Meh.. This is just Underground relabeled to be more confusing. I wonder if they finally figured out how to make it feel like Descent or if it's just as bad as it was a year ago.

FWIW, this is from people who came over from Star Citizen. It's obvious what they did with the money there, and instead of finishing that project, they moved on to other scams. Descent Underground never went anywhere, and got a bad reputation aside from the most brainwashed fanboys who solely populate the forums because the devs banned everyone who posted the slightest criticism.

Therefore, Descent Underground became Descent 2019, because completely dropping the old project and rebranding as a new scam will fool more unsuspecting suckers into throwing money at it.

Just like before, the majority of the budget went into the Trailer, and the game itself will be microtrans hell. The single player campaign is a tacked on afterthought that was added after complaints, but we have yet to see solid proof that it is any good, just like Star Citizen.

Even if the game had some redeeming content, there still is plenty of unaddressed issues like balance, feel, weapon and level design, really bad UI, etc, that won't get fixed because the devs won't take criticism. Not to mention access to the existing content is run as a pyramid scheme just like Star Citizen, so only the biggest spenders ever had access to participate in development.

Also, keep in mind Overload was started after Descent Underground and finished before Descent 2019. These devs are only interested in wasting time and sucking money, and not releasing a game. Honest developers would have already finished by now. The only way for Descent 2019 to reach the hands of the people is a repeat of DNF, where gearbox sued 3drealms for the IP and finished the game themselves. IMO, that's the only solution to getting a finished product here, because I don't think these devs have any actual plans to finish the game.

GOG needs to investigate the devs for content, and if it doesn't exist or they aren't working on it, they should be booted off the store. Having this product on GOG hurts GOG's reputation for not properly curating legitimate content.

This time around they've got a publisher, so that pretty much means something will come out, even if it is garbage chock full of pay-to-play junk.

Since I've already got the game (from a bundle) I'm willing to give it a shot. But if high hopes had a scale this wouldn't register. I'll grantee you that they left early access on steam because of all the negative reviews. So that they could wipe the slate clean.

No it doesn't. They didn't release anything before, and they won't now. It took a lawsuit for DNF to get released, and it may take a lawsuit here. GOG needs to make sure they have a release date with the promised content in writing, and if not, drop the product.

I don't doubt it, which would have never happened if it's reputation wasn't justified. The Devs are scamming the community, and rebranding is their only hope for further sales. Also, I think this was released on GOG first, because of Steam's refund policy. Hopefully GOG holds the devs accountable, and if a product isn't delivered, makes good on the refunds. There's no way a scam should be allowed to keep the money they stole from the customers. Steam is curating that, so I strongly question why this is on GOG. Very Fishy, and needs to be investigated. Keep in mind the full history of this product, from kickstarter to Steam to GOG. Years of development with no content and constant fundraising. Only scam artists do this, while real developers release the game.

Pretty much. It's the star citizen model, run by the same people. Forever in development, forever in crowd funding. Never a finished product.

DNF did the same exact thing with a publisher, except without the Brightlocker and early access, and how many years did that take? Constant videos, no content. It took a lawsuit and a different team to finish the game. 3drealms wasn't interested in finishing the game, they were milking the system, and that was before crowdfunding. These guys are the next gen / modern 3drealms.

There's no way to be sure what's going on without an investigation into the devs, but it doesn't seem legit from history. (Those that don't learn, are doomed to repeat.) There needs to be written agreements stating a release date, madatory content releases for early access, and the scammy behaviour needs to cease and desist. If we can't get any guarantees, it shouldn't be on the store, and if there is an agreement, GOG needs to hold them accountable if they don't deliver. These guys are way too shady to just, "take their word for it". No. They've had years to release, and we got nothing. Release the damn game or GTFO.

If anything needs crowdfunding now, it's a crowdfund for a full time legal team that sole purpose is to sue crowdfund devs into releasing games. I'd pay good money for that, because that would see real results, and the scam artists would leave once they see there are consequences. Crowdfunding is a loan, not a donation. We fully expect results for our investment, and no other investment option is this lax with accountability. The bank will Repo your car if you don't pay off your car loan. Crowdfunders need to Repo the IP if the devs don't deliver. Quite frankly, if nobody else does it, I'd do it myself if I ever had the money to start up such a business. I have no experience in business, but I'd still attempt it if I ever got enough time and money to start it up. Somebody needs to, and it would fund itself once off the ground.

Crowdfunding is always uncertain, and I've had some unpleasant experiences with it. However the majority have worked out fine. This languishing about and never finishing a project is unfortunately quite common. In some cases that I have seen, the developer just stops communicating all together. Generally though, I consider that if progress can be observed, then the project is in fact still going to be completed eventually. I'm an optimist I guess.

We haven't seen anything from this in over a year so it really doesn't look good.

I doubt that a legal business could expect to make much of a profit from this sort of case. So it's unlikely to change any time soon. On top of that it would be difficult to prove that the developer had no intention of completing the game. And in this case Descendent Studios doesn't own the IP, Interplay does (at least partially).

Clearly the simplest solution is don't pre-order anything. Problem solved.

i ASSUMED the new game in my library was a mistake... thanks for the free game guys!

As long as there are people are willing to buy it, I don't see why not. If GOG wouldn't allow pre-orders some people would more likely buy off Steam. So that would mean lost sales. However what I don't agree with is locking content behind pre-orders, never being able to access it if you haven't pre-ordered. Now that, I hate with all my being.

Hmm, my memory could trick me and it wasn't ten years but I did pre-order once and never again. It feels like a long time since then.

I pre-ordered Black & White in 2000. I think that was the first game I pre-ordered, and it was an excellent lesson in why pre-ordering games is a terrible idea, so repeat occurrences have been extremely few and far between.

Yup, that's the smart thing to do. I've never pre-ordered a game and never will. You don't to look too hard to see stories on people preordering, letting themselves get all hyped up only to find out they'd either been shafted on release day or they let their expectations runaway with their imaginations. I'm looking forward to Xenonauts 2 but I'm not letting myself get hyped up and I'm definately not preordering.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming GOG for allowing pre-orders. The reason pre-ordering is in the state it is now is because there are people out there willing to throw away money when emotions are running high. It only makes sense to capitalize on that behavior.

Locking content behind preorder is also scummy, no disagreements with you there at all but the reason it's done is because people are swayed by it. Considering the number of good games out there, I'm quite willing to walk away from one in favour of another. Some problems in the gaming industry could go away overnight if consumers were a little smarter with their purchase decisions.

Oh yes. I remember the outcry then and the exact same discussion that keeps popping up for every pre-ordered game.

Preorderers: "WAAAHHHH! THE GAME ISN'T LIKE I IMAGINED IT WOULD BE! OUTRAGE!"

Me: "Well, what did you expect? You bought something that didn't even exist yet. Of course it's going to be different than you imagined. ... How about waiting for release and a some reviews, before buying a game?"

In all the preorder rage discussions I've been online, I've seen a ton of people ask a similar question on why they didn't wait but I haven't seen a single preorderer try to answer it.

Probably because the only possible answer: "Well, I am just stupid." isn't very comfortable. ;-)

Although there is one valid reason to pre-order: it's a way to donate money to a dev you want to support. But the people who are motivated by charity towards the dev are usually not the ones who complain afterwards.