Damn, that's unfortunate. I'm glad Steam is cooperating though—a lot of platforms would try and bury this.
I hope this ends up being a blessing in disguise for them. Heart-wrenching to lose 10 years to a project and see little return because of a bug you're not even responsible for.
The article says that Valve is only going to make the game a Daily Deal for a single day. The polygon commenters have it right, why not make it a week?
Why not buy 138,000 copies, one for each user that wishlisted the game, and give those out gratis? At $15 per copy, that's only 2 million dollars. That's a pittance for a company the size of Valve. But that would give the devs money and time to improve the game post-launch, something they probably won't be able to do even if they take Valve's offer.
I think they should make it a daily deal, but not for a week. They should also eat the discount cost, which they apparently aren't doing, and entirely waive their cut.
What I think they should do instead of extending the deal, is reset the games launch.
There is absolutdly no reason Valve couldn't re-launch the game, along with all the algoritm benefits an unbugged 1.0 launch should have had.
Also, you seem to have missed that the article says they are contractually obligated to complete their current WIP game. Valve giving them a bunch of money would not give them time to work on further updates for Planet Centauri before then.
Ah, I did miss that part of the article. My mistake.
unbugged 1.0 launch
Based on recent Steam reviews, it seems to actually be pretty buggy, and the Mixed review score doesn't bode well for it anyway.
They meant the issue with steam, not game bugs.
One of the polygon commenters had it right: Valve should put the game at 30% discount for a week, where said 30% is their cut, so every sale in that meantime goes straight to the devs
Valve should absolutely be doing more to fix their mistake.
Why it happened I can't say, but I know what caused the failed launch - the game has an early access date and release date both in 2016. Steam didn't send the mail that the game had released when it left EA because from their point of view, it had already released nine years ago.
Other games that have recently left EA have their release date update to the date they leave EA. No clue if it's something that (should) happen automatically, or if it's something the devs missed.
Valve admitted it was their mistake.
Valve contacted the French duo behind the space exploration game this month to tell them that the platform failed to notify the users who had saved Planet Centauri on their wishlists.
Kinda. Same as me, they know why the launch failed - no notifications - but don't say anything why the notifications didn't get sent.
Steam has a section for the developers for setting up the release date. It specifically states that you need to be careful with it, because two weeks before that date you start getting visibility on the "upcoming releases" list, and will then show up in the "new releases" section, and once that happens, you can't change it.
And Planet Centauri is showing their official release date as being "3 Jun, 2016", not the 2024 date they left Early Access as it's supposed to. So did they mess that up and the notifications were actually sent, but they went out nine years ago? Or did Steam glitch when this game specifically left EA, not updating the date and not sending the notifications?
If it did, were other games affected?
Yes, actually
In an email to Permadeath, Valve said that Planet Centauri's 1.0 launch suffered from "a bug that impacted a very small number of game releases (less than 100 since 2015) where wishlist email notifications for the launch of a game were not sent."
The economics of our world are completely controlled by middle-men. This is how much power we have delegated to them. There is no free market, just a series of publisher deals that put producers of value into a casino to decide if they get compensated for their labour.
Was reading the article and decided to pick up the game to help out the devs, apparently I bought it when it first came out back in 2016, I thought it sounded familiar.
It was a great game, and one I need to play again.
[Valve] failed to notify the users who had saved Planet Centauri on their wishlists.
Planet Centauri is a great game (also I don't know why the link says "Alpha Centauri" it's literally never been called that, that's a different game)
Worth checking out, it's very deep, but also a distinctly different flavor than Terraria despite the superficial similarities.
Something something building on rented land.
Is it too late to send the email
I’m guessing the article will at least help. I may buy it myself to see what the fuss is about
So they depended entirely on wishlists? I thought it’s the norm to buy ad spots on the homepage on launch.
That's definitely not the norm for indie devs on Steam. They are heavily reliant on wishlists because it automatically notifies when the game is released and on sale; it's why the call to action for indie games is to wishlist it.
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