The Godus development debacle continues. Is it possible to finish the game and repair the company's reputation with fans?
At this point it seems that 22cans' Godus is chiefly notable outside of its fan base for pissing that fan base off.
The company launched a new RTS-focused add-on for the game, Godus Wars, this week, for $14.99, though Kickstarter backers got it for free. That's not the problem, though. That paid download contained further paid downloads: continents with new maps and other new content were to be sold for $4.99 a pop.
Negative reactions from the fan base were swift, as Eurogamer reports, and the company pulled a 180, and changed its plans to delivering all of that content to all Godus Wars owners for free.
In an update published to the Steam page for the game, 22cans CEO Simon Phillips had this to say:
We’ll be making some changes to the game and also the steam page to reflect the feedback that’s coming in and we’ll do a round up of that very soon.
In the mean time, its been brought to our attention that the extra content being a premium add on really isn’t a popular choice. Whilst we think that it does represent good value, especially considering that Godus Wars has been delivered as a free update to hundreds of thousands of users and the lower purchase price of the main game we understand previous Godus owners frustrations with this.
Therefore, based on your feedback, the extra content will be available to all free-of-charge
Apologies for the frustrations and we hope you enjoy playing.
Studio founder Peter Molyneux was raked over the coals about a year ago over progress on the original Godus, which was crowdfunded and ran into a large number of development snags.
Phillips, meanwhile, was brought in to the company in May of last year to "reboot" the studio, and soon shared candid thoughts on just that might take: "It's small steps to build trust. All we can do is deliver a good game at the end of it. That's the ultimate goal. It's going to take a lot of time."
For his part, Peter Molyneux recently spoke about his desire to double down on his video game career and get back into the thick of it, after a disastrous interview with Rock Paper Shotgun caused him to seriously consider retiring.
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