Hey all.

Ive been a quiet fan of this game since its original german version, its a post apocalyptic ''primal punk''. Its been revived and released in english some years ago, been steadily pumping out expansions and had a Roadmap for future content. Sadly the free to play model has been its undoing as it seems, here is the official announcement from the discord:
   
''@everyone please read this.

A PREMATURE END

Unfortunately, due to a consistent and severe drop in sales and donations over the past months, we've been forced to make the call to end the Roadmap experiment prematurely. As of today, we are canceling all development of the DEGENESIS IP and bringing the RPG line to its end.

F2P

The "Free To Play" experiment hasn't worked out. While we have had a steady influx of new sign-ups, players, and downloads on our website, our DEGENESIS sales have been in freefall throughout 2021. Despite nearly 20k users registered to www.degenesis.com our sales numbers have remained in the hundreds and below, with Exalters barely selling 80 copies since its release several weeks ago. It's safe to say that this publication model has become unsustainable for us. To put things into perspective, the Rebirth Edition is leading our download charts with 18,000 downloads, yet we've sold less than 60 copies of the book throughout 2021.

ROADMAP

The Roadmap was envisioned to invigorate the gameline and keep the community involved and active throughout our development cycle, yet we've been witnessing the same pattern throughout the past 4 months. A marginal group of approximately 40 people carry the weight of the entire production and finance each of the Roadmap milestones, artificially keeping the game line alive, while thousands download the new items for free month after month without any substantial contribution. We do not think it's fair to bank on the goodwill of a few extremely generous fans in order to feed a large community which doesn't participate in the creation of new material.

IMPORTANT NOTES

All pending pre-orders will be delivered to the best of our ability

All donations made towards MASS GRAVE, CATHEDRAL CITY, or ENEMOI will be refunded immediately, and monthly donations canceled

Both DEGENESIS ART BOOKS will be released and shipped out as planned, with the expected shipping date set for December

www.degenesis.com will REMAIN ACTIVE and all materials will remain FREE TO DOWNLOAD. However, no new materials or updates will be added

CLOSING STATEMENTS

DEGENESIS has been a labor of love for the better part of a decade now, but it's now time to move on. We tried our best to make it work, but sometimes that's just not enough. Thank you to everyone who came along for the ride, and we hope to see you again someday.''

While i havent seen anything about it on this forum, i do find it worth discussing if mayhap somebody is a fan. Or wants to express an opinion.

I've never even heard of this game until now.

Shame - it looks like they put a lot of work and effort into it. But if people don't know about it... it's hard to make a buck from it.

That's a shame. It's a beautiful game, with very rich, DENSE lore. I think it's that lore that scares a lot of potential customers off. The art is amazing, probably the best I've seen outside of Symbaroum, and it really draws you in. The lore on the other hand is daunting. I really don't see how you could run this game if your players hadn't done some extensive reading on the setting.

It also didn't help Degenesis that one of their adventures features a totally optional rape scene. The game can't get mentioned on Reddit without some asshat bringing that up and accusing the creators of being rapists themselves. That likely did a lot of scare potential customers away.

Just enjoy this art:
https://www.artstation.com/sixmorevodka

Well that's a shame for the developers, looks like the release it for free and live out of patronage model doesn't work as some would have you believe.

I like the game.  I've run it twice now and had a good experience both times.  The rules are easy to pick up but have a slight depth to them.  The lore of the world isn't as complicated as you might think.  The players in my games were able to grasp the basics easy enough before play and then we dug in deeper later on.

The books are gorgeous but also expensive.  One of the issues my players had is that the "core" set is a setting book and a rules book and you can't buy them separately.  At least you couldn't when it was originally released but maybe that's changed.  None of my players were willing to shell out over $140 when all they really wanted was the rules book.

I've got all but the last 2 big books (Artifacts and Justitian).  Again though, the price combined with shipping means I've got to settle for pdfs atm.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 22, 2021, 02:34:08 PM
Well that's a shame for the developers, looks like the release it for free and live out of patronage model doesn't work as some would have you believe.

In other news new author finds making money by writing RPGs is hard and does not always work out.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 22, 2021, 02:34:08 PM
Well that's a shame for the developers, looks like the release it for free and live out of patronage model doesn't work as some would have you believe.

Hmmm....  I wonder if the traditional "publishing and pirating" model everyone else lives under would've made a difference.  Seriously. 

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on October 22, 2021, 03:41:16 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 22, 2021, 02:34:08 PM
Well that's a shame for the developers, looks like the release it for free and live out of patronage model doesn't work as some would have you believe.

Hmmm....  I wonder if the traditional "publishing and pirating" model everyone else lives under would've made a difference.  Seriously.

Oh, I dunno, if only we had here someone with several games and over 100 pdfs published to ask...

A shame no such person exists.

Quote from: rgalex on October 22, 2021, 03:10:51 PM
I like the game.  I've run it twice now and had a good experience both times.  The rules are easy to pick up but have a slight depth to them.  The lore of the world isn't as complicated as you might think.  The players in my games were able to grasp the basics easy enough before play and then we dug in deeper later on.
...

What is the system like? Could you give a brief rundown?

On their website it looks like a videogame pitch, and it is not obvious where one would go for a system synopsis!

Quote from: Jaeger on October 22, 2021, 05:16:11 PM

Quote from: rgalex on October 22, 2021, 03:10:51 PM
I like the game.  I've run it twice now and had a good experience both times.  The rules are easy to pick up but have a slight depth to them.  The lore of the world isn't as complicated as you might think.  The players in my games were able to grasp the basics easy enough before play and then we dug in deeper later on.
...

What is the system like? Could you give a brief rundown?

On their website it looks like a videogame pitch, and it is not obvious where one would go for a system synopsis!

Characters have a Culture, Concept and a Cult.  Picking these increases the max value you can have in specific skill levels or attributes. Each cult has ranks which have prerequisites for attaining.  Reaching these gives access to new gear and other unique Potentials.  Potentials are special abilities that usually require Triggers to use.

You also get Backgrounds.  These are things like Resources, Authority, Allies, etc.  You know, the usual.

There are 6 attributes and each has 6 skills under them.  Attribute lvl + Skill lvl + Mods = # of d6s rolled
Each 4, 5 and 6 that comes up is a success and every 6 is also a Trigger.  Difficulty = X # of successes needed and if you succeed any Triggers can be used for various effects.  These are usually determined by weapon types or special advantages the character has.

For combat:

Initiative determines both when you go and how many actions you can take.
Movement does not cost an action but does have pros and cons associated with it in combat.
You have a Passive Defense score but can choose to actively defend and possibly gain a counter attack.
Weapons have Handling which affect attack and defense rolls.
Damage is a fixed number based off of weapon type and character strength. Armor reduces damage taken.
You have 2 levels of wounds, Flesh and Trauma.  Flesh wounds get marked off first and once out of those, or in special circumstances, you mark off Trauma.  If you mark off all your Trauma you die.
Flesh Would heal first, then once they are healed you start healing Trauma.
There is also an Ego system, which is basically a Mental and Social version of Wounds.

Still have their very first edition.  Literally my first DriveThru RPG PoD.

That sucks. This means no Africa book.

Never heard of it until now.

I have mixed feelings based on what I've skimmed on the website so far. The setting seems kind of interesting, certainly richly detailed, and the visual art production values are fantastic. But there seems to be a massive imbalance with the quality of the writing I've seen so far, which is bloated and pretentious. The background history has some gratuitous unfunny material about "President Trunk" squandering American world leadership. And then Chinese hegemony isn't that bad. Standard by-the-numbers millennial snowflake garbage I suppose, but it just seems really tragic given the resources they clearly had to throw at this.

The implied criticism above of 18k free download people somehow sponging off the 40 or 80 or however many people actually buy the books is pathetic. Just because someone downloads your book for free, when you give them the option to do so, does not mean they are somehow stealing it off you, or that you deserve for them to pay you. You are not entitled to make a living off your work, no matter how brilliant you think it is. Their next project might be more successful if they dropped the entitlement and listened to some feedback.

Maybe they invested too much time and money into a genre that few people care about?  It is rememniscent of Cyberpunk or some other dark future game.  How well do those do compared to medieval fantasy, far future, or tentacled horror games that are out there today?

They took a chance on their vision and it did not pay out.  But maybe the game is still good, and worth selling? 

I wish them the best of luck.