Well-polished games are an example big companies that just “work the industry” without passion should take a lesson from.

Here is what a masterpiece looks like on Steam:
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Almost 3 years since release and still sitting at 98% positive reviews?
And if you check those review they are serious and real reviews (unlike the dumb reviews for Conan that say it’s a good game because naked slaves) :thisisfine:
Sure, not every type of game can do this, not every company can pull this off either.


Nonetheless, if we’re looking at Steam review, we can say a few things about Conan Exiles:
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→ Lower sample size than the masterpiece above which I will not name, thus less statistical accuracy.

→ About 80% positive, so first impression is definitely positive.
↳ The game gets sold to some extent, overall profit for Funcom.

→ If you check the positive reviews, you will find a lot saying things like this:
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Or this: (the modding community is astounding in this game, truly)
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And also this: (Positive reviews saying the game isn’t good)
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→ If you check negative reviews, most of them are more precise, mostly talking about bugs, exploits, hackers, but also about Battle Pass BS, overpriced Bazaar, and some also about the changes ruining the game:
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Now yes, we also have a noob review of a guy who got fed up with dying and didn’t bother pushing past the early game’s hurdles, but that’s a very minatory review:
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You can also compare the frontpage reviews for Unnamed Masterpiece vs. Conan Exiles:
Masterpiece: 20 Positives, 0 Negatives (ikr… probably unfair comparison :sweat_smile:)
Conan: 13 Positives, 6 Negatives - 2 Big Negatives at the very start of the page


TLDR: You can sell a very unpolished product as long as you present a good facade, but you’re not going to maximize your playerbase’s enjoyment of the game, and thus, you lose a lot of potential money from said players!

I can only talk with certainty when it comes to myself, but I’m pretty sure this applies to many others besides me to some extent:
→ In Conan Exiles, I have never bought a cosmetic DLC, I have never bought anything in the Bazaar, I haven’t bought the Battle Pass either. I bought Siptah because it’s a content DLC, a serious expansion.
→ I have bought a few skins in a Free to Play game because I felt like the developers did a great job developing and maintaining it, so I voted with my wallet.

I’m not a big spender, so you will not see me give money to Conan Devs if I don’t feel like they’re doing a great job with their updates, maintenance, or their expansions.
We all know they haven’t been doing a great job for quite some time. They’ve done an okay job in Age of Sorcery, some really good things but also a lot of f**kups, they’ve done a terrible job at bug fixing overall, and they’ve ruined what little balance the game had in almost every domain they could :roll_eyes:

TLDR 2: You mess your game up, you lose customers, you lose potential profit.
You don’t fix what needs to be fixed in priority, you lose customers, you lose potential profit.
You introduce unfair business strategies, a few will buy no matter what, the rest barely buy if they ever do, you lose potential profit.
→ If on any of these points you polished your product and were fair to your playerbase, you would gain back a lot more than what you would invest to polish said product.

Anything else?
Let me make this clear and concise maybe?
→ Short-term vision for short to mid-term benefits is self-sabotage.
→ Long-term vision with additional short to mid-term elements will grant much better results, and more durable ones. You can milk your playerbase for much longer and make them happy at the same time :doge:

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