38 Studios clarifies "online pass," apologizes for "buggy" demo

Users were upset when 38 Studios had announced that their upcoming action-RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning would require an online pass. The publisher has clarified that statement that they were not charging used game purchases to play online. Rather, the “online pass” was to reward new purchases with the first premium DLC for free.

In a statement by the developer, “Instead of holding onto it and charging for it later, we opted to give it to everyone who purchases the game new, for free, on launch day.”

38 Studios founder and ex-major league baseball pitcher Curt Schilling also apologized on NeoGAF for what some have called a “buggy” demo.

“Let me start by apologizing. The demo? Ya, it is way way wayyyyy more buggy than anything ANYONE should ever release, much less a demo,” Schilling apologized.

He added, “A demo is supposed to be a demonstration of the game. In some ways, for you without buggy demos, it sort of is, but it’s just impossible to convey the depth of breadth of a game that has anywhere from 40-50 hours (main quest line play) to 2-300 hours (for completionist) in it at launch.

“That was exactly why we argued EA in favor of not having the demo. It’s also exactly why I was wrong, and EA was right. Yes there are people that were on the fence who now will not buy it, there were people who weren’t buying it anyway, who still aren’t, but the massive awareness and the insane amount of ‘had no idea about this game, now it’s a day one buy” and “was on the fence but am now sold” posts mean EA hit this one perfectly in intent.”

Schilling added that the demo had been based on a code that was on a build that was three months away from the gold master.

“I am sure they made the best demo they could but as a studio packed to the gills with gamers, we refuse to believe code has to be unplayably buggy at launch, it doesn’t,” Schilling stated. “So to those that have had a horrid demo experience, I’m sorry, it’s on us, our name is the name on the box we care about.

He then pleaded with users to give the final game a shot, saying, “That is not going to change your demo experience, that is likely not going to make you buy it if you decided against it, but you spent your time (which is every bit as valuable to us as your money) playing something we made, and we owe you that much. It’s why, even though it’s painful, reading the good with the bad is essential. If you don’t listen to players you stop making games players want to play, and that sucks.”

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is due to be released on the 7th February in Europe for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America, with the European release following on the 10th.