Hey there everyone, Alex Poysky here with an update on how the studio is doing.

First off, I've been a little "removed" from the daily ins and outs of the studio's running due to a pretty scary health issue I'm dealing with.

I feel like I won the ANTI lottery here, as it turns I appear to have the only documented case of Espondilodiscitis in Spain at the moment. One in 100 thousand in people OVER 50. I am 31. It took the doctors a month to diagnose correctly due to it being so rare that the 3 (yes THREE) neurosurgeons I speak to on an almost weekly basis have never once in their medical careers encountered it. You know who detected it and diagnosed me? My girlfriend, she somehow came up with the information and popped the question to the surgeons, who did the required tests and lo and behold, I have an infection that has a 0.004 % chance to appear in males OVER 55. There is simply no explanation as to why I have it, but I want everyone to know my girlfriend, Vanesa Maria Garcia Fernandez saved my life and I am going to devote what is left of it to making her the happiest person I can.

I had a standard L5 S1 vertebrae surgery two months ago, and was getting better, and about a month ago everything turned into constant pain in different parts of my body. One minute I'd be fine and the next I'd have a pain that related to my pancreas being cut open, or my lung being flattened, or my personal favorite "appendix bursting over and over again" as in, the exact MOMENT you feel the appendix burst. It's excruciating, it's miserable, and I have to take prozac as an anti depressant just to get through the day in my usual cheery spirit.

It turns out the INSIDE (I don't even) of my operated vertebrae is infected, and said infection presses up against the nerves within, sending "fun" nerve signals into my brain such as "exploding appendix" or "broken knee". Now that I've learned to endure the pain to some extent, I realize just how truly curious it is, as I can just be sitting down and it flares up like I'm going to die within a minute, annoying to say the least.

In fact, it's 6 a.m and I can't sleep and am writing this due to the pain and having read a few negative comments mentioning me having run off into the sunset with the money or whatever. Look, I WISH! Trust me, if any of you have ever wanted me to go through any hardships you've gotten your wish. I am absolutely miserable.

Having said that however, I still find time to run Pixel Privateers and it's launch is immenent. To those who say it's a clone of Pixel Piracy I invite you to please take a look at our facebook page where Lisa (The community manager I've had to hire due to my failing health) writes wonderful weekly posts about only SOME of the new things you'll be able to see in Privateers.

Now, on to brass tacks. Piracy is buggy and the internal code is messy, it'd take a whole new code base to FIX it, and. While we can never remake it, look out for Q1 2016, but that's a different piece of news for a different moment and I've only got so long before I'm loopy from morphine so let's take advantage of my lucid moments now.

This year I'm not going to be able to host a giveaway like I did last year due to the sheer physical exertion it requires (10-12 hours a day sitting at my desk handing out keys in a chat room). What I WILL do is speak with valve and make sure anyone who has pixel piracy gets something special witht he purchase of pixel privateers. This WON'T make the people who already hate me happy, but it's genuinely the most I can do now due to my health, and I ask you take solace in the fact that I can't be in the bahamas with the money you paid for the game due to the fact that while pixel piracy cost around 8 k euros to make, Pixel Privateers has cost around 50 times more. Yes, 50. Which is why some of our testers laugh whenever someone calls this a scam or a clone or whatever, but friends, let people be skeptical, it's in their nature and WE failed them in the past. Time will put everyone in their place, and if they are right they are only lending credence to something they believe in, and I can do nothing more than applaud them for trying to help other potential buyers stay clear of what they percieve is a bad product.

As for privateers itself, here are some links that will easily explain away the whole "this game is a scam and they aren't spending money on it at all"

https://www.facebook.com/PixelPrivateersGame/ Weekly updates with gifs, explanations, and trust me, we have one ace in our hole which we haven't (nor will we) explain until launch, and it's the single most requested feature we have EVER had.

I know there'll be people here who call me a liar or whatever and claim I'm making this up. Trust me, TRUST ME, I wish. Also, thnk about it, if I were going to make something up I wouldn't claim to have some literal one in a million infectious vertebrae thing that is related to people almost twice my age. I'd make something more believable up. Having said that. I'm asking ANYONE who has had spondiolitis (not the ankylosing one, the INFECTIOUS VERTEBRAE one) to let me know. I need to know if this is permanent, I need to know if it's true that with the months I'll get better. this pain is so miserable I can only cry day in, day out.

I don't want pity or anything of the sort. I am giving you all an explanation as to why someone who would write on a weekly basis went silent, and am now well enough to do so.

My personal skype is alexpoysky , my personal twitter is @alexpoysky and my personal email is [email protected] . If you are going to fill the post with hate save it and just direct it at me personally. I KNOW we dropped the ball on Piracy, it's as good as it CURRENTLY can get. But it'll get better in 2016!

Privateers is do or die for me. If it sucks I'm hanging up my producer hat potentially, but it doesn't. I'm confident it'll wow you all.

And if anyone just wants to chat, keep my company maybe, I'll try and read each and every email. I need the distraction and I'll do what I can (health permitting) to respond. I can't attest to the quality of the emails as most will be written one handed on my phone while standing in my back brace, but I WILL write back.

I PROMISE once I'm better I'll host a giveaway, and I'll try and be my usual chatty self from now on! I have to give the antibiotics, treatment, and the nasty radio isotopes I've been injected with about 3 months to clear my body of the gunk.

I want to thank my entire team for being so kind and understanding.

Vitali- You are the best Blyat who exists, no Cyka for you mate!
Jaakko- You are an incredible team leader and the pressure my declining health is putting on you is nothing short of an endurance run, thank you for being so understanding.
Tuomo- Thank you for not putting up resistance any time I ask for changes man, I know it can be grating to push against your own work at the behest of someone else, but it's for the greater good of our future players.
Mikko- Holy crap man you are a beast, you made that transition from Piracy Maintenence dev to full time Privateers dev like a pro!
Nino- Even though you don't speak much I know you probably think more than anyone else around you, keep up the phenomenal art work.
Ari- I love how everyone told me you were obese and I'd have to walk around you and never mention food to you and I believed them, only to find the skinniest, most talkative and nice guy at the office waiting!
Lisa- You've been an absolute blessing for me, giving me the chance to heal and rest and TRY not to think about work obsessively. THANK YOU FOR BEING AN ANGEL!
Kole- Where do I even beging. The aural work your music brings to the games is haunting. It's the backbone, the salt on a steak. And to top it off you are an incredible friend.

We are real people, we are trying our hardest, we MAY or may not mess up, but we TRIED!

Alex Poysky