They should have developed the game for 6 months before the kickstarter and actually brought the neccessary proof of concept and eye candy to the table. Once concluded they should have then genuinely monetized the Alpha instead of continuing to offer the kickstarter rewards for a year at ludicrous prices. This would have ensured a far more consistent exposure, a more balanced community, generated better momentum in the media and among the various essential external communities (Steam et al) and ensured a consistent injection of cash.
Instead they went Old School: which is a deprecated method of doing business in this industry. They closed ranks, limited information despite rapacious demand for updates and eye candy, encouraged a cliquey community based on a minority of middle aged fan boys with deep pockets and actively encouraged social division via a fragmented user base. The poorer majority of whom are simply excluded from various aspects because they haven't dropped a ton on vapourware in blind faith.
Media exposure has been amateur hour bizarre: broadsheets? Some magazine nobody reads, because nobody reads magazines anymore? We're over a year in and we've just got a community manager for the forum. Who's first act was to run a competition that only a few hundred people can compete in? Again with the social apartheid. This forum has around 200 people actively engaged with it. From a KS pool of 40, 000. From a required potential customer base of over a million. Why a million? Because thats the minimum number of copies you have to sell in the first 12 months to keep the doors open. Where are these people? What do they engage with? How do we reach them and draw them in? Pro-tip: Offering £100+ Alpha access is not it.
They rather worryingly don't seem to be listening to key feedback. You can almost imagine how the reviews will go: inevitible collapse of self maintained distribution servers on release day, dated graphics, don't like the flight model, controls with kb and mouse are tedious, combat is shallow, groups promote isolationism, sandbox is only for pve no true multiplayer ie this is not a social experience, gameplay is repetitive and much hyped procedural content offers only infinite boredom etc. Bottom line: if you like that sort of thing you'll want to buy this game I guess. 70%. Meta critic flop.
If they do fail they will have only themselves to blame. If you are in business to make money you don't do things like Frontier have. And ultimately the 'we are making our game' mantra is only an excuse for not maximizing revenue and buzz and a smoke screen for poor vision and leadership.
