Developing a video game should, in theory, be a fun thing to do. It’s not like you’re developing a cancer cure or anything, after all. Low stakes, building something for fun, what could go wrong? Quite a lot, it turns out, at least according to Bear Simulator‘s John Farjay.
Bear Simulator, if you haven’t played it, is pretty well summed up by the title. Farjay pitched the silly idea two years ago and unexpectedly it took off, raising $100,000. It’s a fairly silly game, but for the price, it’s fairly amusing and it’s impressive work for a small studio’s first game.
It all started, as Internet Drama often does, with a YouTube video. PewDiePie played Bear Simulator and hated it, to the point of ending his video by demanding a refund and giving the game the finger. As Kotaku points out, the game still has a lot of positive reviews, but PewDiePie’s fans appear to have flooded Steam to mark the negative reviews “helpful.” The video has since been made private, but Farjay weighed in with a Kickstarter update calling the game a “lost cause,” although he also claims that he’s “not skilled enough” to remove some of the more annoying bugs.
The game’s not entirely dead. Farjay doesn’t appear to be taking the game off Steam and is working on a final update to add an island for Kickstarter backers. He’ll be fixing bugs as they’re pointed out to him, as well. And hopefully Farjay pushes forward, as there are stretch goals that remain unachieved. That said, it’s hard to fault him for thinking it’s not worth it. If somebody will trash you just because one critic didn’t like your game, why bother making a game at all?
(via Kotaku)