Dont' be rude answer the question properly!

If you care to read more carefully you would see that EA meant Early Access. It was not referencing the company EA Games. Ok? Good.

As for moaning about being ripped off, yeah, I'll moan all I want. If I've been lied to, yeah, I'll 'moan' all I want.

But I'm asking a question, not moaning as you put it.

You are obviously oblivious to the Miner Wars fiasco. But just to let you in on some info that Keen has abandoned Miner Wars and Medieval Engineers as both half baked games and left a lot of very angry customers based on Keen's behavior. But I'll leave that research to be more educated on what has transpired to you.

Have a nice day.

The whole point of EA is that you can try early versions of the game, but aren't guaranteed anything more than what currently exists. They probably pushed it to full release so people wouldn't expect more updates, and dropped the price because the state of the game isn't worth the original price.

Either the price you paid was what you believe to be a fair price, in which case it shouldn't matter how the price changes later, or you shouldn't have bought it with unrealistic expectations, in which case you'll hopefully make better decisions with your money in the future. Either way, Keen isn't at fault for anything but trying something ambitious, marking it "buy at your own risk", and failing.

No, Don't agree with that DP. It was rip off from the start. Funding was never an issue, pure greed was.

And don't worry about any future purchases. I certainly won't be and have not made any more purchases from this company. And I'm doing all I can to raise the warning for other would be suckers.

They were literally selling it as-is. How can it be a rip-off if they delivered exactly what was advertised?

Think about it a bit differently. Little use of google says a ticket for a movie is $9 on average. You pay this amount for, let's say 2 hours of non-interactive fun. How much hours did you play with ME already? 100? Or more? Then why do you think you've been ripped off?

Obviously you both don't know the history behind ME or Miner Wars. I get that. I'm asking Keen to answer the question. If you don't understand what I'm asking that's fine.

So how does the history of the game affect the fact that it was sold as-is? If you want to claim that it's a rip-off, elaborate instead of hand-waving it away as "you don't understand".

Perhaps because early access is about the potential of the product. It's not unreasonable to be asking what the OP is, because of the resource put into SE (their other game).

Also, any sort of stupid argument about 'Oh you get x hours for x hours money!!', is stupid. Because not all things are equal, otherwise we would all be watching DVDs and never going to the cinema because it's cost effective.

And none of that equals what is in effect, a very bad product which was very unfair for the early customers. Yes, there is obviously no legal recourse or anything. But do bad habits like this deserve to go unchallenged? Blind acceptance is what gets you crappy half done games in the first place.

And despite being 'released' not long ago, they are not even looking at the bugs now. There is spam here over 44 days old. There should always be a little support after game release.

So, to answer Doomed Peron's comment.

First there was the Miner Wars 2081 fiasco where the game was basically devoid of any proper content. The original game that they demoed was nothing like the game they released into alpha onto Steam the first time around.

Then there was the Miner Wars MMO pre-sales purchase where customers paid good money for a 'promised' product that KHS never produced in the first place. That was a scam that they still don’t own up to.

Here is one post showing one person explaining what happened with MMO and how the games sent to testers was nothing like the game released on Steam. Have a look through the rest of the forum for Miner Wars and you’ll get the idea.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/223430/discussions/0/1499000547488365170/

The anger in the Steam community at the time was palpable and very toxic to say the least and the way KHS handled it was atrocious, and that's putting it mildly. To this day if you got to Steam and look up Miner Wars 2081 you'll see the reviews are 'mostly negative'.

Anyone that purchased the fake 'Miner Wars MMO' was, eventually, given a key to Space Engineers when it was released. But I stress, eventually. Many did not get the key, they abandoned anything to do with Keen and never returned to claim the offer.

When Space Engineers was introduced into early access, KHS began dealing with its customer base far better than what they did with the MW community. There was hope that they had learnt from the past. This change was due in the most part to customers not accepting the criminal behaviour of Keen and calling them out on it. Many of the most vocal were permanently banned from the MW forum for their efforts to bring Keen to task. The bans were dropped and as I say, reports from some at the time were that Keen began dealing better with customers, suggestions, criticisms etc, on the Space Engineers forum.

Then without warning, Medieval Engineers was then announced in January 2015 as the second early access (EA) game that KHS would have in development. Many had serious concerns that developing two games side by side would impact the development of SE. But KHS were adamant that it not only would it not negatively impact the development of SE; it would contribute to it. And vice versa. Most of the Miner Wars and SE customers held off purchasing ME. This is what contributed to the lack of success to ME.

Here is the blog post that Rosa put up at the time of the release of ME:

https://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/01/medieval-engineers_22.html

The strong impression left by this blog is unavoidable. ME would be developed in parallel with SE. ME would bring new development to the their VRAGE engine that would be used in SE and vice versa.

Another strong impression was that ME was going to be a separate game just like SE but not space based.

“We didn't want to keep creating space games only. Instead we wanted to have a game where you get to experience life and nature.

By creating a second engineering game, we are leveraging our existing technology and experience.

The thought that we should postpone the development of Medieval Engineers for years was a no-go. We had to find a better solution.”

Rosa then proceeds to outline what SE has gained from ME and what ME will inherit from SE.

Rosa then outlines that developing the two games together will “be beneficial for both of them”, that is, SE and ME. Rosa goes on to explain “Now we are expecting that player’s suggestions for one game might give us new ideas for other games – ideas that we might have missed due to the limitations of the environment of each title. Now everyone will have more options and possibilities!”

Rosa then espouses how the need to create is ‘the strongest force in the universe” and that when you “Add a team of people who don’t want to settle for the easy but strive for the challenging and impossible – and you will understand why we do what we do.

We have a strong need to create and we take pride in completing unachievable goals.

This is Keen Software House in a nutshell :)”

Then toward the end of the blog Rosa states, “Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers share the same code base.”

This blog post from Rosa leaves a strong impression that ME will be developed as a game within its own right and in parallel with SE. Both benefiting from each other. Anyone that read this and the release blog on Steam could be excused for having confidence that ME was going places and following in the footsteps of SE.

Remember this part of the quote:

"We have a strong need to create and we take pride in completing unachievable goals.

This is Keen Software House in a nutshell :)"

They claimed here that no matter how hard it got, they are a team that achieve the 'unattainable'.

With that in mind, many (including myself) purchased ME at the same price that SE was at that time. $20 USD each.

Things seemed to go well for the first year and a half. Updates came weekly as did pod casts. Players were contributing good suggestions and KHS seemed to be listening. All customers received a ‘DLC’ consisting of the music track and a banner as a supposed thank you for investing early into the development of the game.

Then the listening seemed to stop, updates became more spasmodic and the quality of the updates began to die. The customer base became increasingly restless. Many were voicing that KHS were no longer listening and that the game was being abandoned. This was in stark contrast to SE, the very game that Rosa had promised, yes, promised to develop ME alongside of. All of a sudden, Keen could not achieve the 'unattainable'.

Most of us wanted the game to go further in line with the sentiments expressed by Rosa himself on the blog post noted above. We were assured that the game was being developed despite the lengthening times between updates. The updates became smaller and smaller and bugs were not being resolved.

Then in May 21st, 2019, Tim (DeepFlame) Toxopeus left KHS. He was the lead developer for ME.

https://forums.keenswh.com/threads/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish.7403155/

Note what he said in that final blog: “Do not worry, Medieval Engineers is not abandoned; there are still plans for Medieval Engineers, and in the near future Keen Software House will continue to work on the game.”

That was in May 2018. We all hung onto that promise. But the updates went dead again. No announcements, no updates, nothing. The February 2019 0.7.1 update was the last update prior to Tim leaving.

Then on March 17th 2020, this announcement.

https://blog.marekrosa.org/2020/03/medieval-engineers-update.html

Medieval Engineers received one more minor update and was kicked out of early access like a premature baby and a ‘Finalised’ sticker slapped on it.

To add insult to injury for those that had supported the game when it first hit early access, Rosa slashed the price by more than half and gave away the one and only DLC to new customers for free.

“With this release, we are reducing the price to 9.99 USD, or your regional Steam equivalent. Over the coming weeks, everyone who owns the base version of Medieval Engineers will receive the Deluxe version, for free.”

The anger was and still is palpable on the ME and SE Steam forums. And Keen have gone back to the Miner Wars days by instructing its moderators (Dan2D3D and Vagax in particular) to stamp out any and all negative criticism of those most vocal about Keens criminal behaviour once again returning.

Their claim that they were a team that could achieve the 'unattainable' is laughable at a minimum. What a joke. But it encompasses all that Keen is, a joke that can't fulfill it's promises.

And then there is the fact that they use an unpaid person to do a paid persons job as Community Manager. Then hide behind him like he's a punching bag for all the anger from ripped off customers.

So yeah Doomed Person, there is a strong history there.

Dude...

Sorry to disappoint, but none of that actually comes close to touching on the one relevant fact here:

The game was sold as-is.

It's that simple. Regardless of all the company's issues, they sold ME in the state it was in at the time. If you bought it, that implies that you thought that the current state of the game was worth the price shown. Future changes in price or development plan don't change that. I certainly didn't fly into a rage when Crusader Kings 2 became free-to-play.

The only thing that your wall of text means is that you should have known it wasn't necessarily going to be anywhere near their ideal finished product. Which you should have understood already when you saw the "Early Access" tag on it.

@Luke: True. We can't just ignore these things. But this kind of complaint just makes it look like we collectively don't even know what we're paying for.

Only buy Early access to support a developer. No other reason. You're buying it as is, according to steam. If you're unsatisfied with the product return it before the return window expires. Don't buy into early access if you can't handle that arrangement.

> What the 'wall of text' shows is that KHS lied to get customers to buy the game.

Miner Wars? No, they released it in early access with big promises. It's terrible that they got nowhere near fulfilling their promises, but early access almost by definition is "buy at your own risk". This is a perfect example of that "your own risk".

The Miner Wars MMO? Yes, but irrelevant outside of reputation.

Medieval Engineers? No, it's a similar situation to Miner Wars.

> It shows a history of deception.

True. Again, irrelevant for the purposes of refunds.

> And I payed for what was promised on Rosa's own blog without realising what their past history was in other games they produced (or not produced in the case of Miner Wars MMO and still ripped people of with a pre-sale of said non-existent product).

Again, early access only promises what's already there. Sure, they can have ridiculous plans, but that doesn't mean you get a refund when they can't do it.

I'll repeat it again: Keen SWH being wrong does not mean that you are right.

It's not an opinion, it's a fact. There was no "extra" $10 because you agreed to both price and product before going through with it. I asked for any reason why this wouldn't be true, and you showed a history of dishonest business practices that still don't affect your purchasing of ME.

Keen's said they won't make additional content for ME, so the implied next step after convincing them you paid extra is to get the money back. It was a minor stretch, but what else would you do with that?

Again, it contributes to a pattern of deception that still doesn't mean anything. An Early Access game could claim that it'll start the apocalypse and create a new universe, but that doesn't mean you're entitled to anything when you buy it and they can't follow up.

> The fact is I'm right. Keen have shown a constant pattern of deception including ME.

Have we been arguing about different things? You've been focused on showing that Keen has been a pretty bad developer. You're 100% correct in that regard. But that doesn't at all link to having paid an extra $10 for ME, as I've shown above.

It's your opinion DP, nothing more, nothing less. You have only produced opinion, not fact.

I mentioned nothing about a refund. So you're pulling that one out of the air bud.

If that's the way you see early access and promises from a company, knock yourself out. I see it differently. They chocked on the development they promised. If you want to defend thieves and liars, go ahead. That's your right.

As I said before though. I posted the question to KHS, not you.

> It's your opinion DP, nothing more, nothing less. You have only produced opinion, not fact.

The central argument is literally constructed entirely out of objective facts:

1. Early Access games are sold as-is.

2. You paid the price in exchange for the game at the time of purchase.

3. You received the game in the state it was described to be when you bought it.

4. If you only paid the price of the game, you can't have paid $10 more than the price.

Go ahead. Point it out. My opinion should be pretty easy to find.

> I mentioned nothing about a refund. So you're pulling that one out of the air bud.

Again, I ask: What else are you going to do if you convince Keen?

> If that's the way you see early access and promises from a company, knock yourself out.

Yes, I see Early Access as it's described in official descriptions.

Keen might have had plans, but they aren't obligated to fulfill them. They're bad developers because of that change in plans, but that just means they're bad devs.

> I see it differently. They chocked on the development they promised. If you want to defend thieves and liars, go ahead. That's your right.

Even thieves and liars are in the right sometimes. Keen was following the rules in this specific instance, regardless of morality.

Your argument regarding the STEAM rules that you are buying the game ‘as is’ does not apply.

Why? Because Steam don’t enforce these rules. They merely put them there to cover their own ass, not the company who produces the game.

• Fact: Keen sold Miner Wars MMO as a pre-sales idea when the product did not even exist and still does not exist. It was a pure scam by them.
• Fact: Steam did nothing in bringing Keen to task over the MW-MMO scam, they let them get away with it thus proving that the ‘rules’ around purchasing early access is nonsensical and not enforced Steam.
• Fact: It was the anger and posting of the community that Keen finally gave in and offered free access to the newly released Space Engineers. But this took some time, and by then many of the ripped off customers had abandoned Keen. It was not Steam that bought them to task.
• Fact: If I was arguing that the Steam rules were broken, I would have A) bought the topic up and B) I would have discussed it over at the Steam discussion forum. But I did not bring up the topic of Steam rules, you did. And as noted above it does not apply in the sphere of my question and challenge to Keen.
• Fact: Steam is not the only platform that Keen use to sell its games. Here are a couple of examples. Keen itself was selling the game in early access on it’s own site.
• https://shop.keenswh.com/
• https://us.gamesplanet.com/game/medieval-engineers-steam-key--3990-1
• https://www.instant-gaming.com/en/831-buy-key-steam-medieval-engineers/

The topic of refunding is not the only goal that one can pursue in a discussion like this. But someone unintelligent will see that as the only goal. Have a think for a bit more and realise that, as noted above, there is a moral and ethical side to companies lying in order to gain from its customers. As happened in Miner Wars MMO, people did not give up when Keen had ripped them off and they bought them to task. It was more than money, it was the whole concept of deception, lying and the reputation of the company that was at stake.

My question and complaint to Keen is based on what Rosa himself promised in the blog when they released ME into early access. Those promises were further re-enforced by Deepflame himself when he was leaving Keen> https://forum.keenswh.com/threads/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish.7403155/. My question and challenge to Keen is not based on the flimsy, un-enforced rules of Steam.

No Keen did not get it right with ME, anymore than they did with Miner Wars, Miner Wars MMO and Miner Wars 2081. Keen were not following the ‘rules of steam’. The Steam rules are so low bar that Keen did not have to do much to pass that quiz. Keen had plans and no, they are not obliged to fulfill them, until they become a promise and draw people in based on those promises. Then they are obligated as any honest, descent company would be to fulfill those promises. But we’ve already established that Keen are neither descent nor honest in dealing with customers for 3 out of 4 games they have attempted to produce.

> Your argument regarding the STEAM rules that you are buying the game ‘as is’ does not apply.

> Why? Because Steam don’t enforce these rules. They merely put them there to cover their own ass, not the company who produces the game.

It's incredibly obvious how ineffective that argument is when you apply it to anything that isn't this. The rules are the rules, regardless of enforcement or purpose, and you agreed to them when you bought an Early Access game. If you want to substitute your own rules, set up your own platform.

> Fact: Keen sold Miner Wars MMO as a pre-sales idea when the product did not even exist and still does not exist. It was a pure scam by them.

> Fact: Steam did nothing in bringing Keen to task over the MW-MMO scam, they let them get away with it thus proving that the ‘rules’ around purchasing early access is nonsensical and not enforced Steam.

So the rules weren't enforced properly once. Maybe you should be on Steam spamming about that, where you're actually in the right, instead of trying to use that as evidence for ignoring the rules, replacing them with your own, and trying to use those to claim injury.

> Fact: If I was arguing that the Steam rules were broken, I would have A) bought the topic up and B) I would have discussed it over at the Steam discussion forum. But I did not bring up the topic of Steam rules, you did. And as noted above it does not apply in the sphere of my question and challenge to Keen.

Excuse me for using bold, but I feel like this needs to be emphasized, heavily.

You're saying that Keen owes you $10, but no rules were broken.

Please stop before you embarrass yourself even more.

> Fact: Steam is not the only platform that Keen use to sell its games. Here are a couple of examples. Keen itself was selling the game in early access on it’s own site.

• https://shop.keenswh.com/
• https://us.gamesplanet.com/game/medieval-engineers-steam-key--3990-1
• https://www.instant-gaming.com/en/831-buy-key-steam-medieval-engineers/

All three of these clearly display that it's in Early Access on Steam, where the product is actually being sold. None of them is any different from a link to the Steam store page.

> The topic of refunding is not the only goal that one can pursue in a discussion like this. But someone unintelligent will see that as the only goal. Have a think for a bit more and realise that, as noted above, there is a moral and ethical side to companies lying in order to gain from its customers. As happened in Miner Wars MMO, people did not give up when Keen had ripped them off and they bought them to task. It was more than money, it was the whole concept of deception, lying and the reputation of the company that was at stake.

You already have enough evidence to call out Keen or get some kind of class-action suit going. This is a tenuous-at-best claim that relies on convincing people that the Steam rules don't apply. On their own site.

> My question and complaint to Keen is based on what Rosa himself promised in the blog when they released ME into early access. Those promises were further re-enforced by Deepflame himself when he was leaving Keen> https://forum.keenswh.com/threads/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish.7403155/.

And asking what happened to ME is fine. Asking where the extra $10 went is meaningless because you didn't pay an extra $10.

> My question and challenge to Keen is not based on the flimsy, un-enforced rules of Steam.

Then what are the rules you're playing by? Steam's rules are the only ones that apply here, and morality is constrained by its gray areas and practicality. Also, I think I should repeat that Steam's rules are the only ones that apply here in case you haven't gotten that yet.

> No Keen did not get it right with ME, anymore than they did with Miner Wars, Miner Wars MMO and Miner Wars 2081.

They didn't do anything illegal. They definitely didn't "get it right" (wherever you found that turn of phrase), and some things they did were morally objectionable, but nothing there would hold up in court.

> Keen were not following the ‘rules of steam’.

> The Steam rules are so low bar that Keen did not have to do much to pass that quiz.

Dude, pick one. Can't have it both ways.

Also, in case you picked the latter, Keen is still keeping it legal and maybe you should have read the rules for Early Access before spending money.

> Keen had plans and no, they are not obliged to fulfill them, until they become a promise and draw people in based on those promises. Then they are obligated as any honest, descent company would be to fulfill those promises.

Any honest, decent company would fulfill their promises or make adequate substitutes. That doesn't mean they're legally obligated to. And again, Early Access implies that no future plans are certain in this stage.

> But we’ve already established that Keen are neither descent nor honest in dealing with customers for 3 out of 4 games they have attempted to produce.

And while that may be true, they don't always break the rules in doing so.

> I base my question and challenge on what Keen promised and stated, not on whether they did or did not follow steam rules.

This is it. Our base issue. Morality vs. legality. How the rules should be, compared to how they are. But you agreed to the rules as they are when you bought an early access game.

I guess what I'm going for here is this: You didn't get anything for your $10. They definitely won't admit it if they don't have to, because technically they didn't do anything wrong. For the same reason, telling them about it won't go anywhere, and a change would be unlikely to work retroactively. There isn't much anyone outside of Keen can do about this instance.

If you want to prevent this from happening in the future, I'd recommend using the block of evidence on other online forums. If you manage to raise awareness, Steam will have to move to keep its reputation intact.

Unless something really unique comes up, I doubt that I'll respond again. Most of this other stuff is just the same central issue in a slightly different form, and we've been over most of them multiple times anyway.

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> This is all you can say when I present evidence of the actual company we are talking about? Again, circular reasoning, move on.

Yes. It's a different, unrelated issue. Unless there is a direct link between that and ME, it's irrelevant for our purposes.

> And even when I show evidence of it in one case of said rules not being enforced you hand wave it away.

The lack of enforcement was with a different product. It would only be a hand wave if Keen broke the rules with ME.

> And if you look, there is no warning or rules such as Steam try to 'enforce' in either of those examples.

They are all clearly marked as hosted on Steam. It's obvious that the Steam rules apply regardless of which link you clicked to get there.

>And if you look closely at Keen, you'll see they have changed their business name several times, so it all depends on which company name you want to 'suit' and if you can prove which one is responsible. It would never succeed.

You have all the evidence right here. The whole thing was an example to show that you could do a lot more with what you have than this.

> Hmm, do the math, I really did pay in actual money, $10 more than current customers...

We've been over this. Prices change. Keen would be fully within its rights to make the game F2P.

> This is where you are wrong, so wrong. Where is Miner Wars MMO?.... Did it ever exist before the pre-sales offer? NO! Did it exist after the pre-sales offer? NO! Did this breach the rather flimsy steam rules that you seem so intent on highlighting as the only thing to argue here? YES! And yet nothing was done by Steam. Keen sold something to customers that did not exist nor ever did. That's theft in anyone's book and the fact that customers at that stage left in droves after this shows just how criminal Keen was in that whole sorry saga.

Implied context. I'll revise:

>> They didn't do anything illegal with Medieval Engineers.

> Keen did not follow the rules with due diligence and any developer can produce a small almost non-working game and be considered by Steam to have passed the bar... So yes, both those statement IN CONTEXT of the surrounding arguments are compatible.

Ah. You earlier made it sound like the issue was Steam's low bar allowing Keen to avoid rulebreaking.

And I happen to not agree with all your arguments.

Listen, send me a friend request on Steam if you want to. To be honest it's been an interesting discussion to say the least. I've got the same username. but if you don't want to I understand.

Hope to hear from you.

If you bought the game and didn't like it, it your opinion. I could buy a bag of potato chips for $5 extra to get them before they hit market. that does not guarantee I will like the chips. I just paid a little extra to not like them before other people not liked them. or did like them. the same holds true for games. you buy something early, it doesn't mean you have to like it.

@benjamin: Why do you assume that I don't like the game. I have never stated that I dislike the game. In fact, I enjoy playing ME.

My post is about the lies told by Marek Rosa when the game was released and then subsequently abandoned at half the price that Early Access players purchased the game for.