Hello everyone,
Long time no see.
I've been thinking about making this announcement for a while but I wasn't sure how to do it.
I figured I'd be straight to the point
What happened?
Well... We had plans for a few updates down the line back in early 2020, Unfortunately, I'm sure you all know what happened that year...
Since the game has been Free we didn't really make any profit.
This means, once the Pandemic started and we were in Lockdown, we had to change our priorities...
Paying rent, food, etc.. life isn't cheap.
Any time spent working on the game would not return any significant income, (that's including the support pack DLC)
Hence, Sinking Simulator has been in Limbo ever since.
What now?
It's hard to say.
Fred is the sole programmer for the game and now he's way too busy with work
There may be minor updates coming up, however we can't make any promises.
The fate of the game is currently unknown.
What else?
Well, there's one thing I'm going to try, but I'm unsure if it's a good idea or not.
I've said many time before I didn't want to put a price tag on the game
However, now the economy is.. going wild.
I have a full time Job, so I've been able to do "fine" for the past 2 years, but it started to get rough lately.
I've discussed the idea with Fred to see what he thought.
We agreed if we were to put a price on the game it ought to be under 1$
Though, the minimum price I was able to set was 0.99$
I've contacted Valve to start this process,
I've been told it was permanent, once it is done, it cannot be reverted back
Why?
Primarily because as I've said, on my end, things are getting tougher than usual.
If we're lucky, that money may be used to update the game,
However this is a big "IF"
Over 500K people currently owns the game on Steam and due to the lack of updates every months there are fewer people getting it.
Plus, now that the game will cost 1$ it will likely drop further.
For now, hopefully this will help rounding up the months. (paying bills, debts, etc...)
I'd like to be optimistic and say that everything will be alright, but in truth, I have absolutely no idea what will happen.
I'm sure it will upset a few people and I can't blame them
Fortunately, if you currently own a free copy of the game you won't have to pay.
I'm also considering the idea of creating Steam Cards
However there's one big problem.
The cards are not compatible with the free copy
Meaning, half a million people won't be able to use them.
So that's kind of useless.
Can you release the Source Code?
I've been discussing this idea with Fred,
So far we're not sure.
Maybe some day, but there's no guarantee
I've been considering turning the Game into a community driven project where people can contribute and add their own features.
Nothing's official yet.
What about Floating Sandbox?
It's a nice game originally based on the old Sinking Sim from 2013
It has been entirely reworked and I'm really happy Gabriele managed to pull this off
I do strongly recommend you look it up, especially if your computer cannot handle Sinking Simulator too well.
To be honest,
I'd love to see more games like it.
Sinking Simulator will be 10 years old next year.
It has millions of views on YouTube and sparkled countless discussions.
This alone makes me very happy.
Thank you all ❤