Posted February 22, 2018
Greetings
Just to testify on my little story with the game.
When it first appeared as a project a few years ago, i got interested in the future game that would be RIOT: Civil Unrest. Even at that very early stage (no alpha available, only a few screenshots), the official website allowed people to preorder the game (at the price of 20 bucks); and something that was "familiar" for me on the website was the Humble Store/Bundle payment widget.
But, DRM-fre being my main concern, i first contacted the team through the contact form of the website to inquire about the possible availability of a DRM-Free version (as they seemed to already be in deal with Humble). Someone replied to my message and confirmed that people who were ordering the "desktop version" (so, one can assume the game plans to have a mobile port too) through the official website would get their game as a DRM-free build. As it was a condition prior to my purchase, and the answer was satisfactory, i validated my order.
Project goes dark for a while, and frankly, knowing development can last long time, have delay and unexpected events, i didnt worry too much. Then one year ago or so, the game get an article about it on a website of my country about video games i used to follow regularly. Article mention also a steam page for the project. Was very surprised, 1st that some web blogger could have get intel about the game that had not been communicated already to any crowdfunding backers (there were some indiegogo campaign i was unaware of, later after my purchase) or early customers through preorder. Also, price was 50% of the price i paid, for any new players to come.
I so contacted again the team, to inquire about that... twice... And would receive for only answer some mindless and irrelevant advertising for some console ports of other games (probably from same publisher the team may had made a deal with), struck me much because the mail for example was talking about PS4 version of Aragami (it was a couple of month after Aragami was released on GOG , for example). So, no intel, official steam price being 50% cheaper than preorder customers, no real reply to contact... began to smell very shady !
Then near the end of 2017, game got "officially released", still in development (early access) on Steam, still half the price of my initial order. Other people (mainly backers of crowdfunding campaign) already reported they didnt get any steam key. Their own game finally got delayed by 48 hours after regular buyers on steam. (See ? this seems to be going all backward from regular projects like that: usually, backers/preorderers get their game before store customers, and usually cheaper too). But hey, lets deal with it. So i go to my humble account library and... i only see a button to reveal and redeem a steam key, but no damn DRM Free build. We are in early 2017 December. First i begin to think it's another scam like GloomyWood did with their title 2dark (if those guies finally show their rat face on GOG catalog, please use flamethrowers) BUT... surprise, only a few days later, RIOT also appears on GOG catalog. So now we are not anymore in "2dark-gate" territory, as RIOT did in fact got released as DRM-free version. Just NOT for official website's early customers.
From the day the game appeared on GOG, i will desperatly and without any success contact 4 different people of the team, through any means and email addresses or contact forms i could ever find, to simply request what i was made to think i would purchase years ago: RIOT as a DRM free build. For over two months and a little more, and several mails... Will get only one early reply as the person i reached would forward my first message to the persone supposedly in charge of that. But then, no single reply or info. Didnt ask much: either a refund, or a drm free build... At that point, i didnt mind it not being tied to my humble user library, in fact, i strongly suggested a GOG version would do fine for me.
Have to try contacting folks again last week and got an answer tonite: with a GOG redeem link !
End of the story: i purchased a DRM free GOG game... through Humble Store :) (well it is not an entire exceptionnal situation; they once in a bundle provided a GOG key for Defender's Quest... but still)
Now however, i know the fight is not over yet, as i could read here on this forum:
We still need to be careful about GOG version and GOG users not being treated as second class citizens
I really hope devs will bother enough to update their game here too
Hey, for the fact some people, like me, paid double price, i really expect that i will be allowed to experience the game with decent bug fixing and updates (so, i hope the dev team wont neglict the GOG build, or provide replacement steam key to everyone, if they fail to do so)
It is yet a curious case, a different one from the despicable events around 2dark from gloomy wood, but it worthed mentioning and being told, or so i thought.
Have fun, people
Just to testify on my little story with the game.
When it first appeared as a project a few years ago, i got interested in the future game that would be RIOT: Civil Unrest. Even at that very early stage (no alpha available, only a few screenshots), the official website allowed people to preorder the game (at the price of 20 bucks); and something that was "familiar" for me on the website was the Humble Store/Bundle payment widget.
But, DRM-fre being my main concern, i first contacted the team through the contact form of the website to inquire about the possible availability of a DRM-Free version (as they seemed to already be in deal with Humble). Someone replied to my message and confirmed that people who were ordering the "desktop version" (so, one can assume the game plans to have a mobile port too) through the official website would get their game as a DRM-free build. As it was a condition prior to my purchase, and the answer was satisfactory, i validated my order.
Project goes dark for a while, and frankly, knowing development can last long time, have delay and unexpected events, i didnt worry too much. Then one year ago or so, the game get an article about it on a website of my country about video games i used to follow regularly. Article mention also a steam page for the project. Was very surprised, 1st that some web blogger could have get intel about the game that had not been communicated already to any crowdfunding backers (there were some indiegogo campaign i was unaware of, later after my purchase) or early customers through preorder. Also, price was 50% of the price i paid, for any new players to come.
I so contacted again the team, to inquire about that... twice... And would receive for only answer some mindless and irrelevant advertising for some console ports of other games (probably from same publisher the team may had made a deal with), struck me much because the mail for example was talking about PS4 version of Aragami (it was a couple of month after Aragami was released on GOG , for example). So, no intel, official steam price being 50% cheaper than preorder customers, no real reply to contact... began to smell very shady !
Then near the end of 2017, game got "officially released", still in development (early access) on Steam, still half the price of my initial order. Other people (mainly backers of crowdfunding campaign) already reported they didnt get any steam key. Their own game finally got delayed by 48 hours after regular buyers on steam. (See ? this seems to be going all backward from regular projects like that: usually, backers/preorderers get their game before store customers, and usually cheaper too). But hey, lets deal with it. So i go to my humble account library and... i only see a button to reveal and redeem a steam key, but no damn DRM Free build. We are in early 2017 December. First i begin to think it's another scam like GloomyWood did with their title 2dark (if those guies finally show their rat face on GOG catalog, please use flamethrowers) BUT... surprise, only a few days later, RIOT also appears on GOG catalog. So now we are not anymore in "2dark-gate" territory, as RIOT did in fact got released as DRM-free version. Just NOT for official website's early customers.
From the day the game appeared on GOG, i will desperatly and without any success contact 4 different people of the team, through any means and email addresses or contact forms i could ever find, to simply request what i was made to think i would purchase years ago: RIOT as a DRM free build. For over two months and a little more, and several mails... Will get only one early reply as the person i reached would forward my first message to the persone supposedly in charge of that. But then, no single reply or info. Didnt ask much: either a refund, or a drm free build... At that point, i didnt mind it not being tied to my humble user library, in fact, i strongly suggested a GOG version would do fine for me.
Have to try contacting folks again last week and got an answer tonite: with a GOG redeem link !
End of the story: i purchased a DRM free GOG game... through Humble Store :) (well it is not an entire exceptionnal situation; they once in a bundle provided a GOG key for Defender's Quest... but still)
Now however, i know the fight is not over yet, as i could read here on this forum:
We still need to be careful about GOG version and GOG users not being treated as second class citizens
I really hope devs will bother enough to update their game here too
Hey, for the fact some people, like me, paid double price, i really expect that i will be allowed to experience the game with decent bug fixing and updates (so, i hope the dev team wont neglict the GOG build, or provide replacement steam key to everyone, if they fail to do so)
It is yet a curious case, a different one from the despicable events around 2dark from gloomy wood, but it worthed mentioning and being told, or so i thought.
Have fun, people