Mechwarrior Online was initially met with a tremendous amount of anticipation. The Mechwarrior series has been incredibly popular in the computer gaming world and it’s probably safe to call it the most popular giant robot franchise in the US and Europe. So when this continuation of the series was announced after a lengthy hiatus, of course people are going to be excited.
Funds were raised from early-pledges that was called the Founders program (I contributed to this as well). The early beta was very promising: fun to play, easy to learn, and it got to the core of what big stompy robots were about. But then changes started flying, updates started, well, not happening. Features that were explicitly promised were changed.
Yesterday the game “launched”. The founders and early players are in a massive uproar.
The linked article is a detailed, and cited, editorial on the timeline of events and why it got to where it did. I’d cover more details but the article does a perfect job across three pages. Speaking strictly for myself, I’d absolutely like to get a refund on my Founders payout, but won’t go so far as to chargeback as many have.