Paranautical Activity fought a difficult fight to get on Steam after Valve refused to let a publisher upload it because the game started life on its Greenlight service. It took a lot of hard work, shout-outs and interviews to get the abandoned campaign going again, but today the studio lost a lot of goodwill after a misunderstanding led gamers to believe the game was being abandoned.
While I wasn’t around to witness the explosion taking place, researching the debris that was left revealed that two harmful chemicals met at an unfortunate time. The developer announced that Paranautical Activity was almost done while also stating that the promised update that would add multiplayer was going to be impossible. Multiplayer was a feature that had a lot of people excited and for the longest time Code Avarice stated it would be happening, but sadly they discovered it would require rebuilding a huge part of the game for which they simply don’t have the resources.
This led to angry forum posts and Reddit threads that accused the two-man team of abandoning their game, lying to customers and even copyright infringement. As bad as that may sound, I think the real problem is that the developers responded in kind on both the game’s Community Hub and Twitter. While their posts did convey some information, it also fueled the fires:
Lastly, directly related to the ♥♥♥♥ show that is this forum. It should be apparent now why we as Code Avarice dont visit here. Very rarely does any good come of it. My post concerning the state of the game has been misinterpeted and twisted to make us look bad. I have removed it, as apparently my english was not clear enough to get the point across. I was trying to do the right thing, depsite my partners efforts to get me to avoid it. We payed the ultimate price for my efforts. All I wanted to do was give some information and let people know that disrespect is not tolerated by us. Regardless, Spooder was right, I wasted my time, the point was missed, and we have been bashed for every part of it, true or not, reading comprehension not considered. I dont believe we will be returning to this forum, ever, ever again. It is non productive, it is a waste of time. The moderators will take it from here.
We announced that pa is almost finished. Uproar follows about us abandoning the game.
Fuck this fucking industry.
— Mike Maulbeck (@SpooderW) May 8, 2014
Gamers really ruin gamdev.
— Mike Maulbeck (@SpooderW) May 8, 2014
My only goal at this point is to make a game that sells enough that I don't have to make games anymore.
— Mike Maulbeck (@SpooderW) May 8, 2014
What could have been a simple misunderstanding went completely downhill and threatening language, unprofessional behavior or deleting posts will only make people assault you more. I notice a lot of developer bullying on the Steam Community Hub, but all they want is a desperate reaction, so they can make you look like the fool and turn your game into the next scandal. Don’t fall for that, be a better person and only respond to inform. Use clear language, do not try to counter insults and don’t make it sound like everybody who is against you is a “troll” or “flamer.” We are probably going to see a lot of hate being thrown at this game for the next couple of days and that is pretty sad, I previewed Paranautical Activity and thought it was a lot of fun, definitely worth a look, so let’s hope Code Avarice can get this fiasco back on track and continue with development.
[Source]
