Pixel Piracy: An Open Letter from Quadro Delta:
Hello there everyone! Alex Poysky here with a reflection on the past year or so along with some pretty huge news.
When we initially launched Pixel Piracy last year, we did so feeling that we had left a lot of what we WANTED to go into the final game on the drawing board. In all honesty, we took this step out of necessity, and while this certainly met our needs, it left our customers with a game that – while full of potential – fell far short of expectations. While Early Access games that make a quick buck and then proceed to break their promises are a dime a dozen, we feel strongly that it is neither morally nor ethically correct of us to move on to future projects without coming back to Pixel Piracy and spendingthe time and effort necessary to make things right for our customers. This was to be a holistic effort to address the underlying problems, content revisions, and bugs that shipped with the product last year.
None of this is an excuse for the state of the initial game, nor is this a pity cry for you all to give us a pass and let us make a second game while overlooking the first one's faults. Behind the scenes, we have rebuilt the entire AI engine, restructured a ton of gameplay elements, and added a wealth of new effects, content, and languages. We have also taken careful steps to enhance the accessibility of ourgame while staying true to our core vision. This has all been conducted over the past six months under the “Enhanced Edition” title – a remastering of the game, hence the name.
We have come to the realization that this may have caused confusion – making people think that this was some sort of DLC or paid update. This was never our intent.
The “Enhanced Edition” is free - completely free. It's a series of HUGE updates and sweeping changes that bring the game to a point where we are comfortable calling it “complete” and worthy of our initial vision.
We are also planning to drop the “Enhanced Edition” moniker as a part of this. The forthcoming update is – quite simply – Pixel Piracy as it should have been from day one.
Consider this note to be a formal apology letter from our studio to each and every one of you – our customers and potential customers. We launched a product that WAS NOT up to our standards. We hope that by investing the money you gave us back into Pixel Piracy that we will finally deliver the quality product YOU as a client deserve. We expect neither thanks nor applause for this. This isn’tabout that but a desire to make things right borne from a love for our work and a moral responsibility to you, our customers.
If you were unhappy with the game at launch, we CANNOT blame you, but what we CAN do is let you know that we have a sincere desire to break the Early Access mold and take the high road by rebuilding the game, and are presenting you with a product that we feel is worth your time and investment. If youwere iffy on Pixel Piracy before, we would invite you to give it another chance and see if we've managed to bring this project close enough to home for you to enjoy! Of course, we would welcome your ongoing feedback – we promise we are listening!
Looking back at all of the times when I almost let the justified criticism get to me, where I ALMOST pulled the plug and said “Sadly, we are just another of ‘those people.’”...I am not proud of those moments. We were a poster child for what is wrong with Early Access. That ends today. We are
proudly moving ahead and hope to one day be seen as one of the very few Early Access games that dropped the ball, picked it up, dusted it off, and kept our word.
That said, we've learned from our mistakes, and will be COMPLETELY avoiding Early Access for our next title. Pixel Privateers is slated for a “Mid 2015” Launch, but don't hold me to it. It'll be done when it's done, and it WILL be great.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We know we have violated your trust in the past, but we are wholly committed to earning it back and beyond. We never forget that if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here doing what we love each and every day.
HERE is the entire changelog for the past few months. APRIL corresponds to this patch.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19BVAfFheTVhU0NNSmoQWLPJ5fYF4scvx_iIipKo2ia4/edit?usp=sharing
Sincerely,
Vitali Kirpu
Alexander Poysky
Mikko Arvola
And the rest of the Quadro Delta team