Tag: Ethan Casner

Divergence Online is the Early Access game by Ethan Casner, a man whose abilities as a programmer and businessman I showed no faith in three years ago and who still hasn’t managed to disappoint me to this day. Since its launch, the unofficial Star Wars Galaxies 2.0, complete with interface clones, has completely floundered and died in Early Access. When I say that no one plays Divergence, I do so because there are literally zero people being tracked on Steam playing at this exact moment.

Since the prospect of a Star Wars Galaxies reboot has fallen into the forgotten graveyard of Steam Early Access indie titles, Casner has since turned his attention to the other wasteland of unfinished indie games, the open world hardcore zombie sandbox game. Divergence: Year Zero comes to us because Divergence: Online isn’t making enough money to survive and nobody is willing to work on it in exchange for no pay, as we are told:

“Nobody wants to work (for free) on “someone elses sci-fi game”. 100% truth. Oh, there are TONS of people out there willing ot line-up to “get involved with a survival game”, because they have a much better chance of earning those people money, but getting them to work on something that isn’t even made for profit (Divergence: Online) has been virtually impossible. If you can’t get people to help out on principle, then you need to pay them to do the work, and if you can’t pay them, well then you’re fucked aren’t you. Don’t approve? Tough shit, you aren’t the one putting your electric bill on a creditcard are you.”

So Casner found a way to convince a handful of hopeful interns to develop his survival game for free, in order to eventually pull funds to continue work on a game that, as of January this year, was making a whole $100 a week. And if you don’t approve of it, well that’s too bad for you. It’s also too bad for Ethan, whose game is admittedly bringing in less revenue than a part time job at McDonald’s, and whose financial woes are the primary cause for Year Zero being rushed into production.

Divergence: Year Zero (“Year Zero” for short) is a prequel to Divergence: Online and exists at a place in time I’d long planned to explore years from now but we simply do not have the time to wait.

Unluckily for Casner, his habit of meeting criticism with insults coupled with the fact that Divergence already siphoned nearly twenty grand from hopeful Kickstarter backers, has left gamers wary of this new venture.

Why anyone would give money to this man after all this time after he has failed to deliver time and time again is beyond me. I’ve read some of the forum stuff from him and he seems to never really take responsibility for any of his own actions. I doubt the failing of Divergence Online had to do with it being to Niche, it had to do with his lack of ability to get anything done. What would make one believe this title would be any better than the one he had before? I would suggest just moving on, as he would just blame everyone but himself when it failed to deliver anything of value.

If you already bought into Divergence, you can get a key for Year Zero if you ask, but they’d like you to buy the damn thing please.

So where does this leave people who bought Divergence: Online?
Pretty fucking well off actually, because everyone who bought Divergence: Online is entitled to a free key for Year Zero. Obviously since we’re doing this to make money for the game, we’d like some people to buy the damn thing please, but if you ask for a key through the regular channels, you’ll get one no sales pitch and confidentially.

I will finish this piece with the same words I gave back in 2013:

That said, I don’t believe Divergence Online is a serious game. Not in the sense that I’m implying that the whole thing is on the level of a Stargate Worlds ponzi scheme, or that the guys working on it have any goal other than to make a great game and obviously some money in the process, but that the project is likely to follow in the same line as its predecessor: A series of unfulfilled promises held back by a lack of funding built by people who are better suited for smaller projects. In previous editorials, I’ve pointed out that an MMO is probably the worst genre to pick for your startup game, they take the kind of time, planning, personnel, and most importantly funding that indie studios just don’t have access to.