,





"How’s this not been covered by any major site yet? The game is one of the biggest releases this month.





People should message Vice Games, Polygon and Kotaku employees, hopefully it gets covered" -

Actual quote from the ResetEra Ion Fury thread

The developers of Ion Fury are very internet

and they had already caught wind of the upcoming shit storm and hoped to get in front of it by releasing a statement prior to the mainstream games media writing hit pieces about them. You see, ultimately it was not the ResetEra users they hoped to placate, but rather they wanted to

appeal to the games media and the general public. You see, most of the comments dug up by ResetEra were from over a year ago and many people involved in those discussions have had their beliefs changed and altered by those very discussions. You see, having the ability to express your views also gives those views a chance to be challenged and possibly have your views changed.





Now, some people have suggested that no statement should have been made and ResetEra simply ignored. However, anyone who has worked in a corporate

knows the PR department are like the mafia as portrayed by TV and movies. They may come to you with a "suggestion" but it is understood that you will follow their advice whether you actually want to or not. 3D Realms has a PR department so there really was no option for the Ion Fury developers to try to ignore the controversy. Additionally, the backlash to the Ion Fury developers statement has caused the Ion Fury Steam forums to be overrun with so much activity revolving around the ResetEra thread that they had to censor the forums. This, while understandable by anyone who has ever moderated a Zerg rush like this, has caused even more controversy.





Now Ion Fury, which was poised to be one of the biggest indie hits of the year, is only going to be remembered for the controversy that surrounded it. All because one person was unsatisfied with the design of the main character. A main character that you don't even see for the vast majority of the game.So, in the end the ResetEra forum members were used by someone with whom they would disagree with on just about every issues. And those who

oppose ResetEra are now doing exactly what the ResetEra members want, which is to not buy Ion Fury. 1 troll with a grudge against a company has completely derailed a promising development studio and the video game landscape is just a bit bleaker because of it.