[2019] Bossa Studios, do the right thing here.

Imagine this: you hear about a new MMO on the web. You get interested, the game is launched, you buy a copy of it and perhaps a subscription.

For a couple of years, said MMO goes from its early stages, full of exploits and bugs (like most MMOs under the sun, ever) and a year or so in, it stabilises and start to get better. Not perfect, not the final article (because no live MMO is ever the final article, as it keeps forever evolving). Devs continue to work on it.

Yet, not many players buy the game. Eventually, after a couple of years, dev announces it can no longer keep it going, and it's going to shut it down. It stops charging you a subscription, and will keep the game alive for another two or three months for you to play.

This has happened before. A lot of times, to a lot of MMOs.

Now, how's this different from Worlds Adrift on Early Access? We didn't charge a subscription. That's the difference. The only difference.

Case in point, we could just as well take the game out of Early Access a couple of months ago. One would argue that it had bugs, that it wasn't ready. And yet, no MMO ever is. They all need to constantly improve, to patch new exploits, and so on. Some more than others, sure, but still...

The reason why you think we 'scammed' you (which is a pretty lame scam, one where we end up losing 3X what we made in sales, but hey...) is because you have a view of what Early Access should be. But that view is not necessarily what it is.

Early Access is a place for projects, for games, which are not in a state most players are comfortable with: they have too many bugs, they will get wipes, they will change. Not everyone is ready for that.

Apart from this, there is no difference whatsoever from an Early Access launch or a Full Launch or a launch outside of Steam. Well, there is one: some players think that because a game is on Early Access and it gets cancelled, there is a special case in place.

Worlds Adrift was a playable game on day one of EA. Some people has played it for more than 2,000 hours. Will you really say that they didn't get their money's worth out of it? What if we were charging subscription, would that be right then?

EA is a great section of Steam to allow projects to come out earlier, and get player feedback to make them better. It's not some sort of special case where players who bought a game suddenly are entitled to a new layer of protection where if something goes sideways, the developed can never cease to develop. Why would this be when this is not the case outside of EA?

Think about it...

Originally posted by Fatikis: Bossa Studios has the funds to keep the game alive, AND you never properly updated the game to begin with. The game has received minimal updates. Bugs are slow if ever fixed.

Bossa killed the game by barely working on it.The game was supposed to be released 3years ago. You admitted in the video it had only 20% of the planned content for release. 1/5 content 3years late. How about you actually work on the game we purchased?

We updated the game 30 times in the past year, every update meaningful and as large as we could make them. Yet, not large enough, as we stated when saying that 90% of our time was spent on making it work rather than making it better. There isn't much more to say about this, really.

Originally posted by Korben: Looks like you prepared this pitiful speech for the onslaught that you knew you would receive for screwing us over. All this reply shows is the type of people you really are. Entitled to our money and will take zero responsibility for it. It is our fault for supporting you, well done. Setting excuses and examples that do not even compare to the situation. Those other MMO's at least released their games, you did not. EA is not a release of the finish product that we were promised.

If you can justify treating your customers this way, you will not have many customers for long. I will never support your shady company again. Thank you for the lesson, it has been hard learned.

Imagine this? Think about it? What the hell is wrong with you?

Korben, I understand you are frustrated, we all are. But that doesn't change what EA is, nor how it works. Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny nor obnoxious here, but the truth is people are turning EA into something it's not.

Here, straight from the EA tag on any game you buy, and from its FAQ:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.

Originally posted by TescoClubCardUK: For that reason, after taking millions of pounds off of people that supported the development of this game, Early Access needs to be abolished, will stop companies like yours from using it as an excuse for a cash grab.

That's not the case. Again, we spent on WA's development 3x more than it made in sales, plus years of our time. To suggest this is somewhat profitable... It's not correct.

Making games is hard and expensive. Making an MMO is an order of magnitude so. We had dozens of people working on WA for years, it's not rocket science to multiply their salaries and get to the value.

But that won't ease yours nor anyone's frustration.

Originally posted by Fatikis: I don't care about your excuses. I care about you a large company ripping me off like all devs in EA seem to be ok with. 30 tiny updates in a broken game is not anything.

It's very hard to carry on a discussion in any direction if one keeps on going back to something that's factually incorrect. I'll paste below a single changelog of one of the 30 updates you label as tiny (this is not even our largest one...):

https://www.worldsadrift.com/patch-notes/will-of-the-council-update-29-patch-notes/

On your 'all devs in EA seem to be ok with', maybe you expect EA to be something it's not. That's important, because the core of EA is about games that are in development and may not see the light of day, nor be what people want them to be. This is quite clear on every EA disclaimer and in its FAQ, and is quite a contrast. EA tries to put it to players that this situation may indeed happen, and does so a lot:

EARLY ACCESS GAME
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

WHEN WILL THESE GAMES RELEASE?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.