Let's talk about ethics

adralmelech, sorry, but you're wasting your time, 505 doesn't have any ethics and the only recourse you have is to never buy from them again.

Today I received their response letter to the complaint I sent to the CA DOJ about their abusive, anti-consumer behavior. In their response they claimed:

1 - I can't complain about it to CA because I don't live in CA;
2 - that 505 Inc. is "just a distributor" and isn't actually publishing the game, and doesn't publish ANY games, rather, 505 Games SpA of Italy is the "publisher";
3 - They aren't a party to the Kickstarter, so they don't have to honor the promises there.

Not only are they dishonest, they've actually structured their company so they can behave dishonestly and get away with it - since 505 Inc. "only distributes games" they can just point the finger at 505 Italy and say "not our problem!" no matter what you say about them.

It's disgusting, but typical, behavior of people who aren't anything more than businessmen out to make a buck. We've already proven that the "technical issue" with Linux and Mac was nothing more than a lie to save them money, so the fact that you and several other backers have been forgotten in their rush to get Switch sales isn't surprising. All they do, by their own words, is stick stuff in boxes and mail it and apparently they do not even do that well.

Never buy anything from them again and tell your friends about what they did. It's the only way to hold them culpable.

Name calling is directly against the rules. Let's be respectful when we disagree on things. 

Let's be as helpful and friendly in this community as possible. Even when we have strong feelings about the game one way or the other.

(EDIT: I'm removing the link as a way to try to restore some peace to the forums here. If you really want to see it, PM me.)

My apologies to whoever "Mr. Denby" is - most likely, this was a form letter drafted by their lawyers, and they messed up on one of the names.

Anyhow, 505 Inc's president says:

"As stated, 505, Inc. is neither the publisher of the Bloodstained game, nor is it a party to the Kickstarter and/or Fangamer.com campaigns or pages as alluded to by Mr. Romer" (that's me)

They go on to say

"Next, Mr. Romer erroneously alleges that 505, Inc. Is the "publisher" of Bloodstained and as such should be liable for any alleged unfulfilled backer promises relating to the Kickstarter and/or Fangamer.com pages. First, 505 Inc. does not publish any games, including Bloodstained. Rather, the publisher of Bloodstained is 505 Games SpA, the parent company of 505, Inc, but a company organized and residing in Milan, Italy. While 505 Inc. will distribute the game in North America upon its commercial release to the market, it is not a contractual holder of any publishing or licensing rights to that property."

Then they go on to link to my instructions to get Bloodstained to run on Linux, to claim that the promise was met. Since 505 inc. is not the publisher, I think it's perfectly right to say that they are totally, completely, and 100% unethical, not just for opportunistically making money off of someone else's completely unrelated and independent Kickstarter, but for trying to take credit for the work of other people, acting like they own the game, and also for completely mischaracterizing the developer's support for Linux and Mac.

Furthermore, clearly there is little point talking to them in this forum, as nobody at 505 Inc. has any say in or control over anything related to the game in any way. They don't decide who's allowed to buy backer DLC or what the prices are, they don't decide what gets nerfed. They just stick stuff in boxes.

Nevertheless, my original goal was this:

Question , according to this official document from your company's lawyers, support@505games.com WILL answer compatibility issues with Linux and Mac play on Bloodstained. Is that true? Can *anyone* get support on Linux and Mac from 505 that way, or only me?

Just purchase commercial virtualization software, and possibly pay for additional licenses for Windows apps. There Mac works at a measly additional cost of several hundred dollars (Sarcasm). People don't understand what Macs require to run Windows (I don't blame them), but even then the slowdown you are going to get isn't worth it. Why go through third parties to use your own system at a reduced effectiveness?

Yeah, think I'm steering clear of anything their name is attached to, from now on. Pity Bloodstained is caught in the middle of it, as I love the concept of a revived Vaniaesque franchise, but this crap keeps piling. Their.....'communication errors' don't help matters one bit and has been a bit of a trend since they took over 'not publishing' the game. Sorry, can't be my usual, straightforward self or I might get into trouble, again. Else I'd have choice words for 505.

XombieMike Not a problem, I know I can be a bit rash/blunt at best and what I say can be taken so many ways. Especially since it's hard to gather a tone of speech from text alone.

Pay them 9.99 and you might find out. 

Around the PAX discussion I said it was a mix of the hardware overheating as well as the build not being fully completed. Overheating was certainly a factor since some crashes/issues experienced at PAX didn't occur when we removed the handset from the locked case.

We expected updates for the Switch build between PAX and launch that would improve performance. Enhancements were made, but we fell short. We are working on improving Switch and have dedicated significant resources (including some outside help) to improve things.

We tried to hit a target and missed.