[2019] The game is commercially not viable

Not sure about the visibility issues as described, but I wouldn't put it down to Steam's discoverability. The fact is that Worlds Adrift fell short of what it needed to be as a game, because we were putting all our effort in making it work, on fixing bugs, rather than implementing the features it needed to have.

When we find ourselves committing 90% of our time just to keep the game working, with a large team, there's no possibility of making the fundamental changes and improvements the game needs.

That's what really brought us here.

Originally posted by Yemmer: Worlds adrift Fell short because the developers refused to implement BASIC features into the game to help retain the playerbase Thats why your population Plummeted AND the reason why your not getting enough sales, this is on the Studio, you can use whatever excuses you like, But the facts don't change.

Why would we refuse to implement features that would help retain the playerbase? We know the playerbase plummeted because of the lack of core features.

The reason why we didn't implement the host of features the game needed is because we were too busy making it work, fixing bugs, keeping it online. 90% of our time was going into this, and that's why we didn't implement the features that would have made it the game that could succeed.

So yes, you're absolutely right, except on the 'refused' bit.

Originally posted by Menzagitat: Thanks for clarifying Nar'Gall.
So avoiding bugs in the first place is the learned lesson?

No, not at all: bugs are the priority.

The problem is when bugs keep on popping up no matter how much effort is put into fixing them, thus making it impossible to establish a proper balance between bug fixing and features expansion / balance.

The reason this is so has to do with what we tried: a massive multiplayer physics-based game. The technical problems that this aspect brought forward were way bigger than expected, fickle, hard to fix. Rubberbanding when crossing multiple servers boundaries, for instance, took over a year of fixes to get to where it is today. In order to make it better, it would take as much work as it took historically (another year) because of diminishing returns on these fixes (ie. the obvious fixes have been exhausted, so were the not so obvious ones) and so on.

Looking at the game today, where it is from a technical standpoint, knowing we'll have to spend years more again at 90% tech, 10% features, without breaking even (not even remotely) commercially, you start to form the picture of a lost battle.

I hope this helps shed some light on your question.