Home Gaming Desura explains why its stiffing indies

Desura explains why its stiffing indies

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Desura

Desura is digital distribution storefront that caters to indie gamers, giving them an easy way to sell their games. They handle content control, sales control, multiple platforms, mods, beta testing, widgets and all sorts of things to make selling indie games a simple process for developers. One thing they don’t seem to be able to do though, is pay developers for the games they’ve sold. According to numerous developers, the company’s been stiffing them for the last few months. Here’s why.

Six months ago, Second Life developer Linden Labs sold the platform to a company called Bad Juju, which I think may have been a portent. Some indie developers have been struggling to get paid since. In news post post, Bad Juju’s head of developer relations Lisa Morrison explains why.

“We want to reach out and let everyone know that those experiencing payment issues ARE being heard,” she said “First and foremost we want to apologise that this has happened at all, one dev experiencing this is one too many.”

“The issues have stemmed from a number of factors coming together in a bad way. The acquisition of the company last year has presented us with a number of very difficult issues to tackle, and we have been clearing those hurdles as efficiently as we are able. This has been compounded by the office being relocated, and by the current hospitalisation of our CEO.”

“There are delays, and issues which need work to correct, but we will absolutely be paying all accounts due,” Morrison added. “You do matter, and we are taking this very seriously.”

It all sounds like a case of bad management, and these excuses are a little bit on the poor side if you ask me. According to Morrison, Desura doesn’t have an automated payments system, and they need their hospitalised CEO back in the office before they’re able to go ahead with a new system. The payment issues have caused some devs to, rightly, pull their games from the platform.

Last Updated: May 25, 2015

33 Comments

  1. Uberutang

    May 25, 2015 at 10:41

    Pretty bad management bottleneck if you need your CEO to still personally approve stuff IN THE OFFICE. Phone the dude up get the YES go ahead and do it FFS.

    Reply

    • RinceTheElfRoot

      May 25, 2015 at 10:44

      We have a similar situation. The Big Boss gets the RVNs sent to her phone. So need her around to pay new clients.

      Reply

      • Uberutang

        May 25, 2015 at 10:49

        So boss gets hit by a truck and then the company stands still? That is really bad planning imho.

        Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        May 25, 2015 at 10:55

        That’s stupid

        Reply

  2. Admiral Chief's Adventure

    May 25, 2015 at 10:45

    Blerrie skurke!

    Reply

  3. Kromas,powered by windows 10.

    May 25, 2015 at 10:49

    After the damn issues I have with Galaxy I am even more of a steam fanboy. Might actually think about buying a steam version of Witcher.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief's Adventure

      May 25, 2015 at 10:53

      What issues do you have?

      Reply

      • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

        May 25, 2015 at 10:59

        Unfriendly friend invite system. Witcher not being recognized by the system. Witcher constantly failing to download update even though I manually updated to the latest patch. Having to manually update to the latest patch. Issues getting the dlc added to the game. No propper backup function. And I am not the only one. I just wish they give you options on CE to jump to steam but oh well.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          May 25, 2015 at 11:02

          backups will come in time and i really dont care for managing another friends list, my friends can stay on steam, no problem.

          patch issue sounds annoying though, DLC system was a bit janky at the start, but sorted that quick sticks.

          Reply

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 25, 2015 at 11:19

            I do not have any friends online…

          • Matthew Holliday

            May 25, 2015 at 11:58

            trevor has no friends, only “associates”

        • Admiral Chief's Adventure

          May 25, 2015 at 11:04

          Geez, that is weird, mine is fine.

          And yes, the friend adding thing is a blerrie mess.

          My achievements are a no show though

          Reply

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            May 25, 2015 at 11:06

            This pic shows it all.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 25, 2015 at 11:09

            NICE!

            However, I saw GoG client updating last night, will check and see if mine is updated with achievements

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            May 25, 2015 at 11:12

            Hmm …. maybe I shall remote in and see if it updated for me as well. I would love to be able to get the thing running proper as it is eating about 5 gigs of data every day while I am at work.

            And yes I know I can turn it off but I keep forgetting as all my other distro apps stay running …. cept Uplay.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 25, 2015 at 11:17

            xD

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            May 25, 2015 at 11:19

            Yeah … no new update for me.

          • Lord Chaos

            May 25, 2015 at 11:38

            It must be due to QuickTime.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            May 25, 2015 at 11:40

            Video Editing software forced me to install. I usually just use internal quicktime codec on my player.

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            May 25, 2015 at 11:15

            I’ve gotten achievements. Friends list & chat is one of those features they’re still working on according to the config menu.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 25, 2015 at 11:17

            I hope the latest update fixed mine

    • Matthew Holliday

      May 25, 2015 at 10:59

      been pretty much problem free, which is surprising with an alpha.

      Reply

    • Mossel

      May 25, 2015 at 11:00

      What issues? I haven’t had any. The only stupid thing is when you invite friends you need to do it via the forums.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief's Adventure

        May 25, 2015 at 11:05

        Yeah, and then you get some weirdos asking you weirder questions (and no, not referring to you, some other insane person)

        Reply

        • Trevor Matrix

          May 25, 2015 at 11:16

          Kromas clearly earns way too much money if he can buy a game twice and oh wait. Can someone sell me a PS4 copy of GTA V second hand?

          Reply

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            May 25, 2015 at 11:17

            Nah I just budget extremely well.I pre-order a year before a game gets released and just make sure I got the cash ready. Well at least for CE of games that is an established IP.

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 25, 2015 at 11:19

            My fiance still needs to grasp the concept of “It’s My money!” 🙁

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            May 25, 2015 at 11:19

            No. You need to grasp the concept of “It is her money” 😛

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 25, 2015 at 11:20

            Well FUCK! That explains it all!!!!

  4. Joe Black

    May 25, 2015 at 11:07

    Sounds like a big fat scam to me.

    Reply

  5. Trevor Matrix

    May 25, 2015 at 11:21

  6. Trevor Matrix

    May 25, 2015 at 11:22

    You should try being an indie author on Amazon. And get money out of them!

    Reply

  7. Kensei Seraph - Terran Ghost

    May 25, 2015 at 12:22

    I’ve always thought of CEOs as little more than figureheads.
    They shout, order and spend most of their time in golf “meetings”.

    Reply

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