***Update 2 – 2015-05-27 – 19:35 CEST***

I (we) just received this answer by Geoffrey Keene (CEO Sandswept Studios) about “The Dead Linger”:

“Hey Robin,
A little history; The Dead Linger was initially billed as procedurally generated, both in the Kickstarter and on Steam up until we changed that. Up to Build 15, we had been creating and selling the game in that way. Sure, there were bugs (and compounded issues due to world gen, part of the reason we decided to drop it, but I’ll get to that next.)

During development, it became apparent that the procedural world generation was stifling and running dry our ability to spend time on the actual gameplay content and deliver the gameplay and environment we wanted to give players in The Dead Linger. We therefore dropped the (large) feature of procedural generation so we could create the game we want to deliver. It was a very tough decision, and they happen more frequently than people might imagine. Early Access has finally peeled back the curtain on the ups and downs during a game’s development. Whether or not that’s a good thing is yet to be determined.

As for selling under false pretenses, that’s simply not the case.

When we announced the engine change and removal of procedural generation in its current form (That announcement can be found here: http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/5213), we explained why (in that blog post) and we changed ALL of our website and Steam store page to reflect these changes and no longer reference the procedural world gen, so that new purchasers would not be misled. We have never claimed, after that development change occurred, that the game would still have the large procedurally generated world.

Hope that answers your questions!” – Geoffrey Keene, CEO Sandswept Studios

So there you have it. This was the final answer from Geoffrey Keene on the matter about “Is The Dead Linger being sold on Steam over false pretenses?”.

————————————————

***Update 1 – 2015-05-27 – 16:35 CEST***

As there´s been a lot of rumors going around about Sandswept Studios and their zombie/horror fps game “The Dead Linger” (that´s why i changed the headline to “Is The Dead Linger being sold on Steam over false pretenses?”). I decided to contact the CEO (Geoffrey Keene) of Sandswept Studios, and ask him some questions about “The Dead Linger” myself. So i sent Geoffrey the following mails today:

“Hi there =)

My name is Robin Ek, and i´m the owner of The Gaming Ground (thegg.net). I´m contacting you to ask you some questions about “The Dead Linger”. As i´ve seen a lot of negative comments about the game on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/245130/?snr=1_5_1100__1100). So i´m just trying to find out what´s true and what´s not true. For starter, what do you think about the rants about “The Dead Linger is being sold on steam over false pretenses”?

And are the negative comments on Steam (and elsewhere) fair and justified critic? If not, then it would be nice to hear your side of the story.

Have a nice day. Robin Ek TGG”

Which Geoffrey then replayed the following:

“Hi Robin,
I’m replying from my phone right now so I have to keep it brief. I’ve replied a bunch in a thread about “devs confessing” on the Steam forum there for TDL. You can see some posts by me; [Sandswept] Zag.

As for your question;

“Sold under false pretenses” meaning…? That it’s not a real game or something ridiculous like that? Not sure what this means, so please clarify if you could.

If you can give me something more specific to respond to, I can probably help you out more.

Hope that helps some!” – Geoffrey Keene, CEO Sandswept Studios

And that answer didn’t give me (us) all that much. So i sent a new e-mail to Geoffrey Keene:

“Hi Geoffrey

Np! I understand =)

Well, some people commented the following about the “Sold under false pretenses” part:

“I had bought game after I saw some decent progress. 6 months later I come back and the game engine has changed and they are actually farther behind than when I checked 6 months ago. How the f*ck is that possible? O, and you can’t play the version they are working on now, even though I paid for a copy of early access. Valve should refund people’s money for this lingering vaporware.” – Wohlever

“The main reason why I bought this game, is because this game originally promised a large, procedurally generated world. Where you can craft things, build, and survive. After like 3 years of development, they’ve managed to switch the engines three times. They’ve also now removed the promised procedurally generation feature from the game completely. (which was the main reason I bought it) Overall, this game has made 0 progress over three years of development. Don’t buy it.” – UndyingWar

“DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! i don’t have that many hours in the game, but you don’t really need any. I bought this game back when it first was released on steam and i was interested to see where this game was gonna go. In the beginning i could forgive the game for having many lag issues, little to do, and very mediocre graphics. However, here we are in 2015 (game was released in late 2013) and I still havent seen any big changes besides many engine changes. The developer hasn’t released an update in a while and at this point the game is dead. If you want to buy it so you can laugh at it go ahead, but you’ll be giving money to a guy who working very little (if at all) on this game. In my opinion this is just another game that goes on the list of games where people make them just to make a quick buck.” – Mojo Jojo

So i guess that they mean that they have paid for something on Steam which they haven’t been given? And most of these comments refers to your 2012 Kickstarter campaign as well. What´s your thoughts on that?”

And i have not received an answer on my last mail just yet. You know, i don´t want to sound mean or anything. But I get a funny feeling that I’m running around in circles here…So it would be great if i could get some actual The Dead Linger players to share their thoughts about the game. So that we might get to the bottom of this. And Feel free to add some questions for Geoffrey Keene, (CEO Sandswept Studios) as well.

But for now, it´s somewhat unclear what´s true or false about “The Dead Linger” at this time (the 2 ex Sandswept Studios devs that spoke up to Techraptor for example).

Resources:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/245130/discussions/0/617336568085074429/

https://archive.is/aLBSh

Regarding Our Dead Linger Articles

————————————————

It seems like it´s not “just” Kickstarter that has encountered quite a lot of problems lately (just checkout the most recent Kickstarter scandal involving the shoot-em-up game “Dimension Drive“). Sure, it´s not the first time that Kickstarter has had it´s fair share of scams and problems over the years. But i can´t say that i´ve ever heard about anything quite like this before, at least not when when it comes to Steam Early Access.

There´s a lot of upset and angry feelings about “The Dead Linger” in the Gamer community right now.

I´m talking to all the angry rants about Sandswept Studios zombie/horror fps game “The Dead Linger” (which collected over $154,000 on Kickstarter back in April 2012). So what´s all the fuss about then? Well, apparently Sandswept Studios is selling “The Dead Linger”under false pretenses on Steam Early Access. And when i started to read through the comments section for “The Dead Linger”, it didn’t take me long to understand why people are really upset at the moment:

I also noticed the following text on “The Dead Linger´s” Steam page:

“Requires agreement to a 3rd-party EULA The Dead Linger EULA”

So i don´t know if that means that there´s also an ongoing copyright conflict going down in the background as well. But even if that´s not the case, the part about “The Dead Linger is being sold on Steam over false pretenses” is more than enough to be labeled as a rip off/Steam scandal.

So what do you guys/girls think about all of this? And should Valve remove “The Dead Linger” from Steam early access asap?

Credit:
CrashedEmerald

About The Dead Linger:
The Dead Linger is the definitive zombie apocalypse survival horror experience! Set in a massive, ever-changing world, survivors learn to fight, run, and survive against the never-ending and relentless zombie hordes. With pure sandbox, free-roam gameplay, multiplayer, exploration, barricading, physics, and intense realism, this is the zombie apocalypse experience you’ve longed for all these years. The zombie genre has died. We’re bringing it back from the dead. Be sure to check out our Development Roadmap!