I’ve always trusted games published by Annapurna to be something exciting, new, and high quality.
That didn’t make them good either, though. Companies like them and Devolver Digital have had a bad habit of, for lack of a better term, using up developers and throwing them to the curb after. You’ll notice that a lot of stuff they publish get marketed as though Annapurna made them, which ends up hiding the actual developers behind the curtain, thereby robbing them of fans and thus seriously hurting their long-term prospects.
You’re coming out here arguing in favor of a megacorporation keeping even more money for itself instead of artists getting paid for their work. I feel like you should have expected to have upset people.
Though I hope you’re right, there’s no guarantee of that:
It’s unclear why the remaining approximately 50 staff didn’t join Krafton, but it’s possible they had already found jobs elsewhere as the studio’s closure was announced three months earlier in May 2024.
I’ve followed this drama pretty closely in the last few days, and it’s really not all so damning as others here have found it. I could write up something longer, but I don’t want to get too far into the weeds, so I’ll leave it at a few paragraphs.
The long and short of it is that the way this video was made and posted, in combination with the general atmosphere of the internet trending towards Huge Drama™, makes this look like more than it actually is. From everything I’ve seen and heard, I’d characterize Nick’s actions as “flawed human making mistakes” — which is to say, perfectly forgivable. He’s since owned up to the more egregious things, such as his comments in the Gameumentary call, and the folks at SWG have reined in his influence recently due to things like his social media troubles. I personally feel like this was a very good call, and will likely be enough to cover the complaints raised.
It is also worth noting, though, that not all of the accusations are worth much. I really don’t know how $10 in alleged Twitter bucks is even worth mentioning, especially considering the claim later looks to have turned out to be a misunderstanding entirely.
All in all, while I believe it’s very fair to want to address these things, and it’s also fair to want to do so in a way that Patreon supporters both existing and potential can use said info to make better assessments with regard to their money, the reality is that the method and platform upon which these grievances were aired lead to a far more bitter and unproductive outcome than was necessary. I still respect Frost, and I don’t think he meant for this at all, but it still happened. Such is the nature of the web, sadly.
Honestly, it still amazes me that this never got successfully ripped and emulated. I’ve heard that it’s because there isn’t a reliable PS4 emulator, but frankly that surprises me as well. I’d think that the sheer popularity of this game alone would encourage one to be made pretty heavily, especially since this game looks to be on track to becoming lost media otherwise.