If you’re a CRPG fan and have been wondering what happened to that good-looking pirate RPG that has been sitting on Steam for what seems like forever, you aren’t alone. The game caught the eye of many European CRPG lovers (myself included), and because of that, it came under some rather harsh scrutiny. With release dates never being met, the game’s 3rd party DRM never explained, and a lack of any real in-game footage, many gamers began to wonder if the title was vaporware.

Thankfully, one of the developers has responded to these customer concerns and seems to have calmed the rising storm of protest down a bit in the game’s official steam forums.

The developer on why there has been no communication concerning the frequent delays:

honestly said – we have been so busy with the game, that we even forgot to post a delay notice on Steam. And nobody of us looked in this forum. But we will keep your posts in mind and communicate a little bit more in the next days. But please note, that I will be very direct. I am not a community manager and I am since 35 years in the industry. I can of course handle critics, but I do really not need to summed my time fighting with unpolite or offending users. I will not delete any postings, but I simply ignore all “TopWare is Bankrupt”, “this game will be crap or never come out” and “TopWare is punishing the poor developers” postings.

And why there has been no gameplay video posted of Raven’s Cry:

We are not they guys who do a lot of community management and big promises. And at the moment we are really busy. Beside this, if we record a video caprture and make it public – a lot of people will say “this is all fake, cut and postprocessed”. We currently work on a Sneak Preview Beta version with 2-6 hours gameplay, which we will give to some magazine editors and also Bloggers. They will be allowed to make Let’s Plays and make these public. We hope we can finish this version within the next few days. Or better said, we are testing the 20th version right now. The problem is, that Raven’s Cry is the most complex game we ever did. Two Worlds II is a joke, compared with Raven’s Cry. 372 acting roles, 90+ minutes cinematic cutscenes, Reputation system, Sea Fights, Ship Upgrades, Raven Skills, all RPG elements + economic system and hireable Crew Officers, open world … we get crazy with testing!

So … now I promised a lot. You will see what comes out. (btw: writing this and reading your comments before took me 15 minutes – have I done m job for today and can get back to test the game?) btw: it is 1.57 am over here in Germany. Until tomorrow morning the Dev Team is expecting the next bug report …

Also, the explanation about their DRM:

– it seems that no one really understands our intensions. Handling these activations is a lot of (really stupid) work for us. It would be much easier to wave it.

– the DRM is not a copy protection. First of all – 10 minutes after release of a game – everyone can find a hacked Version in the net. Beside this, who does not pay for games can find a cracked copy anyway.

– Steam is great, alone the fact that Eath 2160 (Steam ID 72) was one of the first games from an external Company should proof that we always have been friends of Valve. BUT, as much as we like Steam, we do not know if it will stay, as it is now, forever. Company policy may Change, ownership may Change … and what happens with your purchased games in such a case? – just imagine one or more of the following “slightly” changes of policy: 1. subscription will cost a montly fee 2. Steam retail activations will have a Charge 3. only Premium Users (who pay a monthly subscription) have full Access to all Steam Features OR … immagine: Steam is sold to EA, Amazon or someone else who you like even more. (this hopefully will all not happen – but … nobody knows! – who is the new CEO of Unity? who acquired Oculus VR?)

– over the Holidays I was doing customer Support. You cannot immagine how many users want to revive an old game. If they can proove somehow they bought it, they all got a new download, or whatever else they needed.

– a Steam Publisher has limited possibilities to help a Steam customer. We e.g. cannot give any refunds. We can not identify a user. We have only Information about the customers who activated or registered their games with our DRM.

At the risk of editorializing, I will say that it sounds rather suspect that a company would claim they need 3rd party DRM because “Valve may go out of business soon”. I’ve heard this excuse used by a lot of developers in the past that I’ve followed and I don’t buy it. Maybe Desura or even GOG, but not Steam. Valve makes enough money to buy a few 3rd world countries and have money to spare, so that excuse doesn’t exactly hold water. Especially when Gabe has said before he would never allow Valve to be bought out, ever.

Unfortunately, lack of communication is a problem for most European developers. Though you have some that enjoy keeping their fans informed (Larian, CD Projekt Red), there are still some that haven’t made the transition into the social media age and are in that 1990s’ mode where you make a game and ship it out without any fan interaction whatsoever. Still, it’s good to see that Topware finally put a plug on what was becoming a sinking boat by having someone dedicated to answering their questions.

As of this writing, Raven’s Cry is due out January 26th and has yet to receive any further delay notifications.