Will the game still be released on PC and on what storefronts?
Of course. Scorn will be released on Steam, Windows Store, and GOG.
What’s the release date?
We realize people get frustrated with this answer but we decided not to give out a release date, or even a time frame until we are 100% sure we can deliver.
Why is there no gameplay in the trailer?
We were actually planning to release a different trailer at a later date that was twice as long, and that was going to feature gameplay elements, but the opportunity to be a part of Inside Xbox happened in a very short period of time. Microsoft also couldn't give us more than 2 minutes (not that we would be able to prepare more on such short notice anyway) so we decide to re-conceptualize and re-arrange it. We like to set a specific mood and pacing with the trailers and it was already hard squeezing this much into 2 minutes, let alone having additional gameplay footage without disrupting the established flow and mood.
What about the community concerns about the game, like long development time and slow, infrequent updates?
The biggest issue, in our eyes, that is creating all the commotion is a consequence of one necessary evil. Up until 20 months ago, when we signed with Kowloon Nights investment fund, we were constantly struggling with resources. We were barely scraping by, never having time to try out different things, having to half-ass so many tasks just so we could finish anything at all. Don't get us wrong we are not moaning about our fate, it's the same for every new indie studio and we were dealing with it in the best way we knew how. What is important, and what we would like you to fully understand is that the only reason we went to Kickstarter, or even made those trailers in 2016 and 2017, was to give ourselves a chance to receive additional funding and survive. We haven't done it to vainly show off the work that we have done up to that point, build a community for the community’s sake, or make some additional money because it was up there for grabs. We did it as our last chance to finish at least the first part of the game. Splitting the game into 2 parts was a big compromise at that time, thankfully that compromise has been successfully rectified.
But having to show the game early in order to survive left us with the task of keeping it present in the public eye for a long time, and that is certainly not an easy task. In an ideal situation we wouldn't have to announce anything about the game 6 months or so before the release, and organically have enough material for that time period to present the game in a proper manner, but that is not a reality for an unknown indie team. It was either doing it this way or not doing the game at all. The issues that this approach created is that some people became impatient, constantly wanting to see more and also expecting to get a quality game as soon as possible. That is just not a valid option as developing a polished, well-made game requires a lot of time. It's also true that Scorn has been in development for 5 years, but it's a night and day difference how the studio functions now compared to the 2015-2018 period. The team has more than doubled and development in the last 18 months has been so much smoother because we have enough resources to work in decent conditions, have decent equipment, receive steady salaries, etc. It's not like we been developing the game at this level, with this much experience and capacity for the whole 5 years.
Since you finally managed to establish a stable studio environment and development of the game is going accordingly where are the updates?
While we do have more resources they are still not unlimited, far from it, and we decided long ago to always prioritize development over everything else. Interesting, substantial updates take resources away from development, and whenever we discuss them internally we always come to the conclusion that it's better to concentrate those resources(effort) on parts of the game that needs it the most at the time. Big updates will come organically as we get closer to release. An example of what we are talking about: We never finalize levels 100%, just keep them at 70-80 %, because we want to have them flexible enough so we could make quick changes if needed, and not do the same tasks multiple times. Final lightning set up, FX, color correction will come at the very end. What that means is that if we decide to show something to the public we need to finish up these last 20-30%, and that can sometimes take away weeks from people’s already overstrained schedule. Having to do unscheduled work because you need to show it to publishers or to the public, and later throwing that work away is one of the biggest organizational hurdles game developers encounter. It's really unproductive practice, even with the largest of budgets let alone ours.
What about small updates that some people ask for so they would have some confirmation that the game is progressing and not dead(abandoned)? Those can't take that much time from your schedule? Are you using refund policy as a shield against updating?
People that point out that small updates wouldn't take too much of our time are absolutely right. It wouldn't take a long time to write down all the mundane tasks we do from month to month or show you some quick WIP. We already have a lot of it ready for our internal sprints and milestones.
We also agree with people pointing out that we shouldn't be using the option to refund as an excuse not to update. That really isn't our intention, the refund option is there for people that don't agree with some of our unorthodox ways or have any other concerns.
We are also not that concerned with spoilers as you might be led to believe, even if we certainly like to keep a sense of mystery around the game.
Our main point is that we feel these small, quick updates would be, quite simply put, trivial. It felt, and it still feels, disingenuous to us to put up this kind of trivial updates, even if most people would be fine with them. Our previous updates also felt rather underwhelming. If they are just bare minimum of effort we might as well not do them. We care about the presentation and would rather not show anything than show something subpar because of pressure and obligation. It would've been easier to just do these small updates than to have some backers frustrated and then having to explain why we decided not to do them but, as you might have noticed by now, we like to stick to our guns.
To sum it up, substantial updates require time/resources and we will do them when appropriate (trailers, gameplay videos, etc). These are in our opinion updates that present the game well and what most people are interested in seeing. Small ones feel like unnecessary distraction and obligation that needs to be scratched off the bucket list every couple of months. Junk food that will be forgotten by everyone 5 seconds after the update goes online. We are a small team pushing quite a bit above our weight so some sacrifices have to be made or will never get to the finish line.
At the end of the day, the only thing that is important to us is creating the best game possible, and people enjoying it when it's released. Everything up to that point shouldn't be of much importance, people are welcome to disagree of course. Hopefully, everyone realizes by now this is not some elaborate scam and we promise that if by some ridiculous circumstances the development of the game stops we will inform you right away. There would be no reason to prolong that dreaded announcement. We are very thankful to each one of you that contributed to the KS campaign and helping us get closer to finishing the game. We really hope to make something that is going to be well worth the wait.
