Gridrunner Rev on Steam, where is she dudes?

[ALLseeingEYE]

Sorry Giles, just think it needs to be asked again.

I know you guys have already poured your heart and soul into this project, and it sounds like the returns may not be the best so far. But you know what, Steam apparently owns 70% of the digital distribution market. Also, in my opinion, Grid Rev is an amazing little game, that if given the opportunity, I think a lot of people would love. I just want to see you guys get it on there, because I hope it will sell a few more copies.

Anyways, what happened to this? I know you don't like bugging people, but sometimes, I think it needs to happen. Please, give those Steam peoples another pinch, try to get it on there. If you do, I promise to buy three more copies, and give the codes away as promotions on message boards to try and get people interested. Deal?

[gilesgoat]

Ok some very weird cock up happened.

I've been working really hard to have it on Steam before 25th Dec .. and theorectically "all was ready to go", my last
email to Steam was "ok the build you have there is completed/etc. is the final one all ready to go" quite some days in advance.

Then .. silence .. no idea about what did happen, we sent all the assets and such all was as it should have been all
was going ok until that last email.

We had in the past ( a few months ago ) another "weird problem" with Steam, all in a sudden communication went lost
it turns out after some worrying and such that we simply got caught in a too zealous spam filter and all the emails we
have been sending were labelled as spam and not delivered

Now .. last email I sent to Steam asking "what's going on ?" by sending various copies using LS and non-LS accounts
got this reply :

Hello Ivan,

I am not sure where it got lost but I will follow up on Monday with the team.

****


This was 17th .. still waiting to know.

Now you see .. I personally feel a bit "impolite" to send more and more emails asking "what's going on ?" so I wait "a bit
more" before to send another one.

"In general", and this I am afraid I have to say so far "applies to everyone" ( with some little notable exceptions ) things
tend to go this way :

1. Things take quite a while to start
2. Then they begin to work
3. Then communication/etc. is quite alive/moving/things/etc. you do "lot in short time"
4. When you think that "ok we should be there" all in a sudden "something happens"
5. Communication breaks, you don't know why, you don't know what's going on, stuff that you think "but it
should happen in 5 mins" seems to take "fuck load of time", you don't know what's going on/why you don't dare to ask.
6. Then all in a sudden "stuff gets restored" and everything gets finished in a few days.

In *EVERY* situation we have been so far we always seen this "mysterious blank time we don't know what's going on"
happening, we got to assume/think that "it's just normal, it's how it goes, we don't know why but it's just how it goes".

We still don't know/are sure if the "I am going to ask you every day how things are going" is a correct/proper politics or not,
personally I get INCREDIBLY pissed and ANGRY when/if someone does that with me ( i.e. I am type "I know what
you want, I got it, I'll let you know when it's done, don't bother me asking about it" ).

So I am "the last person" inclined to send emails and such asking, unless I know it's something that really "should be done".

In this case I can only assume that maybe there's been some miscommunication error somewhere but I could be wrong
to be honest I really have absolutely no idea about what did happen, we assumed "ok, maybe it was impossible for them
to do it in that time, maybe we arrived too late, it will happen later".

As you can see, electronic communication seems not to be perfect, things can get lost ..

Pity, but no idea really about what did happen.

[disciple]

We still don't know/are sure if the "I am going to ask you every day how things are going" is a correct/proper politics or not

Person A: How long do you think it will take?
Person B: 2 weeks.
Person A: Great I'll pop you a mail in 3 if I haven't heard anything.

[Anders]

CONTACT THEM AGAIN.

[teamonkey]

Yep. When chasing the status of something, unless they give you a future date, one week is the absolute maximum you should go without pestering them again. If they are supposed to reply to your email, give them 2 working days tops (i.e. 48 hours if it isn't a weekend).

They're a business, you're a business. They know you want it done quick, you know they've got a lot on your plate.

[piku]

The 'five minute' jobs turning into week long jobs is normal - you're not the only person they're dealing with.
The sending of 'you said that would take five minutes, it's been a week what's going on' emails is also normal, that's what makes people do things for you, in the timeframe they said they'd do them.

A lot of places run on the philosophy of "If it's important, they'll ring back".

Having communications lost in spam filters is kind of crap though, but I guess that's why we have phones. Phones are good, you have a live, real-time interactive human at your disposal, rather than appearing as an easily ignored line of text on someone's PC.

I tend to look at it from a position of "I want to know what's going on now".

Like the garage yesterday - "it'll take a few hours, we'll ring you when it's done". "A few hours and a bit because they were busy" (i.e I left it until an hour before closing) passed and I heard nothing, so I rang them. The bloke said "ah yes, I was just about to ring you"... I am fairly sure he wasn't, it's just what you say.

I am fairly sure I will have to ring them today too.

[ALLseeingEYE]

Thanks for the reply Giles,
you of course don't owe us clarity on these kinds of things, so its much appreciated you're willing to do that.

But ya, hope it goes well, and GRev finally gets on there. Steam is a much better service for indies than Direct 2 Drive in my opinion.

[gilesgoat]

I wrote them again .. and I am still wating some reply.

Now this is quite bizzarre .. to say less .. because "all was set to go", actually they have a fully working version and
such uploaded ready and all.

It's like "Steam is dead" or such .. weird .. I really don't know what to say/think at this point, just waiting answers.

[gilesgoat]

Thanks for the reply Giles,
you of course don't owe us clarity on these kinds of things, so its much appreciated you're willing to do that.

But ya, hope it goes well, and GRev finally gets on there. Steam is a much better service for indies than Direct 2 Drive in my opinion.

.. mah .. ultimately "I lost faith in everything" .. I mean yes of course you/we do "all that has to be done" but .. really ..
"expect nothing" ..

The less you expect the more likely you are going to be pleasantly suprised when things go better.

Honestly "the biggest" ( postive ) surprise so far is actually how, despite all, well the LS Website by its own works

Well considering that, in theory, it should be "nothing compared to giants" ..

I suppose using a sentence of somene else the problem is if you really are on the shoulders of the giants or
in the shadow of the giants.

Seriously is very hard to emerge from the moltitude of things .. so many things .. so much to choose from ..

[gilesgoat]

Mini update ..

I just got this ..

Hello Ivan,



Sorry, you are not in the spam filter. I will track down what is going on with the game.



XXXX

[gilesgoat]

If by Monday I am not seeing any news then I'll send again another letter, at this point I really don't know what to think
but whatever did happen I think it's a quite serious problem.

The only thing I know is that they seemed to be very happy about it, everyone was so positive about GR REV, the thing
been done and preprared for Steam is actaully THERE already tested and all just waiting to go up, in all and all from
my point of view "job totally finished and completed as planned".

NO &^&%^$(* IDEA about what did happen and why and such ...

I find really quite a bit odd this kind of stuff .. I mean we really are (where ?) in quite good relationship with the Steam
guys but it looks like "someone completely forgot about GR REV" .. I have no idea really .. it's all ready there .. sitting in
some directory ..

Quite odd ..

[gilesgoat]

I sent another letter and still have no idea, no answers yet.

[Jimaroid]

[HGFB]

Steady on there. That's a bit radical.

[gilesgoat]

No progresses yet, no answers from Steam yet.

No I would not go on the phone ( even because I don't have any number to call ) if by today sometime I am not going
to hear any news I am going to send them another email.

I'll continue to send them emails until I'll get some clarification of what happened/going on/how/if we can move further.

I still don't want to make any assumptions of any kind, because as I said we've been approached well and things were
going well so I suppose they still should be going well, unless they have some time schedule/slot I am not aware of I can't
see of any reason, at the point of things we were at last time, this thing is still not up.

Whatever did happen from some point on is a complete total mystery to us so far, rally, that thing was/is "just at the doorstep".

Sorry guys but you see how it goes, what can I say ? I really have absolutely no clue or some quite weird glitch or I
don't know what, at that time there were really interested in it, I hope they still are but if they ever changed their
minds I'd say this is one of the weirdest ways/situations to express it.

As I said I'll continue to write the until I'll get some kind of answer .. strange really .. as I said there's not even other
work ( that I am aware of ) we should do for it, the game is there, the required assets are there, everything been
prepared and uploaded .. it's just sitting in some directory of some server waiting for something to happen.

Mah ..