Update (Jan 19):
BadFly has sent out a statement to COGconnected, saying that they “screwed it” and revealed that the studio doesn’t have a native English speaker.
“The thing is we care about our game so much. We are creating our dream and we really want it to succeed. The point of our message was just to see us as what we are – a small indie studio. Shitstorm started, lesson learned.”
Original story:
Czech developer BadFly Interactive has been called into question after the red tape attached to Dead Effect 2‘s review codes indicated that those media outlets who publish “very negative” reviews or previews of the sci-fi sequel will find themselves blacklisted.
As relayed by COGconnected, the report includes an extract from BadFly’s email exchange, which provides some context to Dead Effect 2‘s small-scale development — something that’s not uncommon for developers to do when distributing review codes. However, the studio’s press note stated that “if your review of preview of Dead Effect 2 is very negative, you won’t receive any keys from us in the future.”
“Let me just mention one thing, though: this is an indie game which, unfortunately, is very often compared with big-budget games, and that’s quite a problem and very much damages its reputation in final ratings. Please take into consideration the fact that this game was created by a small team of developers (11) who just try to develop a good shooter game, and that’s about it. Unfortunately, a number of journalists have other, much bigger expectations from it, and that’s very damaging for us eventually. Also, we’re working on several other games that are definitely interesting, and if your review or preview of Dead Effect 2 is very negative, you won’t receive any keys from us in the future.”
BadFly has since responded to the report via Twitter (see below), though COGconnected is yet to disclose the contents of said email at the time of writing.
@COGconnected Hi, we sent you an email. Don´t worry, no blackmailing again 🙂
— Dead Effect (@DeadEffectGame) January 17, 2017
Dead Effect 2 is available from today, January 17, on PlayStation 4. Tell us, what do you make of this exchange between developer and press?
[Source: COGconnected]
