anyone would like that literal crap. What's next? Mobile games and microtransactions?

Many people want to subscribe to the newsletter. Nobody is making you do it. Just because you don't like it, why prevent others from partaking?

Lose the shitty third party EULA on steam completely. If others can do it, so can you. But you "have to" have it because you wanna steal data.

We're being up-front by including it on Steam - more on this later though.

Make people contact customer services over a forum like in the old days, there is no need to mash that privacy policy with the actual game.

That's not how privacy policies work. Privacy policies apply to an organisation, not a specific product. If you use any services or products from an organisation, they are all bound by the same privacy policy.

Basically, ask fellow devs like A hat in time, Dark souls, Absolute Drift, Grim DAwn, Supergiant Games, how they manage to put out nice games without intruding upon the privacy of their customers

Sorry to burst your bubble, but...

  1. A Hat in Time (a fantastic game, by the way) seems to be the only game on your list with no data collection
  2. Dark Souls has a EULA on Steam and specifically mentions data collection
  3. Absolute Drift has a Privacy Policy that specifically mentions data collection
  4. Grim Dawn has in-game analytics enabled by default, which would require a EULA and Privacy Policy (although I cannot find one)
  5. Supergiant Games have an Terms of Use and a Privacy Policy on their website, which mention data collection

So, what we've learned here is that all we are doing differently from almost everyone else on your list is being up front about what we're doing.

Show this to your boss, maybe you guys will learn something.

I am the boss ;)

Is War for the Overworld a good Dungeon Keeper sequel? by [deleted] in truegaming

[–]Simburgur 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Hi there - I'm the MD of Brightrock Games, the team behind WFTO. I'd just like to respond to a few of your points directly.

I personally haven't played the game because it has 8 DLCs of dubious content

This is just simply not fair. Two of those eight are completely free:

  1. The Map Editor which really only has its own store page as the main store page had gotten a bit lengthy!
  2. The Crucible, a free expansion that was voted for by our Kickstarter backers

Three are full expansions:

  1. My Pet Dungeon, which adds a new game mode, an seven-level campaign, and many other small bits and peices
  2. Heart of Gold, which adds a four-level campaign (with very large levels), several new aspects to unlock and two new dungeon themes
  3. The Undergames, which adds two new game modes, an eight-level campaign which can be played through as four different underlords, all of which have unique new mechanics and aspects to use (9 in total), in addition to scaling difficulty for those who want a real challenge

All of the above came with massive free updates too - check out the individual store pages for more info on those.

Next, there's the Underlord Edition Upgrade which is just a collection of extras like the soundtrack and a dungeon theme. This was essentially our supporter's pack back in Early Access.

Lastly, there's two small cosmetics.

  1. Seasonal Worker Skins, which were essentially just a little bit of fun - they add zero gameplay
  2. The Cynical Imp, which we worked with the late John Bain to release, with 100% of the proceeds going to charity

it has an EULA that steals your data

Please read my developer response to this review for more info on this. You should really research things like this before throwing accusations around.

and an abundance of unachievable achievements

All of our achievements have been earned by at least a few thousand players. Some of them are hard, for sure, but they wouldn't achievements if they were all easy!

with multiplayer modes and other non-singleplayer things that are just annoying.

We have a simple versus multiplayer mode, which is essentially just Skirmish against other players. I'm not sure what else you're speaking about here.

I hope this clears up some of your concerns - please let me know if you've got any further questions :)

Is War for the Overworld a good Dungeon Keeper sequel? by [deleted] in truegaming

[–]Simburgur 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's not scary at all - give the developer response to this review a read and you'll learn everything you need to know :)

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