Why the fans are upset about Starbound

I think that is referred around the Internet as "ZING".

 

do volunteers pay for their own airfare and lodging to do publicity events for you in London? because that doesn't sound like a fair deal to me.

 

Nope nope nope, my trip to the UK was paid for.

 

This may come off as sounding rude, but why wouldn't Community Management be something worth paying for? Surely Molly's time is worth something?

 

Okay. Here you go:

They already said that they would spend it on paying employee salaries, so that their lead code jockeys can work full-time. What more are you expecting? A bank account statement? Chucklefish is not a public company, so they don't need to do that. So there you have it. Now you know what the money is for.

Have they spent all of it? Of course not. It is earmarked for game development, but that process takes time. Entertainment businesses (especially Indie game devs) don't make money gradually like other types of businesses that sell necessities all year-round. They make it suddenly, in large bursts. They have to save that money to gradually pay salaries. If they are wise, they'll even have an investment plan (like producing other games in exchange for a cut of the profit). All of these good business strategies are things that Chucklefish is doing.

If they spent it all on hiring ten new developers for the team, they'd have to spend a lot of time training them in. It takes about 90 days to train new employees (universal industry average). Even if they did this, it wouldn't guarantee that the game would be out any sooner at all. If you thought it would, then you just don't know how business management works.


Anyway, they've already given you a lot of information in daily updates. I don't think it takes a genius to see that they are clearly getting a lot more finished a lot more quickly than before the pre-orders. I honestly don't think that any amount of information can quench your thirst for this game. In fact, I strongly suspect that as Chucklefish gives more information, people are getting more impatient.

 

So you are paid, at least expenses.

 

To be honest I don't think its really any of our business what molly gets out of the work she does

 

That's why Chucklefish is working on sponsoring me for a work visa.
Like I said a few posts ago, hiring people to work for you is not as simple as "We have money, take our money!"

...yes? Because if a company is going to ask you to come present their game at an event, they're not going to ask you to pay your own way there?

Anyway, we're getting terribly off topic.

 

There is a difference between keeping somebody on payroll and just paying their expenses for something.

 

WOW, molly you should not feel compelled to answer all this stuff lmfao

EDIT : You are entitled to a private life xD

 

Also bartwe answered that

Your posts never stop amazing me.

 

You're absolutely right.

 

Just for the record: I'm a fan and I'm not upset. I'm also insanely patient and believe the game will be awesome no matter how long I have to wait. The developers, hell, even everyone else, including Molly are amazingly awesome!

 

I've been thinking about how much of Starbound's info really is easily accessible of the forums (sure there are daily updates but that doesn't help newcomers as much), a good portion of Starbound's info is on the forums, inside of sub-forums, inside multiple threads. Tiy's FAQ, Blue's Announced game info, Info for newcomers, etc etc. I could mention the Roadmap too but your working on it .

Then if you don't stalk the forums daily you miss little tidbits devs give out and suddenly become rumors, for example, bartwe apparently mentioned in one of his streams that "Beta was not coming in October". Whether this is true or not I do not know, but I have faith in the community that they wouldn't do such cruel thing as to lie about these things to their fellow peers. If bartwe did say something about "No beta in October" I graciously nod and say thanks. I like knowing within the first week or so "Hey guys, no beta this month, so relax." That would be splendid.

 

.....

 

But she does work on the game as well? At least judging by past updates where she was adding cooking recipes and flavor text.

 

Also this new one.
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/current-dev-responses-general.30039/

 

Teehee.

 

Woah, no offense man but pro-tip: Quote people next time.
I almost thought that was your response to that actual whole thread for a second there