I'll let Jax do the talking. Such a message leaves a bad taste in my mouth to be honest.
As a game developer I'm sure you know it's not just about actual sales (even though that's the primary objective of course), but on the retention rate resulting from those sales. You state that a17 sold 2-3 times as much as compared with a16. Let's not forget that a17 took 1.5 years, so one would assume that the player numbers after the first-release peak would be a lot higher than pre-a17. They aren't. Not many more people are playing the game post-a17 as compared with pre-a17. That tells a lot.
Plus the reviews are still negative. Half a year after a17 was released there's still not more than 60% positive ratings.
Sure, ratings are subjective, but it tells a lot.
And a17.3 still has to come out, half a year after a17e got released. You stated that a18 will have a much shorter release cycle than that of a17. It might be good to come out with a public statement on the forum/official website now, in case there's gonna be delays. That will prevent a lot of flak.
Nothing personal, of course!
Peace out.
No you didn't read a thing I wrote, Recent reviews are a SEA of blue and about the ONLY negatives are from 300+ hour players talking about the past. Like 90% or more of new customers are giving it a great review. When you say "The Reviews" you are being completely subjected to what you are looking to see. If you click into it, you will see the reviews are fantastic in the context of A16. Some sharp stick people are still disgruntled. Don't buy an alpha game if you are going to get married to placeholder systems.
Sales are the best metric. Good games sell well, bad ones don't. I don't care what the squeaky wheels say and neither should anyone. If a game sells millions of copies, there is something good there, period. Look at all the negative Ark reviews. That game is brown we're still blue at least (the best possible color of steam games). Ark is a good game but everyone ♥♥♥♥s on them. I had a friend with 2k hours who wrote a crappy review because they changed the fliers. A simple mod fixed it but he left his stain on their hard work that changed his life and gave him 2k hours of fun. That is just wrong, but whatever, people are entitled fickle ♥♥♥♥s these days who judge on one recent flaw vs 5000 good times they had.
My point is Ark is a good game, but people get mad at them and write a negative review. I don't agree with that. Like I stay at a 5 star hotel and the view is great, the service is fantastic. They confused me for my brother and charged me for his room, but I didn't ♥♥♥♥ on them, they fixed it and its fine, great place to stay.
A friend of mine doesn't like Rust. He has 4000 hours in it lol. They ruined it with the helicopters. Some people don't adapt to change.
I'll admit I'm very opposed to negativity. It pisses me off and I delete any negative people in my life. I thrive to prove them wrong though, so I use it as fuel for motivation. So I might react strongly when it comes to criticism, but at the end of the day we always do what we think is best for the game.
Dev cycles start when the other alpha is finished. I don't think you can complain about A18 when your getting patches for 17. Thats just me though, I don't like to complain, I like to fix things, that actually gets results.
