Developer Josh Sobel has reactivated his social media account after originally shutting it down following criticism of his original comments about what happened with the free-to-play game. Sobel returned to social media to say his original post was a mistake, but he doubled down on how online discourse surrounding the game played a part in its ultimate failure. However, he acknowledged that while it may have played a role, online sentiment was not the primary cause for Highguard's failure.
Sobel said, "I believe the online discourse around Highguard had some very dark corners that may have accelerated the timeline of our failure beyond the natural outcome of reasonable critique, but it wasn't the primary cause, and I don't personally believe the ultimate outcome would have been thoroughly different without it."
He went on to say there were "a lot of elements involved" in what went wrong with Highguard, and there is "no way to know how it would have gone under different circumstances."
Addressing his original post, Sobel said it was a "mistake" to post what he did.
"I was stressed, devastated, angry, and running on 2 hours [of] sleep. It was not wise to take my pain to the Internet in that volatile state. I stand by the intent behind much of what I said, but I phrased it poorly, and some of my anger was misdirected," he said.
Sobel was a lead tech artist at Highguard developer Wildlight, and he was impacted by the mass layoffs at the company that were announced on February 11.
At the time, Sobel wrote, "All products are at the whims of the consumers, and the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked." He added: "We deserved the bare minimum of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested."
Another Highguard developer said the game struggled because it was too "sweaty" and wasn't appealing enough to casual players. A report said "hubris" also played a part.
Sobel reactivated his social media page just ahead of Highguard's server shutdown on March 12. Wildlight's remaining skeleton on March 4 crew pushed out one final update that added a season's worth of new content to the game.
It has come to light that Tencent was one of the companies that funded Wildlight and Highguard, and that the Chinese internet giant pulled funding after the game's launch.
After Highguard's shutdown was announced, Wildlight's Chad Grenier said the game was simply not bringing in enough revenue to pay for ongoing development. "Not enough revenue to keep anyone employed to work on it, unfortunately," he said.
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Sobel said, "I believe the online discourse around Highguard had some very dark corners that may have accelerated the timeline of our failure beyond the natural outcome of reasonable critique, but it wasn't the primary cause, and I don't personally believe the ultimate outcome would have been thoroughly different without it."
He went on to say there were "a lot of elements involved" in what went wrong with Highguard, and there is "no way to know how it would have gone under different circumstances."
Addressing his original post, Sobel said it was a "mistake" to post what he did.
"I was stressed, devastated, angry, and running on 2 hours [of] sleep. It was not wise to take my pain to the Internet in that volatile state. I stand by the intent behind much of what I said, but I phrased it poorly, and some of my anger was misdirected," he said.
Sobel was a lead tech artist at Highguard developer Wildlight, and he was impacted by the mass layoffs at the company that were announced on February 11.
At the time, Sobel wrote, "All products are at the whims of the consumers, and the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked." He added: "We deserved the bare minimum of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested."
Another Highguard developer said the game struggled because it was too "sweaty" and wasn't appealing enough to casual players. A report said "hubris" also played a part.
Sobel reactivated his social media page just ahead of Highguard's server shutdown on March 12. Wildlight's remaining skeleton on March 4 crew pushed out one final update that added a season's worth of new content to the game.
It has come to light that Tencent was one of the companies that funded Wildlight and Highguard, and that the Chinese internet giant pulled funding after the game's launch.
After Highguard's shutdown was announced, Wildlight's Chad Grenier said the game was simply not bringing in enough revenue to pay for ongoing development. "Not enough revenue to keep anyone employed to work on it, unfortunately," he said.
Source