Indie developer calls out EA after they surprise release classic titles on Steam

The creator of indie adventure crafting game Potions: A Curious Tale has spoken about the “hurt” caused by EA surprise releasing a number of classic PC titles onto Steam.

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Last week, EA released over a dozen of classic PC games on Steam including Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and The Saboteur.

It also shared Command and Conquer: The Ultimate Collection, which features pretty much every Command And Conquer game ever released.

Unsurprisingly, a number of those titles quickly made their way onto Steam’s New & Trending chart.

However, indie developer Stumbling Cat found their newly released adventure crafting game Potions: A Curious Tale bumped down the Steam chart. Creative director Renee Gittens went on to say she’d have “avoided the date like the plague” if she’d known EA were planning on dropping so many titles onto Steam.

Sharing an image of the 11 EA titles ahead of Potions: A Curious Tale on Steam’s New & Trending Chart, she wrote: My indie game I worked on for 10 years was immediately bumped off by EA spam releasing 11 titles at once. All of the built-up marketing and momentum squashed in an instant.”

To make matters worse, the seven Command & Conquer titles that charted ahead of her, could only be purchased as part of one bundle.

After her tweet went viral, Gittins shared a follow-up statement. “The New & Trending list is ordered by release date, not popularity, but you need a base level of good reviews and popularity to get on it and I pushed HARD to get there.”

Thank you all so much. 💜 pic.twitter.com/ZRnU7jrjiZ

— Renee Gittins 🔜GDC | Potions: A Curious Tale (@RikuKat) March 9, 2024

“No games can release on the weekend, so if it hadn’t been for that shadowdrop, I’d have been on the frontpage of Steam until at least Monday (so 3-4 days or more).” According to Gittens, having a game feature on the New & Trending frontpage provides “millions of impressions, thousands of wishlists, and hundreds to thousands of sales a day. Losing out on that is a big deal for an indie like me,” she added.

Gittens went on to say she felt “blindsided and devastated” by the EA releases but added: “I don’t think EA is out to get me. This was just horrible timing/luck.”

In other news, after cancelling Batgirl and Coyote Vs. Acme Warner Bros. has been contacting a number of studios who have created titles for Adult Swim Games to confirm those titles are set to be delisted.