Dark Matter, the indie game accused by customers of releasing unfinished last week, has been pulled off of Steam until it gets a proper ending, and Steam users say they’re getting refunds if they ask for them.
A report by Gamasutra also says the development studio, which blamed Dark Matter‘s abrupt conclusion on the fact it ran out of money when a Kickstarter campaign didn’t succeed, laid off most of the staff working on the game after that effort failed
Michiel Beenen, InterWave’s managing director, acknowledged to Kotaku that the studio is “indeed working on an alternative ending that should hopefully fix the biggest complaint of the current way the game ends.
“We should hopefully have this done end of this week or beginning of next week. Valve has indeed also made sure we would make this better before returning it to Steam,” Beenen said.
Asked about InterWave’s staffing level, Beenen declined to comment, other than to reiterate that InterWave continues to work on the game.
Dark Matter, a side-scrolling 2.5D platformer, released on Steam for $US15 (discounted to $US13.49) on October 17. (It also went on sale on Good Old Games, where it remains listed.) Players complained that the game released in an incomplete state because, after about four hours of play, the game abruptly served a screen full of text explaining the end of the story and declaring the game over.
On the Steam forums this weekend, an InterWave representative said the studio had plans to create a larger game, but a failed £50,000 Kickstarter caused them to scale back sharply and release what they could. InterWave defended Dark Matter as a completed game, noting that its product description said it contained 14 levels — which it does.
That said, InterWave apologised for the game’s conclusion, and evidently constructing a better one is a requirement to get the project back on the Steam Store.
Comments
9 responses to “Indie Game Without An Ending Removed From Steam Store”
Maybe it’s just me, but the phrase “game without ending” suggests something completely unbeatable, that just keeps going on and on, like an infinite runner. That got me all excited in a title that I’d otherwise briefly looked at and dismissed. This has an abrupt or unsatisfying conclusion, which is something altogether different. If definitely has an ending though.
Kind of like… a cliffhanger?
Respectfully, you’re being a bit picky there.
I actually came to the same conclusion from the title lol
Fair enough then, horses for courses. I didn’t, you guys did. I guess the wording could be a bit clearer given the obvious proof of confusion 🙂
There will be no compromise. As far as I’m concerned you are a dangerous war criminal and I have reported you to Tony Abbott.
Indeed… I committed such atrocities against humanity in the great Tiberiam war of C&C3…
Just to clarify, I wasn’t objecting to the ambiguous wording so much as the momentary excitement it created. The prospect of an unbeatable 2D survival game set in a doomed spaceship sounds great!
Like cubeworld.
I’m OK with them selling their game as-is. The developer clearly intends to release more content as they can – isn’t this what triple-A titles do all the time now? As long as they follow through on that promise, hooray for everyone involved. If not, nobody buys another half-finished game from them. Valve would be better off pulling that ludicrous Day One: The Garry Incident rubbish.
This is BS. They basically got all butthurt by not making their kickstarter so decided to throw out a half finished game. When questioned they basically said “too bad. It is what it is.”… when taken off Stream they changed their attitude to “ahh, its actually an episodic game! The next episode will come… whenever.”… So basically never. If you’ve seen how it ends; it wraps everything up. It doesnt go to a cutscene and then fade to a “to be continued… in episode 2” or something, it just stops with a wrap-up epilogue.
I’m surprised more people arent pissed about this… maybe not enough people bought the game to care?
Technically the game DOES have an ending. It’s just not very good. But hey, this is the era of CoD and console crap, so it’s understandable. But then again, when I think back to the ending of Quake…
Was about to get this game, then saw an article with a video of someone reaching the “end”.
Very glad I saw that and didn’t buy it.
Wish i got my money back on Kotor 2 when it was released. That was a incomplete game.
Bioware’s probably loving this. Finally, a game with an ending more unsatisfying than Mass Effect 3.