Keen Software House Is Horrible

XLent Gaming Network shared this feedback 4 years ago
Submitted

Let me just start of by saying that Keen Software House is nearly an EA equivalent. Not as large and corporate as EA, but definitely as scumbaggy. First of for Space Engineers, compatibility is a bitch for this game. Mechanics are frequently broken during updates, but if they really go to shit, Keen is rarely intent on fixing it unless the community starts throwing shit at the windows of their corporate headquarters. Optimization is also an issue unless you have a beefy computer. Updates are actually pushed pretty frequently, fixing a lot of bugs while also having a high chance of creating new ones. Overall, 3/10 game. The -7 is for the consistent bugs, poor optimization, toxic community, bad management from Keen Software House, and for some issues in multiplayer.


I bought Space Engineers around four or five years ago since it was in Beta. Since then I've seen the game progressively go downhill (as well as uphill in some places) and demonstrate a lack of respect for the community. Keen is constantly breaking the simplest of things during their updates and when they do finally get around to fixing them, it's been a year and the player who submitted the bug has since then quit. I've seen many different examples of this case. I've even tried to convince my friends to buy this game but denied to do so for these specific reasons. I'm starting to see why now. Not only does their developer team have a less than reputable status, but they have a tendency to completely undermine their own game. MAYBE things have changed with the developer team, but at the beginning of this year one of their developers made an extremely racist comment and Keen simply said:


"[SE} Inflex's comments do not represent the official opinion of Keen Software House.

We apologize to anyone who was offended by the aforementioned comments and we have spoken to the developer who wrote them."


If they did more than that, fine. As long as that developer was given a strict smackdown. In any case, given that it happened THIS YEAR and may be more recent than people realize considering the age of this company and game, it was simply unacceptable. Back to what I was saying about the game, I lost primary interest in this game right after the "Multiplayer Update" of August 2018. That completely shat all over the game for me and I quit playing for a few months, maybe even a year. Before then, hosting a dedicated server was simple. You buy the game, install the server client, log in, configure it, run it, and BOOM. You've got a server. Now you have to jump through these continuous hoops of bullshittery just to even get your server working. You have to worry about static IP addresses, DNS servers, and a BUNCH of other crap you didn't have to before. Now there's ALL SORTS of incompatibility issues with the server hosting software. People will argue that the new update did more to improve the server console and hosting system. It didn't. It's still garbage. I don't even use the default console, I use Torch which is a COMMUNITY MADE console. And to be clear before I continue, this is coming from a player who has purchased the deluxe edition of SE along with a DLC. Moving on about how they break something so simple. About a year ago Keen SOMEHOW managed to break anti-missile targeting in SE. Completely 100% vanilla game mechanic. Absolutely destroyed. Missiles fired at you by an enemy ship would simply be allowed to pass right through your defenses and kill you. It took them just as long to actually fix the bug. At the time this article was written (and was posted in the general chat of Keen's official Discord, the SAME DEVELOPER THAT SAID THE RACIST COMMENT came and joined by inputting a popcorn emoji and SOMEHOW RETAINED THE RANK OF DEVELOPER AFTER SUCH AN INCIDENT. I don't personally care whether or not he was fired and I'm not saying he 100% SHOULD be fired, but as long as Keen is doing something about it I'm chill. Proof can be found via the image below as well as the article from which the racist comment came:


Image: https://i.imgur.com/aPMDQMq.png

Article: https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/comments/abzsf3/so_a_keen_dev_just_said_this_tasteless_crap_in_a/


"InflexToday at 3:08 PM

https://i.imgur.com/aPMDQMq.png


[XGN] XLencyToday at 3:09 PM

Speaking of which.

That's the developer.

How you're still here I have absolutely no idea after something like that."


He LATER goes on to say this, followed by a comment from me. Again, not saying he SHOULD be fired, as it's not my job to determine that.


"InflexToday at 3:11 PM

You know, in our country we honor freedom of speech


[XGN] XLencyToday at 3:11 PM

Yes we do.

Except when it's racist and disrespectful.

How you still have your job after that astonishes me. PR must REALLY be going downhill...

But then again, it's not my job to hire/fire.

I'm just some lowly customer trying very hard to prove a point."


https://i.imgur.com/ZPyWAOw.png


Then some other users joined in and said some very questionable things. A link to the raw image will again be provided to avoid any false forgery claims.


"TyaipituToday at 3:15 PM

when did you become a tumblr sjw :eyes:"


https://i.imgur.com/PxMHOaz.png


"TyaipituToday at 3:17 PM

no


stop acting up

lol"

https://i.imgur.com/a23jvSZ.png


"TyaipituToday at 3:19 PM

https://i.imgur.com/okx6CAN.png

"


So in oversimplicity, Keen Software House has been terrible with PR for a good few years and has only gotten worse along with some of their community (which is evident in the screenshots above). In fact they've banned people from Discord who have actively been saying stuff like this, which is essentially censorship. As this conversation went on in their Discord, even the PLAYERS were agreeing with me, saying that they've been through the same thing countless times with Keen. They said even some of the DEVELOPERS felt the same way. Keen even acknowledged the increased hostility in the Discord but don't do jack shit about it. I've had players be blatantly rude to me, calling me retarded or telling me to fuck off, and one of the retarded moderators took THEIR side. 3/10 game, 1/10 company.

Replies (3)

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They get away with it because there is a core group of community members that swallow Keen garbage like they're the second coming. It doesn't matter that there is over 1000 valid bug reports, that they are only fixing new bugs brought in by the DLC, and that there is a strong, constant barrage of complaints on every social media platform because there's always someone willing to say 'muh it was much worse 4 years ago' or 'poggers I built a thrustered cube that worked for 10 minutes before something went wrong so this is the greatest game in the history of man'.

Miner Wars 2.0 with nothing learned by KSH management, and they're upset with the customers to boot.

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I haven't spent a penny on their recent DLC. The ONLY DLC I ever bought from them was the decorative pack and the deluxe edition. I tried refunding the game while it was in beta because it wasn't fun and the game was more broken than it ever was; they declined my refund request. I've had a bone to pick with Steam and Keen since then. Keen more so because they're like the cousin of EA.

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I myself have plenty negative to say about the Keen Discord Channel. Lack of moderation to say the least.

But I must make it clear that joining that channel proved to be huge mistake on my end.

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I've got a problem with the lack of quality for their Discord AND company. I was threatened and disrespected by a mod who was being biased against me with someone who had broken more rules in one sitting than I did. The PR for this company is just shit. 100% shit.

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Whelp, fresh day, so time for some context.

I am (or likely was) a workshop content creator. Mostly BPs, but also some small mods (I liked to joke to myself that I was the least popular character modder).

The initial problem:I had a problem: someone was taking the time and effort to spam downvotes on all my content. Which I might've been able to handle, if I wasn't unpopular. But because I was unpopular, my content was getting less publicity than someone with 0 folowers. Why does this matter to me you might ask? Because I can't just push myself to cater to noone!

The solution:So out of desperation, I thought if I spam my I would lose the stalking spammer. I too was not happy with that solution. So I asked the discord community for another solution.

The result:-I was scalded for the only solution I myself could find and was told by moderation to stop.

-I was told by a popular modder that it is not a problem and to deal with it.

-When I disagreed with that modder, almost everyone at hand, including another dislike spammer, came to enforce his opinion upon me.

-I was literally called a baby for trying to literate my problem to the masses by a major community server admin (never mind that he had problems in the past he had to literate, but I never called him a baby).

-Finally, everyone ignored my plead for an alternative solution because they were too busy being a peanut gallery.

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I liked it when Dan2D3D first gave ME a warning when I reported someone for spamming dislikes:

LG9KkqLp_o


then he banned me from the forum because he didn't like the fact I was defending my valid complaints about a number of bugs that hadn't been fixed after several years on the forum, and people started hurling insults- when I reported them for abusive posts he blamed ME and then dropped the ban-hammer. I mean, on one occasion someone contradicted themselves, I pointed it out when they said they didn't, and I was given a warning because apparently that 'derailed the thread' according to Dan2D3D:

ZGxkHafb_o

- you have ZERO chance of surviving on Keen's forums when they only have one active moderator and he is in a friendship group with the small gang of forum bullies, allowing them to insult and harass anyone with an opinion they don't like with zero consequences- usually he'll just ban the person they are attacking because they said something negative about the broken state of the game. Makes me sick.

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Hmm, can't edit anymore- I missed out the screenshot of that time he gave me a ban for trying to defend myself when the forum bullies didn't like my complaint about broken game features.

saJFqbSf_o

The TL;DR is that he kept telling me that I should stop posting my opinion, and insisted that I reported people if I didn't like their opinion- I pointed out I was reporting them for making abusive comments and insults, but that's A-OK in keen's book; if you have a complaint about something that is broken though then you'll just be banned to silence you ( because we can't have potential new players realising what an awful mess the game and dev studio is, can we... ).

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That's the SAME MOD that threatened and disrespected me. Wow, this just proves how shitty Keen is.

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Not just on Discord but on Steam too. Especially one Erin Truitt (Gwen).

Ban and fire Erin Truitt from the company | Space Engineers PC Support (keenswh.com)

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Weird, they must've deleted whatever you linked because it would show how terrible they are.

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@ButterToads Just got banned from their Discord for posting a giga chad gif and calling out the mods on over moderating. Then they proceeded to basically call me an idiot and then ban me. Lmao, Keen PR moment.

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I linked Suicide Neil's image with Dan in it on an SE discussion page on Steam. Some new guy asked how the community was, someone brought up Dan as being a community "ambassador", so I linked the image and then they banned me for 7 days for "off topic" content LMFAO. What a joke.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/244850/discussions/0/3409804429015770880/

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Had a conversation with Dan on his Steam profile. Went about how I expected it would:


49138d5b211663648c337d32c54b046deec64b3837e9096a1802bcf9deb4bff8ef76997288e7aeaa28814500eca9b269

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Sent an EMail to SE about it. Got the response I expected I would:5891910d116c6b8cf259c84393430ff3742dc24b5548f7f7fdb6141f882c4d12

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KSH have proven long ago that if you have anything remotely negative or critical to say about them, their game, or their team, then... don't say it, or else, basically. The community is and was ran by bullies and sycophants, any dissenting voice is shouted down and / or banned. I gave up interacting with the community a long time ago- report bugs, occasionally make suggestions for improvements ( and pretend not to be surprised when they ignore them despite being very popular ), nothing more.


I believe the game is coming to the end of real development soon, just bug fixing to come now since they've scraped the workshop to the bone for 'content ideas'. Just enjoy playing, and forget about forums, discord & such...

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Yeah. It's depressing that the base game itself even on its own is pretty lackluster. I'm half expecting the day Keen will show up and just delete this thread because it doesn't meet with their approval lmao

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They've had two years to delete it, and haven't. Perhaps they're not quite that insecure, and posts like this just don't bother them.

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Based on how I've seen Keen associates or employees interact with their consumers firsthand and with other people, that would not be consistent with their reputation. It's more likely they:

A. Have seen it and just don't give a fuck, which in itself is inherently bad which means they're unwilling to deal with any negative PR they get even if the backlash is valid.


B. Haven't seen it at all, hence why no one from Keen has actually shown up here.

We're talking about the company that'll kick your shit in for simply posting gifs, reporting spammers and trollers, and criticizing them or their employees/associates for making negative decisions rather than address issues people are having.

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> kick your shit in for simply posting gifs

Heh, I see - you're salty about a Discord ban. Yeah, it's A.

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> Heh, I see - you're salty about a Discord ban. Yeah, it's A.


Kind of a weird reason to support it being the first of the likely 2 options.


And, among other things, yeah I'm a bit salty over it. Not over being banned, but more disappointed that the Discord and forums are being run the way they are. The ban itself is only really a representation of the administration being overbearing, and bends the knee to anyone who cries "I'm offended" while simultaneously calling people idiots before and after banning them.

Keen's policy on community interaction is vague and subjective and depends entirely on the person, which is why you see similar policies in other companies, such as Mojang, getting extreme blowback when they actively try enforcing it as they're trying to do on 1.19.2 of Minecraft Java edition, as well as Bedrock edition. And like I mentioned before, the mods themselves don't even seem to follow their own policy.

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By making a "safe space" for everyone, they're killing any kind of honest interaction or criticism between members of the community, while somehow also at the same time violating their own policies and then throw a tantrum when they get called out on it, like what they did in the Discord. A good example to follow would be 343 Industries or Black Lab Games. I get the need for having rules especially in an official server, but it gets to a point where people don't feel like interacting with the community when the administration is going to be like that. Their justification seems to be "we want to stop bad things before they happen", which is a serious red flag.

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