I’m not sure I understand then. Is this an acquisition? If so, Riot is in complete control, and any assurances otherwise from Riot are subject to change at any time, without notice and for any reason.
The last 10 years of acquisitions and developer destruction have left me extremely cynical. I have yet to see a small indie developer be acquired by a megalith, and retain its identity. I backed an indie developer with a vision, and feel a little sick, honestly. LoL has a .,… let’s say questionable art style and community.
Please correct me if I’m wrong: Riot has the full legal right to, at any time and without notice, dictate direction of the game, the game’s budget, cancel the game outright, set a schedule, and mandate content. Whether or not they have currently stated they will or won’t do any of these things, the legal right to do so is present and always will be.
I feel like if the company was going to be sold to a juggernaut, why the Kickstarter? Was this the plan all along…? Again, every time I’ve seen an announcement to the effect of “wonderful parent company is now here to provide us with resources and support!!111!11!” what’s instead happened is the project changes direction, the company culture alters radically, and no good comes of it.
As both a backer and an oft-disappointed gamer, I’d like to know why this time will be different, and if the “complete control of Stonehearth’s destiny” is in any way contractually guaranteed.
Yes, that’s always the hope that I can only assume is attributed to youth and inexperience. No one buys a company to provide anything. They buy a company to increase their profits. No one spends money to acquire something, and then does nothing but throw money at it. Suits will say anything, do anything, to convince you that you’re the different special snowflake, put their arm around your shoulders, assure you how much they love your vision and would never stifle your creativity… and all those words spoken into empty air mean nothing and hold no legal substance, once they start to monetize the hell out of you.
Look at how many developers and creative titles EA alone has utterly destroyed.
Edit: i meant literally youth and a lack of experience. I was a bit shocked at the news, but don’t mean a “hey kid” kind of thing - what’s common knowledge for those with advancing eld, and as much or more work behind as ahead of them, may not be anything your average youngish gamer knows anything about, and there’s a large amount of idealism in the gaming community around things we like. Some of it benign, some of it less so - we could write a dissertation on how “customer” became “fan,” for instance.
That is very sane and mature of you. Thanks for looking out for us.
Yes.
This is, indeed, the plan
And we don’t want to lose the team, the product, or the community we love, either.
Here is how I, personally, think about it: making an indie game has always been about embracing uncertainty. What if we don’t know how to make something cool and fun? What if nobody backs our Kickstarter? What if we can’t finish the game because one or more of us has to drop out due to family or medical reasons? What if the zombie apocalypse happens, or if California is swallowed into the ocean by The Big One that I’ve been dreading ever since 1989?
There is only one way to be productive in the face of uncertainty, and that is to address actionable concerns, go make incremental progress on the Big Goal, and stop worrying about the rest.
Sometimes, this last one can be very hard. The only way I’ve found to get better at it is to practice. Happily, every single person on the Stonehearth team has practice at it, and I think you do too, or you would not have jumped in on a game in early alpha made by people who, for the most part, have never made a game before. For that, and for your continued support and maturity everywhere in our community and here on this thread, we are incredibly grateful.
Radiant + Riot indeed came about because of synergies between Riot and the Rising Thunder team, but any deal of it’s sort would of course change some of the uncertainties that our game faces (though, sadly, not the one about California and the Big One).
For my part, my conversations with Riot folks have been brief, but sincere. I really do believe they know how cool our game is, that they value your relationship with us, and that they want us to continue with the plan we had before acquisition was even an option. Logically, they have little reason to change what we’re doing as long as we keep doing it; all their focus is over there, on the other side of the room. These two things together are enough to let me put this uncertainty in a box with all the other ones, so I can keep going with the things that are important to me: making this game, with all of you.
On your part, if you’re still feeling uncomfortable (reasonable!) and would like to join us in taking action to make sure that Stonehearth continues to be the game we all want, keep helping us make the game better: play the game, make a model, make a housing template, find and file a bug, make a mod, make a let’s play, post stuff here, tell your friends! Stonehearth has succeeded because of your support, and I know that this new environment has not changed that one bit.
Thank you so much for the answers!(at least most of them i guess)
I’m axtually really glad that StoneHearth isn’t a web multiplayer game and’s more of a Host&Play type
It really doesn’t translate to money making ‘after’ the purchase of the game itself, besides mod revenue(if the modders are paid for content via the players)
As i said earlier; it’s sad to se RT to be in a halt, it was one of the few fighting games i really enjoyed.
But as long as the team is there; we’ll still get something awesome
I truely love how passionate the team is for the game, and i really hope it isn’t fabricated for reputation sake(and i don’t think it is)
This is a big change for the community as much as it is to the team, the least we can do is try stick together through it, as a community(and kind of a family?)
Though if they do happen to want to change something, like – say – asking users to buy gems to speed up the construction of their houses, there’s nothing Radiant can do about that, is there?
I’ve been salty in this thread, and it seems I am continuing to do so. You will have to forgive me. The moment when the Wikipedia page describing my favourite game studio changes all of its “is” words to “was” is usually when the game studio is purchased by a faceless giant. I don’t know much about the industry, but off the top of my head, there are far more tragic stories that involve a game studio being purchased than there are successful ones.
I’ll continue trying to make mods right up to when someone higher up in the food chain decides to close the game source, and I’ll continue recommending this game to everyone who will listen right up until it is no longer the game I want to recommend. I will stick through and sincerely hope that this is just paranoia based on previous experience.
I don’t think they actually can legally close the game source can they? As the kickstarter promised the easy of use for modding and last I checked it was actually not legal to break that kind of written promies?
I know at least that was a promblem that Armello ran into at one point.
Fight them? I mean, I got this chainsaw for the zombie apocalypse (see point above about addressing actionable concerns); didn’t you get one too?
Realistically, yes, no matter where you are, if your chain of command is bad, you’ll soon be in a bad place. But I answer to Tom and Tom now reports directly to Brandon and Marc, the founders of Riot. They came by earlier this week to have some beers; they seem like very sharp people who look at the long term and make thoughtful decisions. They reiterated their desire to be hands off, and I feel comfortable that if something came up, that I could at least have a conversation with them about it (and one that doesn’t involve chainsaws).
You’ve earned your paranoia the hard way, it sounds like, and I would not want you to relinquish it. Thank you for being you.
Done and done. That’s all I needed to hear. There’s no realistic way to be 100% certain of anything in life, so this valuable context and confirmation (thank you!!) has reduced my apprehension as far as reasonably possible. “If you’re happy, I’m happy,” as they say.
I firmly believe Tom and Tony are seasoned pros in the areas of intellectual property and protecting the things they love and value. Frankly, they would not have succeeded so much already without that being true. So I am confident that they will continue to protect and defend SH and your indie development process, should that ever become necessary. From the sound of it today though, it isn’t necessary, and there is a mutual agreement that nothing should change for SH.
So, I (for one) am good to go now. Onward to Beta, and beyond!
I admit this has me a bit worried. Stonehearth has immense potential but a lot of that potential is still unrealized – the kickstarter opened almost three years ago, and while development has been steady and consistent, it’s also been slow (looking at the old campaign page, estimated release date was September 2014) and core functionality like missile combat and Dwaf Fortress style engineering are still absent.
That’s fine for an Indy, labor of love game because I know it’ll all be in place eventually and I’ve been happy just checking in every few months to see what new features have been added. But my fear is that after some arbitrary # of months, after the KS funds run dry, corporate could pull the plug. I’ve seen it happen with other games and other franchises all too often.
I hope things work out well for all of Team Radiant and for Stonehearth, I’m just apprehensive by nature. Stonehearth is great so far. I just want to see you keeping up the great work. Thanks!
I have to say I am not a big fan of this. Maybe it will turn out allright, but I have seen it turn horribly horribly wrong so many times that I can’t cheer for this. Maybe if it had been some company that’s known for being rather hands-of, like Paradox Interactive for example, but this way I will just have to wait and see.
To be fair, this isn’t the first time Radiant has seen an injection of cash since the Kickstarter for Stonehearth. Otherwise, Rising Thunder wouldn’t even have existed and Stonehearth may have run out of funds before now (even including additional cash from Early Access).
This is just the first time Radiant has gotten that money by being acquired. Which naturally leads to stronger concerns. As for me, I’m just going to let them go for now, since there isn’t much I can do about them other than see there is “business as usual” on the streams, in the forums and on the website.
Sorry to hear that.
I never liked big studios because all they REALLY care about is the money.
Never ever news like this have been good for little studios and the games they produce.
And NOBODY will tell me that’s a good thing.
I feel sorry for you guys and i hope that you didn’t made a huge mistake.
And please don’t lie to us that that company is fully supportive and thrilled about game that you guys are working on, all they see is potential money they can made with yours game. If something will go wrong or if something won’t be as they wish they can simply cancel project and nobody will be able to do anything about that.
Everyone here who’s saying “all Riot wants is money”, remember they won’t get any money unless the game becomes a success I too am worried and glad on the same time, but i believe in Radiant, and remember, we’ve never seen Riot acquire an indie before. If it’s something they want to do in the future as well, they can’t mess this up.
This is really sad, was really enjoying that you where not linked to one of the really big companies cause in the end they decide what happens to the game and Developer have to accept this, happend to often now.
I really enjoy supporting the smaller or independent companies that don’t just wanna grab my money but also want me to really love their game.
Let’s just hope it won’t be as bad as with other small companies that got acquired before, really don’t want to cross Stonehearth off of the List of games I am playing but would do so as soon as they announce any kind of payed DLC or microtransaction-stuff.
Hate Riot for that crappy game LoL that gets hyped so hard…
Let’s wait for what happens in the future, `cause so far Stonehearth is one of my favourite games.
Hope you keep up your plans and don’t get influenced by Riots way of seeing money as the only importance while forgeting about what we would like to see in the future.
Thanks for looking out for us.
I too am worried and glad on the same time, but i believe in Radiant, and remember, we’ve never seen Riot acquire an indie before. If it’s something they want to do in the future as well, they can’t mess this up.
