Raphael van Lierop

Yeah, to be clear -- I'm talking about how the business model is evolving for those platforms, not specifically whether we would want to do it or not. For us, the current retail model is a lot more advantageous, because we generate revenue with all the new players we bring in which drives a bunch of the decisions we make. If we know we're getting a 'flat rate' for a game that goes on a subscription service, it's way less interesting to us. I'm talking about what the bigger industry is shifting towards -- there may be a point where we as developers no longer have a choice if we want to be on the bigger platforms. (Let's hope that doesn't happen.) I also think there's a version of that model that could be really positive for everyone, if the right decisions are made. And if there are multiple good entry points and business models that one game can sustain, such as The Long Dark, than that's not a bad thing either, because it lets players come in at different price points depending on their preference and how dedicated they feel to the game.

Thank you for acknowledging our efforts by paying for the game. It's how we stay in business.

We would have done that if I hadn't promised all 5 episodes of WINTERMUTE to everyone who Kickstarted the game or bought it on Early Access. That said, there could be a point in the future where we shift to the model you describe, "grandfathering" all existing customers to the old full-season model of course. @kristaok By subscription/streaming I mean things like PlayStation Now, Xbox Game Pass, etc. It seems the future of at least a big part of the games business will shift to that model, like Netflix basically. Players pay a subscription and get access to a range of games on it. It changes the fundamental business model for developers in a big way.

Right -- well on Xbox we have a 2-hour demo which you can then "convert" to a full version if you like. On Steam, the refund policy there creates a kind of de facto demo (you can get a refund no questions asked if you have less than 2 hours of play time in the first 2 weeks). But you're right, shareware was an early pioneer of this type of model of giving away a base game and then hoping to "upsell" people on the full version. With the upcoming shift to subscription/streaming services, developers will have to think carefully about how to structure their game content and how to create a sustainable revenue stream over the long term. It's something I've been thinking about a lot for Hinterland, as it has a big impact on the types of experiences we can be successful with.

I'm sure this conversion happens (obviously it does, because it happened to you). But I wouldn't want to base my business on it. In general, for pricing, we price according to the "power of the dollar" in local currency. So, for example, the game costs a lot less in Russia, China, etc. than it does in the US, Canada, the EU, etc. We aren't asking people to pay the equivalent of the USD or CAD price. But I understand that the game can still be expensive for some people. I can't stop piracy but I do appreciate every pirate who is "converted" to a paying customer.

Quick point -- It is not my intention to make people wait until WINTERMUTE is finished before official mod support is implemented. I appreciate the tone and meaning in your post.

Unfortunately, the game is heavily pirated. 😢

Not to derail the discussion further, but just to quickly jump on the "Steam is not DRM free" comment (not to pick on you @kristaok but it's a great comment and brings up a good topic, IMO). I think this is a popular misconception about Steam. Steam has a DRM solution but it is opt-in by developers. In our case, we've never used it. We don't use Steam as a DRM tool, so for us there's no difference between, for example, Steam or GoG, in terms of the DRM-free aspect. For us, both are distribution platforms only. You can play The Long Dark without Steam running. (Whether or not that has contributed to piracy over the years is up for debate -- I assume that dedicated hackers would have found a way to crack the Steam-DRM if we'd used it anyway.) I'm not a Steam apologist or anything (though the platform has been critical to our success and I love a lot about it from a developer's standpoint) but I just thought I'd highlight that, because I think a lot of people make unfair assumptions about Steam (or DRM for that matter), and just assume it's somehow the DRM solution vs. GoG as the non-DRM solution. This isn't truly the case, at least not for us. And from the standpoint of "ownership" (which itself is a vague concept in our digital world), it would seem you "own" The Long Dark more on Steam than you do on, for example, Xbox or PlayStation, where you can't separate the game from the platform/store. In any case, DRM or piracy has nothing to do with modding so carry on with the discussion and pretend I'm not here. Just wanted to call out that DRM thing because it's a widespread misconception and deserves to be rebutted IMO.

Not sure if we really want to get into this discussion or maybe it deserves its own thread; I'm not a lawyer so my understanding of software "ownership" is based on what I've been told and what I've read from reputable sources. It's likely that the laws/rules change based on platform or territory, so it may be difficult to make absolute statements about ownership rights, etc. Here are some relevant articles: https://www.windowscentral.com/should-we-really-be-invest-digital-xbox-one-libraries https://www.techradar.com/news/the-double-edge-of-digital-games-and-changing-ownership (An older article): https://www.wired.com/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/ (This is EU focused where the rules are different, but may not be current either: https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/eu-court-when-you-buy-software-you-own-it) Etc. I'm not trying to be antagonistic -- I don't think ownership rights over software, particularly games sold on Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation, are that clear. Or, if they are clear, they seem to make it clear that you don't own the software you buy there, you just own a license to use it. I also don't think Modding is necessarily protected (or not) under those ownership rights. We don't have a EULA that specifically discusses acceptable uses of the software. When we do roll out Mod support officially, we will most likely have some rules you will have to opt-in to if you want to produce mods and share them with the community (as mentioned above, mostly to protect our IP). There are blanket user agreements you sign on to when you purchase the platforms and/or use stores (including Steam, Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, etc.). I suggest that if this issue matters to you, you should read the fine print. Again, not trying to cause any fights. If this is a topic people want to get into further, I suggest a new thread. I think there are ways to discuss modding without invoking legal arguments, IMO.

Might be relevant to this discussion about language -- we do *officially* support Language Mods on Steam, so if you want to go and modify the text strings to remove the cursing, you are welcome to do so. It won't remove the audio, unfortunately, but it can help address the subtitle issue. https://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/workshop/

There are a few curses. Nothing too bad, though, IMO. Primarily the game rating is based on the possibility of visible violence (ex. wolf or bear struggle), the fact you can see blood in the game, etc. I don't think the presence of corpses impacts the rating (strangely) but I know it's off-putting for some adult players and I can imagine it would be uncomfortable and potentially shocking for kids. WINTERMUTE definitely has at least a few moments I can think of that would not go down well with kids, I wouldn't think. At least I know I wouldn't want my own children experiencing them. We also pre-emptively included mentions of Tobacco and Alcohol (there's a bottle of whiskey on Mackenzie's desk in Jackrabbit Transport) and we may add more in the future so the rating covers us for that as well. In terms of overall themes in WINTERMUTE, I tend to think our content skews a little older than the average game, but there's always a range. There are certainly kids mature enough to get it, and adults who aren't.

Fair enough. This is the first game I bought with my own money; I was not very old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15_Strike_Eagle_(video_game)

Sorry to hear about the negative experience you had with SOE. I know Raph Koster a bit and I believe he's a good person and an excellent designer. He gave a great talk at GDC a couple of years ago about lessons learned from MMOs and as a developer, it was really uplifting. He also wrote a great book on game design called A Theory of Fun, which I highly recommend.

Thanks for the thoughts. I have kids too -- they were too young to play TLD when we were first working on it, and honestly are still too young considering the rating. I would never tell another parent how to parent. All I can say is I have an obligation to call out the game's rating. I only bring it up because in general the game content is designed with a Teen+ audience in mind (I would say the story is more mature than even that, but from the ESRB or PEGI's points of view the game is a T (13) in NA and a 16 in Europe). All that said, each parent needs to decide for themselves what is appropriate for their children. I've seen a lot of people over the years commenting on playing with their children, and it's heartwarming to think that it could be an experience shared with kids. (I play Minecraft, Splatoon, PvZ:GW2, etc. with mine). How mods can make the experience more "family friendly" is honestly not something I've considered, as I tend to think of our audience as being skewed on the older side. I appreciate the perspective.

Wow...thank you so much. I don't know what to say. On behalf of the Hinterland team, thank you. ♥️ We strive, every day, to be worthy of this sentiment. Your penny jar is always in the front of my mind.

I'll think about what we might be able to do to help ensure some backwards compatibility for "old" mods, but only once we have official mod support rolled out, otherwise all my long-winded rebuttals are for naught. Thanks for taking the time to articulate your points of view as well. It's been helpful to learn more about the what and why of the modding community we have, and gives me a lot of hope for what it could become in the future. In the mean time, have some .

I would be very disappointed if your mod doesn't turn Great Bear into a giant pancake and the Aurora into a maple syrup shower.

Yes, absolutely. When we can guarantee proper support for mods, there doesn't seem to be any reason (that I can think of) why all the existing mods couldn't be supported properly. People seem to be forgetting that the reason why mods are currently broken is that the "re-wrapping" I mentioned above protects our code from manipulation, which is pretty standard for software. It's an oddity of Unity that it's only recently that they've been able to protect the code this way. I've never worked on a game in my career where the players could literally crack open the game, decompile the code and assets, modify whatever they wanted, repackage and distribute. This is common in open source development but not in the kind of development I've been doing for years. So, the reason why mods are currently broken is because...you aren't supposed to be able to do the things you're doing in creating the mods. When we can support mods correctly, with tools, documentation, proper community support, dev team members to provide tutorials to help guide the creation of assets, etc., there's no reason why the mods that exist or the modders that are out there couldn't be the "tip of the spear" on the new modding community. We would welcome it. Provided it's done within our guidelines -- we're not going to allow any mods that are damaging to our IP, or have content that would contradict our community guidelines, etc. So, I don't think it has to go to waste. We're not trying to "kill" it. But we also don't want to be strong-armed into it.

Please -- I'm not looking for sympathy, and you haven't done anything wrong. I'm learning lots of important stuff hearing these other points of view as well. It's all good. I am very fortunate to be able to do what I do and have what I have and you do not have to feel sorry for me. I just want to make sure you all understand that for me and for my team, the act of working on The Long Dark is just as passion-driven as anything you might feel about the game. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

Can we all be friends again, please (and stop the bickering)?

I promise the "era of modding" is not over. We will attempt to escalate our Mod Support strategy to get the gap filled as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the thoughts. It makes me sad to think the community is shifting in tone and sentiment. I also apologize if I ever come off as hostile. That is not at all my intent. Yes, I tend to have little patience at times and the love I have for the community may not always shine through, although I assure you I am forever grateful for how much support we've had and how it's helped to get us where we are today. As passionate as any of you might be about the game, or modding, or this community, I don't think you can understand what it means to me. I've put 7+ years of my life into Hinterland and The Long Dark, expect to put many more (but hopefully along with some other things because nobody can eat steak every night ), and have sunk countless hours, days, weeks, years, and a lot of $$ into this operation, all to try to create something special that is worthy of the respect of my family, my team, my peers, and my players. Yes, I may get testy at times -- the modding thing and the "we know better" attitude that sometimes comes with it can be hard to take when you've put 20 years of your life into a craft. But I get it. But not to butcher an analogy, I suspect this is what a chef might feel like if someone walks into their kitchen and says "I have a better recipe for that and I'm going to make it for your customers". It's not the hurt pride as much as the feeling of having failed the players for not having been able to deliver that thing first. Also -- and I don't expect any of you to really understand how this feels -- it often feels as developers that were are in a new area of vulnerability or hostility with regards to the player community. I have peers in the industry who are completely shellshocked by the hostility of community interactions, the sense of entitlement that can sometimes be expressed by players and not in very productive ways. Many have left the industry as a result. We live in a society where complex thoughts are simplified to soundbites and it's not possible to disagree with someone without also hating them. (For the record, I don't hate anyone -- I just mean, there's a kind of calcification of points of view that is happening all around us and it can be difficult to find a place for empathy in the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down culture). I'm being vulnerable here so that you can understand a bit of where my head is. I'm not looking for sympathy -- I've been doing this for a long time and I understand the costs and the stakes and what it means to be "out there" in front of your players. But part of my feels an obligation to "hold a line" for my fellow developers who are not as fortunate as we are -- not as fortunate to have the financial means to take our time to work on things until we feel they are ready for release, not as fortunate to have the ability to have experts on the team who are trained in handling community interactions (I'm not talking about myself, clearly), not as fortunate to have a super stubborn head of studio who won't cave to outside pressure, etc. That has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. But, it's kind of part of the deal. If you want a game that feels like a personal outcome of someone's creative vision, and you want to have interactions with that person and have the ability to influence the thought process behind the game, it seems fair to me that you also respect the thought process that went into the creation of something. We have a really strange sense of ownership these days, believing that "liking" something and streaming something or modding something is the same as the fundamental act of creation of a thing (that comment is not targeted at anyone here, it's just a general sentiment about "internet culture") and I'm sure it sounds arrogant of me to say so, and maybe it is arrogant of me to say so, but I don't see those being the same thing. I believe what my team does is something special, is something we have dedicated our lives to (many of the Hinterland team are 20+ veterans of the industry; we only have a handful that have less than 10 yrs) is worthy of respect, just as we respect you by doing our best to give you great value for the money you have given us. Sorry to ramble but I hate the thought that people feel I am hostile towards them. I'm certainly protective and yes I do bang the "it's our game!" drum a lot and if I do, please know it has as much to do with the world and what I see in our industry as it does with anything in this game or this community. I want you to love The Long Dark and feel a sense of ownership over your experience in it. And I think it's best for you too that we also love The Long Dark and feel a strong sense of ownership over it, how it is played and perceived, how it evolves, and the experience we are bringing to you. Because we have to wake up every day and try to figure out how to delight you, again. /rant

Yes, or, like I said, submitting a support ticket is the best way to help us help you: www.hinterlandgames.com/support (I'm not "support" but our support team is a bit short due to sickness so we're all pitching in to help!)

We did a pass on those recently and updated the language/tooltips to try to clarify all of the settings, but do let us know if it's still not working: hinterlandgames.com/support

This is a great list. MOST of the issues have been fixed, I believe, and some are in line for one or two hotfixes from now.