This particular desperate and inconsiderate line of reasoning displeases me greatly:

"This process is invisible and requires zero interactions. You won't even notice!"

A copy they themselves seeded there at same time as real release and told people about and had a "funny ha ha" thing in it to encourage people to try it. These developers are spinning all sorts of crazy shit. They're definitely suffering from Main Character Syndrome at the least.

I would need to dig up the article from back then, but I'm pretty sure, the revelation that they themselves put the pirated version up, was made afterwards.

The same goes for the "funny ha ha thing" they put into the pirated version.

That also got out afterwards - after players of the pirated version complained about the "funny ha ha thing" - which THEY thought, was a bug in the official release.

What these devs actually did, was: conducting a social experiment.

They officially released their game, to be bought by anyone interested (many among those, had told them beforehand, that they: "can't wait to finally buy and play it!!!").

Parallel to that official release, they put out a pirated copy of said game (with some strings attached), to see which of the versions would garner more attraction.

Well. They got their answer. 93% chose the pirated version.

Again: not because they knew it was put out by the devs with a "funny ha ha thing" attached - but because it was free.

The devs had given everyone a chance to put their money where their mouths had been...and 93% of them blew it.

Pretty sobering realization, I presume.

Of course:
if you have access to article(s) from back then, that prove YOUR version - link to them (no tweets from some randos, of course - only official articles from renowned sites).

Update (10.10.24):

Dear Tavern Keeper community,

For more than a decade, our tiny team has put its heart and craft into Tavern Keeper, and we’ve been looking forward to finally opening its doors to you.

Early feedback has been incredibly positive, but after careful consideration we need extra time to ensure more players have a great first experience with the game.

To that end, we are postponing the release of Tavern Keeper to 2025.

Here is some additional detail on how we have come to this decision:

Perhaps surprisingly, given the announcement, the game at the moment is actually in a good state! All mechanics are implemented. It is content complete, has full English voice over and all translations should be ready within the week. The tutorial works great, the Early Access campaign (and stories) are fun and you’d likely have a great time playing it IF, and this is the crucial point, IF you know how to avoid a number of existing pitfalls.

Some staff can get stuck forever, some mechanics interact with each other in ways that make them hard to control, some UI elements and systems are a little too confusing. There are some performance issues and sometimes errors occur that interrupt or halt gameplay. In short: the likelihood that you would get frustrated while playing is currently a little too high for a great first experience.

The good news is that all these issues - given just a bit of time - are solvable, but if we had tried to stick to the November release plan, we’d likely have burned out the team in the process. You don’t want a burned-out team and you especially don’t want a burned-out team at the end of more than ten years of development and at the start of your Early Access journey. We’d also be launching into Early Access with a list of known issues that would keep us busy and prevent us from properly responding to your feedback in a timely fashion.

So, with heavy hearts but with clear minds, we have made the decision to postpone the release, giving us the breathing space to address the frustrations and to do things right.

We’ll announce a new release window next year, when we are ready.

When Tavern Keeper releases into Early Access, it will hopefully bring you joy, and both the game and the team will be ready for your input!


Patrick

And The Tavern Keeper Team