I was wondering the same thing. I bought from Steam, too.
Out of interest, how come you guys expect a refund? Presumably the game was cancelled because the project ran out of money, so they have no money left to give?
Because we paid money to these people in exchange for a product?
I was interested in the game and felt that, since the game was published by Stardock and developed by some of the people behind the Age of Empires series, it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect they’d deliver. Furthermore, the Steam page for the game read (and still reads!): “Servo is fully funded; we are not relying on Early Access sales to finish the game.”
After an initial flurry of updates, the developers went silent. For months. Then Stardock pulled out. Then BonusXP said they were dedicated to the game and would have news “soon” (which turned out to not be so soon). The game, in the meanwhile, was still up for sale. Then there were one or two minor bug fixes, before the developers said, “Nah, we’re not going to continue development for this anymore.”
In the meantime, they’ve had no problem working on their mobile releases.
I guess I should have asked “where do you think the money will come from?” as I thought BonusXP closed. But they’re still working on their mobile games?!
Harsh.
Even though it’s early access (i.e. full of disclaimers that mean “we can take your money and do nothing tangible”), can any kind of legal action be taken? i.e. they claimed they’re fully funded and that the game will be finished, and it’s nowhere near done?
Yes, they seem to be doing fine.
I would assume that there is room for some kind of legal action. But I’m not an expert.
And to be clear, it’s not so much the money I spent (around 20 Euros) at this point, but rather the shitty behaviour on the part of BonusXP. I also didn’t appreciate Stardock simply pulling out of the whole thing. Undoubtedly BonusXP did something that wasn’t to Stardock’s liking, but it was still a puzzling thing to do that made me even more bitter about the whole thing (and hence I haven’t looked at, for example, the new Sorcerer King or Ashes of the Singularity).
But at least it’s made me stop buying Early Access games altogether, so that at least will save me some money. Especially since unless it’s something I’m really looking forward to, I’ll probably forget all about the game until it shows up again in a sale. So there’s that.
If nothing else, hopefully this will make a few more people learn the simple rule: Never pre-order games, and only buy Early Access games if you’re happy to play them in the state they’re in at the point of purchase.
Given the long radio silence from BonusXP, and the fact that Brad seemed out of the loop a bit when asked about what the development status of it was, I’m guessing it was the fact that they just wandered off the project with no communication and worked on development of their mobile game instead.
I’ve seriously never seen anything like it, when Stardock pulled out and BonusXP made their first communication in forever to say that everything was fine, they post on the Steam forums saying “We really don’t know what to do with the game, anyone here have any design ideas for us?”. For a game that they’d been taking money for and had been available in Early Access for some time, that was a little shocking to read!
I have to agree. To be fair, many if not most publishers/developers will say the same thing about early access, but I think many people treat such warnings as mild suggestions.
I mean, you’re welcome to ignore them, but don’t be surprised if it comes back to bite you.
I suppose it is a reminder that there is always a risk.
With Stardock’s backing and Age of Empires/Settlers developers attached to the project (Hello Bruce Shelley!) I thought this would be knocked out of the park.
I’m guessing that early sales and buzz were not strong so they quietly gave up and think that F2P mobile gaming is where it’s at.
From their mobile game Incorruptibles:
Top In-App Purchases
Satchel of Gems$9.99
Sack of Gems$4.99
Quinn’s Gem Sale$4.99
Bucket of Gems$19.99
Cart of Gems$99.99
Chest of Gems$49.99
I’m betting the Cart of Gems has the Best Value!!!11111
To me, this is baffling. Granted, I work in magazine/book publishing, but I find it strange if Stardock didn’t have some sort of lines of communication open to BonusXP. Perhaps they were distracted by Ashes and Offworld, but to simply walk away from the whole deal (and their customers) strikes me as odd, especially since they must have, as the publishers, received some of the revenue from the Steam sales.
But since also Stardock hasn’t been telling us anything, I guess we’ll never know.
Stardock received the revenue from the Stardock site sales- which was where they did their “Founder’s Edition”- Brad has said for certain those folks are getting compensated with a voucher for a future SD product and/or SC beta. No complaints here.
I’m unsure about those who bought on Steam- Steam has refused to give refunds to those people.
That’s what he’s said, yes. But BonusXP promised a lot too before they pulled the plug. Out of interest: has anyone received anything from Stardock who had purchased the game straight from them?
BonusXP claimed that they didn’t see any of the money from Steam purchases, so it must have gone to the publisher (i.e. Stardock) before they split. So if you bought the game before BonusXP was cut loose (like I did), the money would have gone to Stardock, minus the 30% cut or whatever Steam takes. Last I heard, Brad wasn’t sure about how he could find out who bought the game on Steam, and that this was a problem in getting Steam users some kind of voucher or whatever.
All in all, this entire thing is a gigantic mess, but few people seem to care. If this was something that had happened with EA or one of the big publishers, it would have been much bigger news. As it is, I don’t think any of websites on games have even reported this.
My guess (and I’ve been known to be wrong), is that BonusXP went to Stardock to pitch the game. Stardock had been advertising their seed money for developers to get smaller development teams going. BonusXP got upfront money to further develop the project, and Stardock (as always), was entirely hands off trusting BonusXP was going to develop the game not only for launch but for post-launch support. Stardock just assumes BonusXP is continuing development doesn’t think much about it and then is blindsided (Brad’s words) by the fact BonusXP quit. Maybe the contract was vague enough that Stardock has no recourse to force them to continue work on the game.
Honestly, I don’t recall Stardock ever abandoning a project like this, even when they performed abysmally or were poorly received. They’ve always been the superstar of post-release support. And considering BonusXP’s behavior and crappy communication my guess is Stardock lost a ton of money thanks to them since so few people bought into the game. Until proven different it feels like BonusXP took the money and used it to further their tablet games.
Also note: BonusXP is still listed as publisher and Stardock is losing money twice on this. Once because BonusXP quit, and a second time because they’re giving free copies of Star Control to founders.
Where is BonusXP in all this? They’re the ones who quit, so why aren’t they doing anything to say they’re sorry to their customers? They could give their players freebies from their ftp games but you don’t see them doing anything to make amends.
Is there any evidence for this aside from the promises made by Brad? I’ve PM’ed him, too, but so far he’s not responded at all to this issue, and it’s baffling that it hasn’t been reported anywhere (e.g. here on the QT3 front page, RPS, or whatever). It would be nice to know if buyers (Steam and otherwise) are going to get anything in the way of recompense.
Nope, they just shrugged their shoulders and moved on. They’re genuine scumbags, as far as I’m concerned.
how do I delete this post I messed up?
I didn’t want to come right out and say that, but that’s what I’m feeling too (and I didn’t even buy Servo!)
As has previously been mentioned, Stardock’s plan is to move Servo customers over to Star Control: Origins.
While Servo wasn’t a Stardock game, it had Stardock customers who purchased it because we were the original publisher and we always take care of our own.
I think the ongoing concern might have been Steam purchasers, as opposed to Stardock-direct purchases. If that group’s included, I think most remaining raised eyebrows might well be lowered (and if even if not, just having definitively clarification would help. But I don’t have any skin in this particular game, and haven’t been keeping up w/ Steam Forums, etc., so there may already be more info out there than there was when the discussion re-arose a couple of weeks back here).
Oh, and, in case it wasn’t clear from my prior, meaning-clarifying message, thanks for taking the time to read and reply about it at all, esp. here, on a thoroughly unofficial place for news on the game at all. <3