Mori_Yuki: Now they take the IP from Hardsuit Labs and put it into the hands of some other studio. I wonder how much worse they can make the situation.

paladin181: This is a self fulfilling prophecy. If everyone cancels their preorder because the project might be cancelled, then it will be cancelled for lack of support. I understand people cancelling their order, but I'd advise that you wait to cancel if you want to see the project actually happen.

maul_inc: Funny how they managed to get the preorder bonus pixels rdy ages ago but they just can't make the actual game...

ps. Never ever Preorder digital goods, you don't know what exactly you are going to get before it releases.

Time4Tea: What an amazing scam game developers have managed to pull off ... game development is now being funded directly by the gamers, often paying full price years in advance, for a development project they have no say in, no control over and may never even see the light of day. And for games that, in many cases are not available DRM-free, in which case they won't even own their copies. What is this madness we are descending into?

Orkhepaj: this has to be the worst advice ever

yeah, support an already total fail development, cause surely that's what gaming industry needs

paladin181: Perhaps not the best word choice for me. I'm not saying we should support this (I didn't support it). I was saying that they would cancel the project when it looks like no one cares anymore. If you want to see the project completed, perhaps wait to pull your order is all I'm saying. On GOG, it isn't an issue, you can get refunded up to 2 weeks after release.

KiNgBrAdLeY7: That tangled, sorry mess of a *travesty* (and malarkey) that has the audacity to call itself Vampire Bloodlines' successor, gets constantly degraded and devolved. As i said before in the dedicated thread at game's subforum; I can't thank you enough for saving me 90+ euros! Much appreciated!!!

That and i can't stress enough the imprtance of people's precious advice, constantly reminding gamers, to NEVER PREORDER!

Time4Tea: What can I say? If you are pre-ordering games from large, established devs/publishers, then you are the problem with the modern video games industry. (intended as a general comment, not as a shot at the OP, specifically)

Sad to see this game continuing it's death spiral though.

DiShuryou: It's a tricky question.

paladin181: Sure. In a perfect world that's how it works. But Paradox has already spent a ton of money on this. They may be back to nearly square zero. If they then start losing too much more money by issuing refunds, they may decide it's not worth it.

Time4Tea: What's the difference between buying a product at launch, when you can see it and verify the quality, compared with buying it years in advance, when it might never happen and you have no guarantee of what the end product is going to be like? Are you serious?

Time4Tea: Well, perhaps they deserve to get stung over it? After all, they have clearly failed to manage their team and the project. In what sort of dystopian future do we still hand over our money to companies that fail to deliver?

What an amazing scam game developers have managed to pull off ... game development is now being funded directly by the gamers, often paying full price years in advance, for a development project they have no say in, no control over and may never even see the light of day. And for games that, in many cases are not available DRM-free, in which case they won't even own their copies. What is this madness we are descending into?

Ancient-Red-Dragon: They don't have a choice, or rather, Steam/GOG/whoever took the money doesn't.

A company cannot just take consumers' money in exchange for giving them nothing in return after they were promised a product.

If that does happen, then that's highly illegal, and that's fraud and that's a scam. And the companies who do that will likely get sued into the ground for the acts of fraud, and rightly so.

Ancient-Red-Dragon: They don't have a choice, or rather, Steam/GOG/whoever took the money doesn't.

A company cannot just take consumers' money in exchange for giving them nothing in return after they were promised a product.

If that does happen, then that's highly illegal, and that's fraud and that's a scam. And the companies who do that will likely get sued into the ground for the acts of fraud, and rightly so.

Time4Tea: Well, perhaps they deserve to get stung over it? After all, they have clearly failed to manage their team and the project. In what sort of dystopian future do we still hand over our money to companies that fail to deliver?

What an amazing scam game developers have managed to pull off ... game development is now being funded directly by the gamers, often paying full price years in advance, for a development project they have no say in, no control over and may never even see the light of day. And for games that, in many cases are not available DRM-free, in which case they won't even own their copies. What is this madness we are descending into?

kohlrak: Part of me wishes to see more, while the other part of me thinks this ends up beint the new world and/or some sort of woke nonsense that totally ruins the the other two games with current issue politics instead of fundamental politics (order vs chaos, etc). (Then again, even the original had it's jabs, but at least it didn't care who it offended.)

Orkhepaj: Agree, to my small knowledge in this I would say yup it is illegal to offer a product and then back up without compensation.
The exception is where they can't deliver due to outside influence like covid :P

Darvond: I think they should pull a Castlevania and put the Vampire Killer to good use.

Translation: The project was already on shaky foundation, now would be a good time to resign.