While the gaming industry at large sweats due to anti-consumer practices like bad microtransactions and not letting consumers cancel pre-orders, it’s easy to get cynical about the state of gaming. So imagine our surprise when we catch a glimmer of the opposite: an honest developer approaching the community to make sure people aren’t getting duped into purchasing their game. That’s exactly what we saw with developer Toast and their PSVR game Richie’s Plank Experience earlier this week.
In a post titled “Note from a Developer: Don’t buy our title.” Toast approached the bustling PSVR subreddit letting them know the situation. Hoping to have their game Richie’s Plank Experience out for the Christmas rush, they shipped the game with less experiences than the original PC version of the game.
For those out of the loop, Richie’s Plank Experience is one of those “experience” VR titles that lets you experience walking across a board or a blank from up high. The PC version of the game (available on Steam) has a ton of features and modes, but to get an idea of what the game is like check out the brief trailer below:
Now here’s the thing — while the PC version of the game has a ton of these features, the small five-person team wasn’t able to get everything in by the Christmas deadline. In short, you can only play The Plank and Fire Deck so far. And this isn’t something the team is trying to hide:
The PC version currently has more features and we plan to add similar features to PSVR in the future. However, In order for us to release Richie’s Plank Experience in time for Christmas we had to focus on the 2 most requested features; The Plank and Fire Deck.
But more importantly, they want to make sure everyone knows what this game is — even if it means that less people are buying their game:
We designed Richie’s Plank Experience specifically to be used to entertain your friends and family. It’s a go-to experience to bring out when you have visitors or parties. So if you don’t plan on using it for this, it’s probably not for you. Please don’t buy it! It is not a game that can be played for hours by yourself.
More importantly, the developers at Toast had a final message: a giant thank you for the community for supporting them so far and being understanding about the situation:
Lastly, a BIG thanks to the PSVR community who have supported us and followed our journey.
As you would imagine, the PSVR dedicated community did exactly the opposite as a show of support for the indie VR developer, with more than a few people mentioning they are picking up a 2×4 plank to play the game this holiday season.
Sure… the cynic in me may believe this is just really clever marketing. But I want to earnestly believe that this is a bunch of indie developers trying to do the right thing.
Richie’s Plank Experience is available now on PC and PSVR (via PS4); if you want to support the developer, you can grab the game on the PlayStation Store for $14.99. Otherwise, you can read the full Reddit post below:
The post Honest PSVR Developers Ask Gamers Not to Buy Their Game Until They Add More Content by Lou Contaldi appeared first on DualShockers.