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General discussion (archive)Release: Dark Matter(219 posts)(219 posts)
(219 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 17, 2013
Note: Following some discussions with Iceberg Interactive, we have been asked to remove Dark Matter from sale while the developer addresses the fact that the game's ending has some problems. The game will remain available for download for anyone who has already bought it. The developers have stated that they are working on a patch as a solution to this, and as we mentioned yesterday, anyone who wants a refund on their copy of their game is free to contact Support and we'll take care of you. Our apologies about this, and we hope that this helps address the problem. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Dark Matter, a Sci-Fi thriller that challenges you to explore the dark corridors of a defunct spacecraft where light is as scarce as the resources you need to survive.

What is Dark Matter? Imagine you're stranded in a giant defunct space exploration vessel, and you are not alone on board. There's an ominous alien parasitic presence lurking at every corner, hiding away in the air-shafts, creeping through the conduits. This is a metroidvania-type title set in deep space, where no one can hear you scream, curse at your enemies, or call for mummy when you're lost in the vast labyrinth of dark corridors. In this non-linear survival and exploration action game you'll be challenged to make it through 14 danger-filled areas designed in the spirit of the darkest gritty hard S-F. With four upgradable guns, crafting mechanics, resource management, dynamic lightning that genuinely affects gameplay, and a reactive soundtrack, this gripping game is sure to stop your heart a few times as you play.
Posted October 22, 2013
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rodrolliv: See, GOG? I told you that The Stanley Parable would have been a better release. :P
Yes please!

It's so great watching these little discussions when people come forth and say with full confident "it's not a game!!!".
Posted October 22, 2013
Ouch. Well, these things happen, and presumably between this and Montague's Mount, there will be some change in internal policy to try to avoid any repeats. Two good releases today, and life goes on. I do think that "the game ends half way through because we ran out of money and fired the dev team" is going to be a somewhat difficult problem to solve with a "patch," but if that's their story, I guess GOG has to be diplomatic about it.
Post edited October 22, 2013 by BadDecissions
Posted October 22, 2013
I also said that Dark Matter should have been announced in the Coming soon section before release, but seeing the situation, a Games in Beta/Alpha section would seem more appropriate. Didn't GOG mention they would start accepting games in such state, like Steam Early Access or Desura?
Posted October 22, 2013
I' d actually like to get Dark Matter. Can't I just buy it from someone that wants a refund? Solve two problems?
Posted October 22, 2013
So then, folks who are going for a Dark Matter reimbursement, what is your choice? Are you getting a refund or a comparable game? Since I didn't want GOG to have to eat a loss for this, I decided to go with the exchange and am requesting Volgarr the Viking. How about you?

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monkeycaress: I' d actually like to get Dark Matter. Can't I just buy it from someone that wants a refund? Solve two problems?
You'll likely have to wait until the publisher re-releases it in whatever episodic state they get it to. No one seems to be stocking it now.
Post edited October 22, 2013 by IAmSinistar
Posted October 22, 2013
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JudasIscariot: snip
Generally, our team gets evaluation builds that aren't quite finished yet; they're usually nearly there, but they can be missing pieces of various sizes. We also don't finish most of the brand-new games that we're given before releasing because we usually get the final builds 1 - 3 days before they go live. This is not enough time to test almost any game to completion when you have 4 - 6 games coming out each week.

On a personal note, evaluating a game means I can't make a speed run through it, it takes time, and, in this case, I didn't have time to finish the game before my available time to evaluate this was up.
I was wondering about the actual process and this explains a lot.
Is the allocated evaluation/ testing time the same for all types of releases?
In any case, GOG does a good job staying true to its "customer love" motto, so I'm confident enough that in light of the recent unfortunate events GOG already got the cogs in motion to reassess its procedures.


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Psyringe: Well, _if_ Iceberg feels that they ought to make up for this not-so-stellar release ... I think they have a couple of titles that would fit quite well in GOG's catalog. Darkness Within, Baron Wittard, Barrow Hill, some strategy titles, perhaps Gas Guzzlers Extreme if it's a good game ...

That's one of the reasons why I would have understood if GOG had kept the game on sale. Why burn bridges with someone who has things that you might want? :) But it seems that Iceberg is now pulling the game from all distributors for the time being, in that case there's indeed little reason to keep it on GOG.
It seems that Iceberg Interactive realized it had to protect its own reputation and made the right move - lets hope that the end result will be satisfying.
And thatt move saved GOG from burning any bridges - truth is that when I saw Dark Matter released here I was more excited about the potential of seeing other Iceberg Interactive titles here and I sure hope that GOG and Iceberg Interactive will come to an agreement, they do carry some good adventure games.
Posted October 22, 2013
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HypersomniacLive: I was wondering about the actual process and this explains a lot.
Is the allocated evaluation/ testing time the same for all types of releases?
I hope this isn't too revealing, NDA-wise, but I am sure that I can safely say that it all depends on the type of game as not all of a game's features can be seen right away, depending on the difficulty of an evaluated game, or they aren't present at the time when we do evaluate a game, as I've mentioned in my earlier post.
Posted October 22, 2013
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JudasIscariot: I hope this isn't too revealing, NDA-wise, but I am sure that I can safely say that it all depends on the type of game as not all of a game's features can be seen right away, depending on the difficulty of an evaluated game, or they aren't present at the time when we do evaluate a game, as I've mentioned in my earlier post.
Thanks for the reply, JudasIscariot, hope I'm not getting you into any sort of trouble with these kind of questions.

I, logically, expected it to vary and I'm glad to hear it does. Still, I can only imagine the difficulties that come with having to do your best working with evaluation builds and reaching a conclusion within a strict amount of time.
I'm very curious if part of play-testing is also making a recommendation for GOG to release a game or not, or if that comes into play after a first level decision (i.e. affirmative interest for a potential release) is already made, but I'm almost too afraid to ask now that you posted that dreadful three-letter abbreviation.


Now that I think about it, it'd be quite interesting if GOG allowed us a glimpse behind the scenes and shared some info about the process of releasing a brand-new game.
Posted October 22, 2013
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JudasIscariot: I hope this isn't too revealing, NDA-wise, but I am sure that I can safely say that it all depends on the type of game as not all of a game's features can be seen right away, depending on the difficulty of an evaluated game, or they aren't present at the time when we do evaluate a game, as I've mentioned in my earlier post.
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HypersomniacLive: Thanks for the reply, JudasIscariot, hope I'm not getting you into any sort of trouble with these kind of questions.

I, logically, expected it to vary and I'm glad to hear it does. Still, I can only imagine the difficulties that come with having to do your best working with evaluation builds and reaching a conclusion within a strict amount of time.
I'm very curious if part of play-testing is also making a recommendation for GOG to release a game or not, or if that comes into play after a first level decision (i.e. affirmative interest for a potential release) is already made, but I'm almost too afraid to ask now that you posted that dreadful three-letter abbreviation.

Now that I think about it, it'd be quite interesting if GOG allowed us a glimpse behind the scenes and shared some info about the process of releasing a brand-new game.
Just so you know, I don't toss out those three letters as a smokescreen, it's just I never before worked under an NDA so I want to make sure I don't somehow break it. Besides, I'd rather be honest and let you know why I answer some things like I do instead of just feeding folks a line of fertilizer, so to speak :)

The part in bold: I'd like to answer that more clearly but I would like to double-check for reasons mentioned above just how much I can say. Again, sorry if this seems evasive :/

The part in italics: Speaking for myself on this one but I'd love to do something like that but that's not for me to decide :)
Posted October 22, 2013
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JudasIscariot: Just so you know, I don't toss out those three letters as a smokescreen, it's just I never before worked under an NDA so I want to make sure I don't somehow break it. Besides, I'd rather be honest and let you know why I answer some things like I do instead of just feeding folks a line of fertilizer, so to speak :)

The part in bold: I'd like to answer that more clearly but I would like to double-check for reasons mentioned above just how much I can say. Again, sorry if this seems evasive :/

The part in italics: Speaking for myself on this one but I'd love to do something like that but that's not for me to decide :)
Not for a second did I think that you're trying to evade or smokescreen us by mentioning the NDA. I do understand that a NDA is not something to be taken lightly. I've noticed before that you're taking it seriously (and I'm quite pleased that you are) and that's what I meant in my post.
And no worries if you can't disclose more details, I completely understand - I'm just a tad curious by nature about how things work behind the scenes, so I'll take whatever you can disclose without getting into trouble.

A "behind the scenes of GOG" would be great - hmm, maybe I should I put it up on the wishlist...

*Note
The "part in italics" doesn't make any difference when you're quoting my post as it's already in italics in its entirety ;-P
Posted October 22, 2013
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HypersomniacLive: snip
A developer who is trying to get (already got?) his game on GOG wrote an article about indie game submissions for GOG, as well as other services like Desura, GamersGate, GreenManGaming, Amazon, and a quick write up about Origin. Not sure how much of that he's actually allowed to say, but it's informative, even if there's nothing terribly surprising:
http://www.manfightdragon.com/?p=631
Posted October 22, 2013
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JudasIscariot: Just so you know, I don't toss out those three letters as a smokescreen, it's just I never before worked under an NDA so I want to make sure I don't somehow break it. Besides, I'd rather be honest and let you know why I answer some things like I do instead of just feeding folks a line of fertilizer, so to speak :)

The part in bold: I'd like to answer that more clearly but I would like to double-check for reasons mentioned above just how much I can say. Again, sorry if this seems evasive :/

The part in italics: Speaking for myself on this one but I'd love to do something like that but that's not for me to decide :)
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HypersomniacLive: Not for a second did I think that you're trying to evade or smokescreen us by mentioning the NDA. I do understand that a NDA is not something to be taken lightly. I've noticed before that you're taking it seriously (and I'm quite pleased that you are) and that's what I meant in my post.
And no worries if you can't disclose more details, I completely understand - I'm just a tad curious by nature about how things work behind the scenes, so I'll take whatever you can disclose without getting into trouble.

A "behind the scenes of GOG" would be great - hmm, maybe I should I put it up on the wishlist...

*Note
The "part in italics" doesn't make any difference when you're quoting my post as it's already in italics in its entirety ;-P
Yeah I forgot about about the default italics when quoting :)

Just wanted to say thanks for being understanding regarding the "dreadful three-letter abbreviation" as you put it :)

As always, feel free to ask me anything and I'll do what I can to answer :D
Posted October 22, 2013
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JudasIscariot: Yeah I forgot about about the default italics when quoting :)

Just wanted to say thanks for being understanding regarding the "dreadful three-letter abbreviation" as you put it :)

As always, feel free to ask me anything and I'll do what I can to answer :D
I called it "dreadful" because the mere mention of it seems to make people imagine all sorts of (sinister) things going on that must be kept secret by any cost and for all kinds of colorful reasons - reality could be (and probably is in many cases) much more simpler, but you know how these things work.

And here's one last question for tonight -- What are you still doing logged in here this late at night answering my questions? Are you still at the office playing (sorry, I meant testing) games? ;P

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SCPM: A developer who is trying to get (already got?) his game on GOG wrote an article about indie game submissions for GOG, as well as other services like Desura, GamersGate, GreenManGaming, Amazon, and a quick write up about Origin. Not sure how much of that he's actually allowed to say, but it's informative, even if there's nothing terribly surprising:
http://www.manfightdragon.com/?p=631
Thanks for the link, I just finished reading up on GOG and thought I mentioned this part:

I once said in an interview “Getting on Steam [via greenlight] means you won a popularity contest, getting on GOGcom means you made a good game.”
Now I need to finish reading up on the others.

EDIT: fixed typo in sinister - apologies to IAmSinistar
Post edited October 22, 2013 by HypersomniacLive
Posted October 22, 2013
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HypersomniacLive: snip
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SCPM: A developer who is trying to get (already got?) his game on GOG wrote an article about indie game submissions for GOG, as well as other services like Desura, GamersGate, GreenManGaming, Amazon, and a quick write up about Origin. Not sure how much of that he's actually allowed to say, but it's informative, even if there's nothing terribly surprising:
http://www.manfightdragon.com/?p=631
Thanks for the link. Interesting.
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rodrolliv: I also said that Dark Matter should have been announced in the Coming soon section before release, but seeing the situation, a Games in Beta/Alpha section would seem more appropriate. Didn't GOG mention they would start accepting games in such state, like Steam Early Access or Desura?
I remember people seemed to want access to beta/alpha section but nothing has been confirmed or forthcoming at this point :/.
Post edited October 22, 2013 by nijuu
Posted October 22, 2013
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SCPM: A developer who is trying to get (already got?) his game on GOG wrote an article about indie game submissions for GOG, as well as other services like Desura, GamersGate, GreenManGaming, Amazon, and a quick write up about Origin. Not sure how much of that he's actually allowed to say, but it's informative, even if there's nothing terribly surprising:
http://www.manfightdragon.com/?p=631
That was quite interesting.
For all his praise for Desura, his game isn't up there and he hasn't updated his IndieDB page for months now, kind of funny.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Release: Dark Matter(219 posts)(219 posts)
(219 posts)