This release has been bad. I mean $60 US for this broken mess that doesn't even utilize multi-threading on your processor is laughable. The performance is terrible, the combat is clunky, and the game itself is broken at every turn. I only paid $20US for it and I still feel ripped off.

That's not how it works.
Steam is doing it automatically to prevent review bombing (which is in many cases legitimate problem; not here), as people use game review field to include their political statements and anger (i.e. Subnautica) instead of focusing on the product itself. Devs cannot hide reviews, neither they can delete it.

Captain Scarlett is active on the Steam forum again, trying to do some damage control, telling us the same thing they told us last time, that "we don't know how the industry works, they tripled the game's size [which is to say they added two more characters and thrice the fetch quests] and worked for four years on their game, so, yeah, it's definitely worth $60". Hopefully we'll see some Compulsion PR person in here, soon, as well, Captain Scarlett or Manywhelps or whoever was in charge of handling the GOG moaning about their "masterpiece".

Man, going by that logic, D-Pad should be selling Owlboy for $150, considering they spent 10 years developing it (disclaimer: I'd rather pay $60 for a great little game like Owlboy than the mediocre mess that is We Happy Few).

sad thing is by now i know exactly how the industry works and i'd rather stay away from it

I like the art style and idea. I think I'll keep an eye on it and maybe get it in a few years; depending how its patching and gameplay options evolve. As it is with all whats reported broken even 20 bucks would be too much; at least for me.

hmm, could be, but I'm pretty sure the recent reviews section was visible even after release. Well, at least for some time.

and while Steam review system is deeply flawed, ending early access shouldn't be used to hide behind old reviews of outdated version of game. I wonder, if the early access reviews would end up in mostly negative if Steam would let We Happy Few sit on negative score for next few weeks, or reset it to give it 'clean slate' for launch.

I just made a post on the Steam forum analysing this...

I'd just like to add that we've seen this coming for a long time, so for me this release is mostly a formality, as the devs had painted themselves into a corner.

I agree. This shouldn't come as a surprise for anyone who was here for the "good news, we're hiking the price of our game" announcement a year ago, or even those who had been with them for longer than that.

What I find odd is that how a game that supposedly promotes reflection on thought-police and behaviour control has such a blind legion of white knight fans who will keep defending them with everything they've got. It's as if Compulsion has been feeding them Joy for years, actually.

This game is dead in the water, ~1,500 people playing it on release week on Steam is not a very encouraging number, and even if the game had no bugs at all it would still only have reviews in the 60-to-70 out of 100 range, because it's not a great game; it may have great elements, but they're all dragged down by frustrating, boring and outdated mechanics, plus a procedurally generated world that is not very well implemented.

It's baffling, to me, how these devs thought their game was worth this much money just because of the two characters they added, and how entitled they are as to tell us we don't know how the industry works and how their game is a labour of love and passion that is more than worth the price of admission. They're not doing very good damage control, if playing the victim card is the only move they got.

Anyway, I'm done with this, for now. Death's Gambit is out, I'm loving it, and I didn't have to pay €60 for it, so I'll be playing it instead of wasting time with We Happy Few discussions. Apologies if I offended anyone or if I was "unfair" towards Compulsion Games, I honestly didn't mean to, I just think these practices are hurting the video game industry, and we should not just "let it go", because another dev or publisher will come along and try pulling this crap again, soon.

It still looks like a great concept.

If they can patch up the problems and redesign the repetitive sameness out of it (lol those granny clones everywhere), it might be worth picking up someday... unfortunately, at 90% discount, which would still be six bucks...

AMA on reddit right now if anyone is interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/97izv4/we_are_compulsion_games_who_made_contrast_and_we/

I'd love to know if Gearbox advised them to handle their transformation from indy to "AAA" in the manner that they did. o.O

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I honestly don't know, we can only assume that they did, but Compulsion said time and time again (even in that reddit AMA paladin181 linked to earlier) that Gearbox Publishing didn't even help them, financially, they just did... advertising work. So, if Compulsion themselves are so eager to exonerate and defend Gearbox, there's only one party left to blame for all this mess, and that's... Compulsion Games.

To be fair: they had announced the price increase way earlier in development, their community knew about that. What no one knew was how steep of a hike it would end up being, or that the devs would be delusional enough to think their game was worth more than Witcher 3, when it's not offering one half of the content or the quality. I'm not talking about play time, they're different genres of games, but there's a certain sense of quality, content and polish you get from Witcher 3 that simply isn't there on We Happy Few. It looks and feels... cheap.

I guess there's no easy way to objectively evaluate the worth of a game compared to its price; I'm not one of those people who think "$$$ = Hours of play", I'd be willing to pay AAA price for a short adventure game, if it had enough quality writing, if the story feels fresh and is doing something new, if the characters are well-developed, etc. I'd pay AAA price for a short action game with excellent gameplay mechanics, fluid controls, polished graphics. The amount of time I spend in a game isn't reason enough, for me, to make it worth AAA price, but that's what Compulsion did: they added two extra characters in order to expand the gameplay time, to justify the price. But that doesn't take away all the stuff that makes the game mediocre: boring stealth, old and frustrating survival mechanics, awful NPC AI, appalling implementation of procedural generation. No matter how much time you spend trying to overcome the fetch quests and the bad combat in order to appreciate the decent story, that same time doesn't mean the game is worth the $60, because it wasn't time well spent. I'd rather pay $60 for their game if they removed all that's subpar about it and left only what's good: the art design and the story. So, I'd rather pay $60 for a walking sim version of We Happy Few, than for whatever mess it is trying to be.

Oh dear, looking at that reddit AMA, these guys... are way in over their head. They have no freaking clue what they're doing. You delivered a failure of a product which folks are rightfully angry about, and you're baffled that people are being mean to you on twitter? How long have you been on the internet, honey? I don't know whether to feel pity or severe schadenfreude here. It's The Culling 2 all over again.