Oct
13
Blog: Flying Wild Hog. Flying high…for now.
If an indie dev actually tries, but no one’s around to see it…tree, woods, etc.
If you missed my review of Hard Reset — first, go watch it. Second, all you really need to know is it’s a pretty good game that was released for $30 by an indie developer on PC.
Earlier tonight, I came across this post on the Steam forums made by someone from the game’s developer, Flying Wild Hog (yes, that’s their name), letting the cat out of the bag early that the next patch for the game will include an entirely new mode, Survival Mode (my best guess is it will be akin to Horde mode in Gears of War, or the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of Duty). This is important because it’s something that was entirely requested by fans.
The first patch the game received fixed several complaints people had with the game, and, in all honesty, it was one of the most comprehensive patches to a game I’ve ever seen. Several of the issues I addressed in my review were either made less prominent (useless dash isn’t so useless anymore), or just fixed all together (weapon switching is now way faster, improving combat considerably), and I could probably go back and re-review the game and score it higher as a result. It was that good. Now, they’re listening even further and including an entirely new mode to the game FOR FREE.
The funny thing is, had this game been published by a big house, like EA or Activision, they would likely be charging $5 or so for the addition of such a mode. A price that isn’t exactly a rip-off, but isn’t nearly as good as free. So, what am I complaining about? I’m worried that this will go by the wayside. What Flying Wild Hog is trying to do, with the $30 price tag and the whole “listening to fans” thing, is become relevant to the PC-gaming community, but I have no idea if it’s working.
Since day one, I’ve seen people saying they’re not sure a game that only lasts 4 hours on a single play-through is worth $30, and they’ll wait for it to be on sale. That’s fine. Think about your wallet, by all means, but if any of those people turned around and paid $60 for Rage, I hope they learned their lesson.
Hard Reset is by no means perfect, but its developer is listening to its customers, and increasing the value of its product without asking for anything in return. I don’t care what industry you’re talking about, that sounds like a stand-up way of doing things to me. Let’s just hope it pays off for them in the end.