juliusborisov: The EEs came to GoG not from the start.

SpiderFighter: I've got to be honest; disregarding any opinions he might have had as to why negative reviews were being left, I don't see the problem with his actual request: "If you are playing the game and having a good time, please consider posting a positive review [...]" (emphasis mine). I'd hardly call that begging.

EDIT: Great article, though. I wasn't aware of the expack or the controversy surrounding the changes that were made. Some of those quotes are pretty ballsy. No wonder people were upset.

SpiderFighter: Wow. Someone needs to hire you for PR. That was a great, uplifting read.

Tallima: ...

Tallima: Yes! Yes! Yes!

Can you imagine the reaction of we got the correct response? Instead of pride, arrogance and tact, we could have received a humble response that would have made Beamdog the good guy.

Just assume I work for Beamdog (I don't) and accept my response to all your inquiries.

Thank you for playing our games. It means a lot to us that you care passionately about our games. Enough to have honest and meaningful dialog.

We clearly did not meet your expectations on many fronts. Let me address those now.

As for the portrayal of our transsexual character, I want to apologize to anyone we offended. It wasn't our intent. We strongly believe that video games can and should, when appropriate, have a message that can have a positive influence. We clearly overdid it for some of you, and we even offended some of those we wanted to embrace.

We took your comments to heart and held several meetings to find the root cause. We think our hearts were in the right place, but we did not consult those in their respective communities effectively enough to communicate what we intended to communicate.

We strive to have authentic characters and will certainly endeavor to serve authenticity in our next offering.

Thank you to those who have sent us positive comments. We appreciate hearing how our games have influenced our players in positive ways. And we like hearing how most of our players have loved the game for the game it is. We will continue to patch and fix as much as we can of what isn't perfect.

Speaking of imperfection, we have to stress the elephant in the room : what happened to the originals?

We had a team, along with other stores and other interested partners. We determined that Baldur's Gate and other infinity engine games are undervalued, oversold, and could do with a fresh update. To get the fresh update, however, we needed to make money and the only way we were going to do that was if we took the full market share of Baldur's gate, ps:t and iwd. It sucks. We know it sucks. But we think it's worth it. Without this move, we couldn't make these games fresh and alive for the new audience. We made the decision to go ahead because the lovers of the originals, for the most part, already owned the games.

We didn't want to take the originals off the market entirely because like you, we love them too. With a bit of patching, they are practically gaming heaven. Even vanilla has its charm. So we included them with the purchase of the game.

And that leads us to the soundtracks. Another sucky move. Especially if you want the originals, not the ee, and you want the ost. However, we cannot sell the ee at its current low price if we included it. And we wanted the price to be low enough to entice those unwilling to play the game because of its age. We know everyone will love the old infinity engine games if they can just get a chance to try them, so we broke up the games. On some platforms, we broke it up even more with dlc. We're sorry for who we burned with that move, but it was the only way we could see ourselves getting the game out to those who we wanted to showcase it to.

Thank you to all of the fans of the infinity engine games who already bought the old editions that Hasbro sold. We are thankful that you have all the goodies already. We will never try to retroactively remove those goodies from you. That would be both illegal and wrong. Trust me, we're not that kind of company.

We appreciate those whose business we've had and hope to earn the business of those we don't have. Please, let's keep up this dialog. Your passion and willingness to communicate can help us both get what we want : world domination! Er... I mean some good games in the hands of old and new players alike.

Again: I don't work for Beamdog. Some things listed here might not be true. Fake details are put in bc I hope they are the real details. We live in an imperfect world and people are just trying to do their best. That said, honest discussions held while validating other's opinions is how we carry on conversations. And responses to those opinions are how companies stay on business.

Stig79: Pure common sense. Always better than "Gamergate is hating on us because trans character".

SpiderFighter: Of course it's common sense. And yet, sadly, it's so rare to read a response like this that it's amazing when it appears.

stika: I'm surprised that this is still brought up. I'd expect that anyone who works for Beamdog or even supports Beamdog would have accepted that people are allowed to dislike Siege of Dragonspear without being lumped in with 'isms'

Siege of Dragonspear as a whole, was in my opinion an uneeded sequel / spin-off. But I'm okay with that, gaming is full of those and I don't mind uneeded sequels so long as they're done right. But this one came 20 years too late and the execution was extremely lacking.

It's clear Beamdog's reputation is iffy at best and a large portion of the community doesn't trust it. In my opinion this is what they need to start doing:

A) Restore the original versions of the games they remastered. Some people prefer the original versions, some people prefer the remasters, that's fine, but give people the ability to choose which version they want.
B) Don't make sequels of 20 year old games. Instead, why not make a new D&D game using the infinity engine? New setting, new characters, new world, completely new story. Otherwise, it will always feel like the company is living off of Black Isle studios' and Bioware's past sucesses
C) As someone who worked in the gaming industry you have to learn to accept criticism. Sometimes it's fair, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's constructive, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not. It doesn't matter. This happens to every entertaiment medium, not just games and companies need to accept that.

synfresh: There is a lot of entitlement that is going on in this thread I can tell you that. Lets take your points one by one:

A - This would be a very bad decision from a business decision, to put two fairly identical products on the store at the same time so they can compete against each other for sales. You negatively affect the sales of one product (probably the EE version) by selling the classic version.

B - I find it hilarious that someone can direct how a company proceeds to use a license they paid I'm sure a lot of money for. They can do whatever they want, let the consumer decide if they wish to purchase their product or not. This is the same argument btw that people leveled at Bethesda when they made Fallout 3. It's their license, it's their money they can do whatever the hell they want. If you don't like em, don't buy their stuff.

C - I actually agree with you here. They should accept whatever criticism they get. That's what happens when you put a product out there.

Gamers, in particular PC gamers always have this sense of entitlement. Nobody is entitled to anything, other than the games you purchased.

Stig79: A- Yes. The classics were outselling the EE versions. Both versions were selling though. Smarter to have 2 incomes than just 1.

B - The consumers did decide. See point A. Beamdog removed the option, so if you now want to buy Black Isle's version of Baldur's Gate you can't. You need to buy Beamdog's product, which is more expensive, to get it. Bethesda didn't bundle Fallout 1 and 2 with 3 either. If you want to buy Fallout 2 you can. No need to buy 3 or 4 in order to get 1 or 2. Big difference.

It is not entitlement when a company forces you to buy their product if you want a different product. Customers are allowed to say their piece about a rotten service.

synfresh: A - This would be a very bad decision from a business decision, to put two fairly identical products on the store at the same time so they can compete against each other for sales. You negatively affect the sales of one product (probably the EE version) by selling the classic version.

Hickory: There's business decisions and there's business strategy. Making a bad decision that alienates your customers negatively affects sales far worse in the long run, and is very bad for your company image. People want choice. They don't want to be told what they can and cannot purchase. If Beamdog can't see that, more fool them.

synfresh: Who exactly is it alienating, the 3 people that still don't own the infinity engine games after 17 years? It was mentioned earlier in the post, but the EE's target audience isn't original customers of the games.

Hickory: Don't be a damn fool. If it weren't alienating anybody, why are Beamdog in damage control mode?

synfresh: I dunno, the only people I see pissed off are those who already own the game but yet are mad that the originals are still not for sale.

If I'm a brand new customer who's never heard of Baldur's gate before and I go to GoG and see both Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition for sale, how am I to know which one to buy? It's a serious question.