Dear players,
It's been a long ride and I enjoyed it. Now, I switch a button and the game is released.
Story
I started developing a 3D game engine back in 2015 as a side project to my day job without any plans on making an actual game or even founding a company. As time passed, the game engine got bigger, better, more reliable and I started to build a small game around it. More time passed and it was already mid 2016 when I decided to quit my job to realize my childhood dream to found my own video game company. Another year and a lot of work later, I had the very first version of Galactic Crew released as Early Access product on Steam.
I was so proud of my work and contacted influencers on YouTube from around the world and told them about my game. Some of them requested a key and put their Let's Play videos online. The reviews were bad. I mean... really bad. It was devastating for me, because I put so much work and money in this project. However, I decided not to give up and continue my full-time game developing work fixing all discovered bugs, adding requested features and listen closely to the community.
Although the Steam reviews are still mixed, I am very happy with the final result. As you can see in the discussion section of the Community Hub, I replied always as soon as possible to any kind of quesion and I realized what players missed in the game. I originally planned a six to nine months Early Access, but it turned out that the game needed much more work to be actually like the game I wanted it to be. As time passed, I got many nice e-mails from you and I really appreciate that you saw and enjoyed the progress of the game.
Galactic Crew's sales started to drop last summer. Since then, the game did not bring enough profit to make a living out of it. I earned enough money in the first months, so I could afford full-time game development until the end of last year. I decided to use my time and money to finish Galactic Crew. From a financial point of view, it would have been better to abandon the game and start a new smaller project, but I did not want to be one of those devs who are just after the fast cash.
I moved to a new city in January this year and started working for a new company as employee, because I could not make a living with Galactic Crew anymore. I implemented all features I promised, I fixed all bugs that were reported and I can happily say: I did it. I realized my childhood dream. I want to thank anyone who bought the game during the Early Access stage and I want to welcome anyone who bought the after its release.
It's not the end!
As I wrote before, I am working full-time for a new employee and I can't make full-time game development any more. However, I will still make updates in the future. There won't be updates on a regular basis any more, but I still plan on improving the game!
I spent so much time testing the game, but there will still be bugs I missed. If you find a bug, please write me a short e-mail to [email protected]
You can also post here in the Community Hub, but I am not using my PC on a daily basis any more, so I'd see e-mails faster on my smartphone than messages on Steam.
Kindest regards, Benjamin :lunar2019piginablanket: