EHG should have let LE die

General
41

Since 1.0 we have the ‘true offline’ mode.

Every single version of LE since that happened is available on the Steam Database, as Steam saves every single version individually for posterity on their servers actually.

So this is available actually. Just every version before true-offline was introduced is lost to time as it needs verification of the servers and hence cannot be started.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/611h5e/guide_how_to_download_older_versions_of_a_game_on/

This is a quick guide on how to do it. It’s a hassle to not be a inherently integrated function with a user-friendly UI… but it’s doable.

As for the other stuff:
EHG had literally years to act before it came to those issues. That’s the problematic timeframe, and why they deserve backlash for it.
The salvaging part afterwards has been done decently well. It was not acceptable to ever come to that. Had EHG shown as much competence in adapting their approach as they did to salvaging their product as a last hail-mary attempt then all the issues related to it wouldn’t even exist.

It includes undue expansion of the company.
It includes false primary focus.
It includes the absolute neglicence to not design any long-term revenue streams properly.
It includes the focus of expansion over solidification.

Each of them had a major impact… even a single one of them would’ve reduced the severty by postponing the situation for months, allowing to tackle the others respectively.
None of them were handled appropriately.

Downfall is easy to excuse when it comes from a single source.
Downfall is unexcusable when it comes from several places at once.
Why?
Because you can easily overlook a single… or two vectors of failure. But doing so with 4… 5… more… that’s simply hubris of some kind happening.

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42

tho i agree with you on many things. i would say, that they did their best. i would still believe that they are a passionate bunch of folks who came together perhaps lacking the experience on managing the project. if i m being honest, project management is not something anyone can do. many project managers IRL actually end up exceeding deadlines/budgets and get chewed up for it. but at least they have the safety net of being backed by their employer.

did LE go horribly wrong? yes. could it have been done better? much better in fact.

but thats the nature of kickstarters. we dont know the people behind the project. besides the scammers, there are many who dream large but lack the experience or knowledge to make things work. i dont know the devs personally, but the fact they’re trying this last ditch hail mary gives me reason to believe that at the very least they were really serious about making this work. just they were lacking expertise on how to make it work

43

I get what you’re trying to say, but also… you’re too lenient there.

Yes, they’re passionate.
Yes, they did their best.

That counts for something, you’re absolutely right! A ‘shitty’ company doing the same thing will be treated far far worse… but EHG is not ‘shitty’ at least.
But what counts even more then good intentions is actual merit.

And you’re right:

If you ‘lack experience on managing a project’ after doing it for 8 years then you’re well past your expiration time as a manager. You failed, you shouldn’t have that position.

And you’re also 100% right that not everyone can do it… so you grab someone which actually can do it, despite wanting to do whatever you like without limitations. Creative minds need someone who is savy in planning behind them to reign them in. And someone who’s savy in planning needs a creative mind to not provide well planned garbage.

Kickstarter just removes the aspect of providing good PR beforehand by removing individual sponsors and instead making it community based. You’re far more prone to catch several individuals willing to invest into your ideas then people who have a fixed mindset and have already come into money.

It doesn’t provide any barrier for competence sadly… and also scamming and similar stuff as you mention, yes.

In my personal dream-system intellectual property and execution of said ideas would be separated. Mandatory royalty system.
You can think something up, that idea gets listed in a database for free (basically patent system but without cost) and when you execute anything there is a fixed percentile of revenue you’ve got to give the people holding said intellectual property.

Allows not only you to execute things should you get the funds… but also others, profiting from both. So if you do your idea the best then you earn full… otherwise it still gets realized as someone else does it well.

But that’s a dream and not reality, far away from reality actually with all the shenanigans happening :stuck_out_tongue:

I mean… a 7 digit check is kinda the thing they got, we don’t know how much is contractually ‘you have to stay with us for x time’ from the publisher or ‘we actually wanna make good’ form the devs. We just imagine it being the dev side as it’s the better situation for us as customers.

We gotta take the worst-case always into consideration though, likely or unlikely.

44

yeah. the kickstarters still are customers/investors. i would say its a harsh tuition fee.

i got burned with GGG. i put a lot of time and money into a game that i no longer play. and i mean a lot. when i want to complain, i cant. its the nature of “supporting” the game dev. kickstarters have no safety net too. if the project burns. its simply a loss. we dont want it to burn but it is what it is.

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45

But mah preeeneeceeepaaaals!!

It’s a lot easier to sit on the sidelines & throw stones than it is to actually do something. Especially when you can sit in your nice comfy chair & feel righteous by letting the anger flow.

That explains a lot tbh.

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46

i mean like what can they even do? kickstarters have a disclaimer where theres nothing much the supporters can do legally if the project goes south.

angry kickstarters yell at cloud! RAAAAH!

2 Likes
47

This is something a LOT of people don’t “understand” about these crowdfunding sources. I’ve run over a dozen Kickstarter/Indiegogo campaigns (I eventually stopped because I grew to hate the model) and every single time you create one it has an automatic disclaimer add that states “things happen so before you pledge be aware of this possibility.”

It’s essentially the same as Hollywood film funding. It’s high RISK high reward. Everyone tends to selectively forget the “HIGH RISK” part.

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48

To be fair… it’s mostly high risk - low reward for non-investment based crowdfunding.

In terms of EHG’s backer levels it’s especially laughable.
Access to the game ← great!
Then it goes up… all fine!
And what’s the primary ‘return aspect’ for people backing higher? Small crap which is useless or simply fun… but non-functional plainly spoken. You did get full value in cosmetic points though!

And that’s the laughable part!
Imagine backing EHG for 10k like 4 poor sods did, getting the points… and 8 years after that you cannot even spend half of your kickstarter acquired in-game funds :joy:

49

The same as the various digital special/moar-special/even-moar-special editions of games you can get (eg, BL3/4 & many others). It gives people the option to throw more money at a developer if they wish.

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50

Sure, the direction is similar… but it’s not even comparable sadly.

If we simply take Battlefield 6 for example, with the ‘Phantom Edition’ then the difference is 30€.
You get the battle pass (shit mechanic but anyway), pay 2 progress (also shit) and auxiliary stuff.

But for ‘value’ you get actually cosmetics at least. 4 Skins for the character (which all need to be fully tested for clipping and designed after all), 3 weapon skins, 1 vehicle skin and some basically non-visible auxiliary extra shit again.

That’s 30€… I’m talking here about backers of LE. Especially the higher tier backers which have been completely fucked over because of said incompetence related to the income channels.
Imagine paying 10000€, being told ‘You can use those 10000€ freely for decorative crap’ and then you don’t produce anything to buy!

That’s a completely different level of crap for a customer… you pay for something for the ‘theory of existence’ only… as theoretically you can get everything… but practically nothing exists.
By providing such a reward aspect EHG basically stated ‘we’ll populate our shop heavily to allow the usage’ but they never did it.