I’ll give Southpeak credit where it’s due. We’ve torn many of their games to shreds, but not once have they ever complained, demanded a re-review, or thrown bitter accusations at us. That said, one of our more positive reviews, Section 8, caused the publisher some concern and they looked into the main problem I had with the game — the lack of an online community.
Southpeak said that people were playing Section 8 and that, contrary to my review, servers were quite healthy. Developer TimeGate Studios was collecting data for me to prove this claim, but then stumbled upon an issue that apparently explains why I couldn’t get into a decent game.
“TimeGate investigated the issues you were having and we attribute the experience you had of low-player multiplayer games to a bug where the matchmaking system favored placement of players into empty/near empty servers,” explains the developer. “TimeGate has worked feverishly to make sure that all players are getting the full multiplayer madness they deserve. Currently, things are looking great, with servers normally running at near capacity, and tests showing that over 95% of players looking for a large match are getting in with groups of 14+ players on server. Apologies to any early players that had issues.”
I am now going to use this situation as an opportunity to declare that Destructoid reviews help to fix games. Had we not brought up the multiplayer issues in our review, this problem may never have been discovered. Yes, we are now basically game developers and our words can alter the course of the industry. Only our JOURNALISM can make videogames better.
