Hello, HF Interactive here.
The Major\Minor community is under new management.
Here are a few of the major changes taking place as I assume leadership as PR Head:
- Klace has stepped down from a community role to focus on development.
- Any negative reviews that were flagged have since had their flags removed.
- This account will now be posting announcements and moderating the forums.
I would like to take the rest of this announcement to speak about the controversy regarding Major\Minor, and the "issues" that have been spread around the Internet during release period.
Why was Klace removing and flagging reviews?
Plainly and simply, he wasn't removing reviews.
Developers are not able to remove a review on a Steam product.
The only thing they can do, is flag a review to escalate it to an employee of Valve.
While some may have found that Klace was a little overzealous with his flagging of reviews (and I agree), he was still not going against the Steam Terms of Service regarding the moderation of reviews. The Steam Review Guidelines state as follows:
"When providing feedback, posting information, or discussing a product in Steam, whether it’s negative or positive, please make sure you are being relevant, constructive and polite. Developers take feedback from all kinds of sources into account, even though they may not have the time to respond to every post or question. Please note that Administrators/Moderators reserve the right to change/edit/delete/move/merge any content at any time if they feel it is inappropriate, abusive, or incorrectly categorized." Source: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810
Before removing the flags on the flagged reviews I was able to personally confirm two things:
- The flagged reviews did not entirely conform to the Community Guidelines, and though the flagging was vigorous, it did not go against any Steam Guidelines.
- Only two reviews were actually "deleted" by Valve.
The removed reviews contained words such as "Kill Yourself", and other ill wishes towards the developer. And as such they were removed by an employee of Valve -- not Klace. I removed the flags from the others before they saw peer review. The rumors that Klace was actively deleting negative reviews is an entirely false statement.
How will reviews change going forward?
Good question! The flagging of reviews will be much more lax going forward, with the intention to only flag spam and outright harassment, if any flags are to be issued at all.
Why is Klace stepping down?
Klace is stepping down to focus on developing the game. Around the week of launch, a notorious image board found this new game. After finding out that it was entirely funded by monthly investors on Patreon -- they aimed to destroy the game internally by amassing a portfolio of faked evidence that would help scare away investors.
Fortunately, only one investor backed out -- and the development of the game remained strong. However, several outlets got a hold of this faked portfolio and went on to spread it around as real -- bringing a new wave of hatred towards the developer. They have even gone as far as to leak Klace's personal address, phone number and information for further harassment.
Their goal is nefarious, and unfortunately many are believing this document as true.
Furthermore, the document was covered in a video format on YouTube, for easier digestion by the masses. This has led to a new wave of personal attacks and harassment against the developer.
But I've seen the document! I've seen pictures of what Klace has done!
I think you will find the following video very informative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-iYQU2UvJA
In this video I show you how to change the text of any website to any thing you would like using Google Chrome's "inspect element" and then take a picture of your changes. This is a great way to pull pranks and mess with friends!
But I've seen archives! You can't fake those!
The archives in question were archives of flagged reviews, and as I have already covered (though vigorous) the flagging of reviews did not go against any Steam Community rules.
There were also some archived Reddit posts of Klace evidently handling criticism towards the game negatively. While I do not condone these actions -- again -- they were not against any sort of rule, and in fact if you look at the patch notes -- more criticism was taken to heart and implemented in the actual game than most would think.
Here are links to the patch notes:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/417990/announcements/detail/85929950130877863
http://steamcommunity.com/games/417990/announcements/detail/85930303282843494
http://steamcommunity.com/games/417990/announcements/detail/85930840388630979
http://steamcommunity.com/games/417990/announcements/detail/85930840388987586
So, while some would say that Klace was poor at handling criticism, he definitely took a fair share of it to heart and actually changed the game accordingly. Everyone makes mistakes, though. Unfortunately people focus on the hate and none of the good things that are being done. This debacle is a master class in that regard.
That's how you can tell a hate article from an unbiased history of someone's behavior.
What about the stolen images in the game?
All the character artwork is done by PawziClawzi who is an employee working on the title with Klace. She is credited in the trailer and can be found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/pawziclawzi
All of the background images are legitimately purchased from http://www.dreamstime.com/, a royalty free image repository.
But Klace didn't credit the photographers.
Photographs purchased from a royalty free image repository do not require credit.
Klace will still be crediting them however, and credit is in a TXT file in the game's directory until a credits roll is implemented into the game. It is still not required.
You are false advertising! Characters in the game are not going to be in the final version.
This is not false advertising. As an episodic title, many things are subject to change and this is mentioned on the store page in a disclaimer. However, we are more than happy to provide refunds to those who feel cheated out of the removal of these two characters -- as long as they remain within the buyer's remorse period that Steam offers.
The game is supposed to have multiple expressions!
Multiple expressions was always a Patreon stretch goal that was never hit. Therefore, multiple expressions will be implemented in retroactive patches wherever possible. Multiple expressions were never advertised on the Steam Greenlight, Steam Store, or any other platform. Klace should have worded his claims accordingly.
In closing...
Though some things during the launch weren't handled in the best way possible -- it is definitely not as bad as these hate articles and videos make it out to be. They use largely illegitimate evidence to help substantiate claims of half-truths -- wrapped in just enough truth to make it believable.
It's a shame that it got picked up by several outlets and spread like wildfire, but the document was created with the express purpose to scare away financial investors and destroy the project internally. As it stands, that has not worked.
But there was lots of misconceptions to clarify!
I hope that I was able to do a good job in my first post as PR head.
Sincerely,
HF Interactive