According to a post by a community manager on IL-2 Sturmovik's forums, the game's developers are threatening to shut down the game unless its Metacritic user review score increases.
If you're itching for a decent combat flight-simulator for the PS4 or Xbox One then the chances are you're still scratching away - there's just nothing out there at the moment.
However, that itch may be about to get a satisfying scratch.
Isn't this the russian developer that went crazy on people that were basically testing it and were giving constructive criticism. If so I will stick to war thunder. Fantastic air combat in that game.
They threatened to stop development of the game because of low metacritic reviews. A lot of people already paid for early access, so they were seriously considering robbing those gamers.
Yes they banned a large number of users who had been in the early access stage providing feedback right from the start because they complained too much. They did also suggest the project could be closed down if their Metacritic score did not improve. The scores got wiped and restarted and the score went even lower ( http://www.metacritic.com/g...
Someone close to them leaked emails and Steam private chat logs showing that the developer had offered cash and other incentives for them to post positive comments on various internet forums so don't be surprised if you see someone turn up here.
They sucked everyone in buying a $60 and $100 version and then just after it launched they released a Russian ersion for $12 which included all the same content as the $60 version but needed the user to do a little XP grinding to unlock the planes which the full price players had to do anyway to unlock aircraft power-ups.
This is the kind of fairly worded criticism that gets your thread locked down on the official forums: http://forum.il2sturmovik.c...
Yes, I bought their last game (Cliffs of dover) and that was terrible. It was unplayable for months after release and never really got finished.
I hear this game is no better so probably best avoid it.
GameGrin's Alex Hamilton writes: "The air is filled with the noise of screeching metal, roaring engines and the flash of tracer fire. Frantically I pull back on the throttle as machine gun bullets pepper the canopy of my Messerschmitt 109 fighter. In front of me a fully-laden bomber explodes in a flower of orange flames. There’s a crack as the glass in my cockpit shatters and then a series of thuds as bullets slam into my wings, tearing one free. As I plummet to earth, wreathed in smoke and fire, one thought crosses my mind:
I am not a very good pilot."
Earlier this month, controversy surrounding Il-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad and Metacritic surfaced, in which the developers of the game, 1C Game Studios, implied they would permanently shut down multiplayer servers for Battle of Stalingrad if its score on Metacritic did not increase.
Additionally, a chain of emails between Jason Williams, president of 777 Studios (co-developer of the game alongside 1C Games), and the game's testers emerged, revealing alarming instances of unprofessional conduct - including bribery and the aforementioned server shutdown blackmail threat - due to testers' expressed dislike of a certain gameplay feature.
Most recently, a first-party in the entire debacle revealed startling correspondence and unethical actions taken by developers of the game (1CGS), exposing a company that is rife with corruption and a severe lack of integrity.
Understatement of the month so far : ) But really. Pretty off-the-wall stuff going on.
They should have bought some ads from some review websites before reviews came out. jk
I am not thrilled this is going on, but damn do I love this game. I been waiting for a new one on next gen just to get my fix.
Best to shut down rather than blackmail users for positive ratings!
Do people actually use Metacritic and how important is it?
I've never used it and never will
I've never heard of their game LOL.
I hope this will cause backlash and cause a lot of people to review it with 0s or 1s.
You don't shut a game down because of a metacritic score... That's just idiotic.
At least it's their choice and not some publisher. Publishers who punish developers because of metacritic are just the worst.