We have heard, and are aware of the issues, and are working to correct them.
Posted by LadyAijou on May 21st, 2015
This morning, we have been working hard to address the concerns and fears surrounding delayed payments on Desura. We want to reach out and let everyone know that those experiencing payment issues ARE being heard. First and foremost we want to apologize that this has happened at all, one dev experiencing this is one too many. The issues have stemmed from a number of factors coming together in a bad way. The acquisition of the company last year has presented us with a number of very difficult issues to tackle, and we have been clearing those hurdles as efficiently as we are able. This has been compounded by the office being relocated, and by the current hospitalization of our CEO.
For those who want to talk to us directly, there are a number of ways to make contact:
IRC: Irc.freenode.net #Desura
Email: acctg@desura.com, Devsupport@Desura.com or LadyAijou@badjuju.com
Twitter: @Desura, @LadyAijou
We do need to ask patience on the part of the press for inquiries to us about these issues. Tony has been in contact from the hospital to say that he has been admitted, and his health is a pressing concern and top priority to us. Please send those inquiries to LadyAijou@badjuju.com and I will personally help arrange interviews and statements from Tony.
For Developers being effected:
We are not refusing to pay you, this is a promise. There are delays, and issues which need work to correct, but we will absolutely be paying all accounts due. If you have not reached out about your issue, please email one of the above addresses, and you WILL get a reply from me personally. You do matter, and we are taking this very seriously
I hope that this will help to allay some of the fear and anger surrounding this. I do understand the frustration, and we are already working on changes. The entire site and client are being completely redone, to give developers far more control. I hope that our devs will work with us on the solutions, and will please bear with us a little while longer as we implement the changes that are needed.
Lisa Morrison
Head of Developer Relations, Bad Juju, Inc
LadyAijou@badjuju.com
Update: 5/22/15:
It has been brought to my attention by a number of developers that my wording was not very clear in the above post regarding Tony's hospitalization. It was never intended to say that that was the reason for the back payments, it was to let the press as well as our developers know that Tony is absent and this is why he is not here talking to everyone himself. While his absence has, as I said above, compounded things over the last week or so, it was and is the lack of automated payment systems which created this bottleneck, and that is where our focus is currently. We do have to await his return before moving forward with implementing solutions, but we are doing our best to continue to stay in communication with everyone.
While it was not unexpected that some would feel compelled to pull their titles from Desura, we hope that developers will work with us, and I want to personally thank everyone who has reached out with words of support and well wishes for Tony's health, as well as for the company in general as we handle this difficult situation. With your patience and support, we can continue to work on resolution, and fixing the problems.
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Thank you for this information
You're very welcome, we'll do what it takes to get this fixed. :)
Why won't my game work I bought ?
Customer support with games needs to go through devsupport@Desura.com, and/or the developers :)
I would say that I hate to be "that guy," but on some level I have to admit that I kinda love doing this:
it's affected, with the letter a, and not effected.
It's been one of those kind of days, typos happen when the emails are flying so quickly!
Thank you for the heads up. I wish the very best for you guys.
Our team were wondering why payments were delayed, so thank you for letting us know about this. We hope this'll get resolved soon. Also, we give our best to your CEO, and hope that he feels better soon.
Thank you for the wishes, I will pass those along to Tony. We very much appreciate all the patience, and the words of support and understanding. Overcoming this kind of an obstacle is far from easy, and it's tremendously helpful to have our devs cooperating to get a resolution. That's how we'll get this done!
Glad to hear everything is getting settled, I can't wait for the new Linux client too.
The new client and site are going to have a lot of fun features, availability on other platforms is just the tip of the iceburg. Our dev team has a huge wishlist compiled from everything our users and devs have said they wanted to see on Desura, and they're plowing right through it.
I see.
Please tell Tony that I hope to see him in full health soon.
I will do so, we're really hoping they can diagnose the problem and get him back on his feet. :)
So i presume your not allowing new games either. I submitted my game 3 days ago. It was slow before Bad Juju took over, though now i feel your not even looking at new submissions? I hope you get this all sorted, for your sake!
Things are a bit slow in times of flux. I was wondering also what is going on, but after a month or so wait, we are now scheduled for an Alpha release.
We're most definitely still taking games and doing business as usual, we're just increasing the focus on the dev side of Desura, to get things on track and eliminate this kind of issue.
Is anyone else seriously disturbed by -who- acquired Desura?
Bad Juju is certainly aptly titled. They're a big gaming data mining corp with zero respect for their customers right to privacy or right to grant permission for data collection.
I think I am done with this platform. They're no longer the good guys and they're not even paying developers.
Countdown to this post disappearing begins now...
Actually, we are quite far from a "big corporation." We're a very small team, and we have in no way violated anyone's privacy. I'm not sure what you're referring to there. Bad Juju is not a data collection company. Regarding payments, we have experienced delays, but that is not because we are refusing to pay, or that we're in financial trouble. It's lack of automated systems, something I am already actively working to correct.
Why is LadyAijou profile private?
Who is in charge of @Desura? The tweet about this update is not showing up for everyone because he did it as a tweet directed to @LadyAijou...
I am the Head of Developer Relations for Bad Juju, and thanks for pointing that out. I've corrected it :)
Peace and good health to all
:)
What a bunch of lies and PR nonsense! You people should be ashamed of yourselves. You take our money, keep it for yourselves, ignore us for 6 months, and then when the press finally finds out about this you act as if there's just some accounting problems and blame it on your sick CEO? Sorry to hear he isn't well, but is he the only one at the company who can actually respond to developer's emails? Stop making excuses and own up to the way you have intentionally treated developers, and maybe as a start how about you actually pay the money you owe?!?!?
I'm sorry, but that is not the situation here. We are not blaming anything on Tony, and as I wrote above, I mentioned that because the press contacts were asking for him directly. Obviously being ill, he cannot reply to the situation and I wanted them to be aware of that fact. We are not intentionally stealing anything, and are working with everyone involved to correct it.
Not blaming Tony, because that would be a concrete reason for failure to pay and you're obviously striving to provide no more information than "we experience issues, the sky is blue, and sometimes it rains all of the time."
When -adults- experience issues that lead to failure to pay bills, there are consequences. Your single dev studios CANNOT PAY THEIR RENT with your mealy mouthed vagueries.
I'm sorry, are you really trying to stick it to The Man with 'mealy mouthed vaguries'?
Not a data collection firm?
Big data analytics is doublespeak for data mining, storing, and analysis. This is what you do, and its not an arguable point.
Add to that your ridiculously vague statements regarding your failure to pay developers on your platform, and you've prepared a delicious Object sandwhich for everyone at your table.
Vague "issues" are what you present to your university professor for failing to turn in a paper on time, not what a professional business presents to its partners. And it didn't work in uni, either.
Hmmm...first Desura was sold to Linden and it doenst looks like Linded did very much to improve it, except slightly modernizing site design, after that transition to Bad Juju, now that...i kinda have bad feelings if this service future.
Its bad news anyway. Hope its get sorted.
I don't know if this suggestion will help, I am just a customer, but there are 3rd party sites, mainly bundle sites, that have stores that sell desura keys. Could a dev with experience with such sales comment on whether such sites that handle the dev/desura cash split [while taking their own cut] would help some money reach devs while desura's system gets sorted out. Wait for an actual dev with experience to comment on this though since I don't have the experience and am not sure if it would actually work as a workaround. (otoh perhaps the bundle sites send all the money to desura for splitting which goes back to OP's original problem)
I have been far too out of the loop here.. I'm very sorry to hear that there have been so many challenges to the Desura team! First and foremost, I hope Tony recovers quickly and completely. Sending some good vibes to him and the rest of you. I can only imagine how destabilizing all this must be, on top of the general concern for the well being of one of your own. Desura has always represented a grassroots, community focused organization, and it sucks that you guys are going through a rough patch but i have faith that if this problem hasnt been resolved already, it will be soon. You are a good bunch of folks, doing great things for the microcosm of indie gaming. I hope people keep this in mind and refrain from whacking the panick button.
There has definitely been plenty of fear surrounding this, which is understandable, but we're fighting very hard to fix this. I personally haven't been away from my computer for more than a few hours at night to sleep. There has been far too much speculation that we are bankrupt, etc. and it's just not the case. I really appreciate your support and kind words, and I will pass your thoughts along to Tony! <3
You have been doing all that could possibly be expected in keeping people informed, and that is the best thing to do here - you have done a great job answering everyone and providing reassurance to those who need it. Well done and good luck. You are a badass!
Thank you! :) You guys are doing a wonderful job, and I am grateful for Desura! :) :)
Thank you for the support, it really means a lot to us in this very difficult time!
Thank you1 :) You guys are doing a wonderful job :)
Thank you for that! This is a terribly difficult situation, and we're doing our very best to take care of it. The weekend isn't helping, it's much harder to get business done on holiday weekends!
Thank you for this information.
You're very welcome, we should be putting together another update in the next couple of days. Tomorrow is a federal holiday, which makes getting in touch with people harder, but once that's out of the way we should be hitting the ground running on Tuesday.
Thanks for the info. Sometimes things do get complicated. My best wishes to Tony. Hope he gets better soon.
Thanks so much for the well wishes and for your understanding! It's certainly not easy on any of us, but when there's a problem you solider on and get it taken care of. :)
I am a Developer new to Desura. We are a few sales away from our first payment amount.. which means we can continue on with more development as we are in the Desura Alpha Funding program. As much as it worries me that our plans may be stunted by this issue, We have the utmost confidence and trust in Desura.. if there is anything we can do to help.. please let us know.
Thank you for your patience, and your understanding, and being willing to stay the course with us. These issues can and will be fixed, and we will move forward with the plans we have for the future of Desura. It's not as bleak as this mess makes it seem, and we know we'll get there :)
This is getting out of hand now, Polygon and Gamasutra articles, my team is falling to pieces without our payout.
I do hope the Tony gets well soon, but still, it seems silly that Indie dev companies will potentially be going broke because one man is in hospital......
if I am reading OP's statement right in context of what some of the devs have said:
-desura was saving money into small lump sums to transfer to devs to cut down on bank and payment processor fees [derived from mmdragon's "We are a few sales away from our first payment amount"]
-they were doing this manually by hand [derived from LadyAijou's " it was and is the lack of automated payment systems which created this bottleneck"]
-desura has gotten so big they need to switch to an automated system [from LadyAijou's ' It's lack of automated systems, something I am already actively working to correct.']
-automation requires complex changes [from LadyAijou's "The entire site and client are being completely redone"]
-company acquisition and physical office move have increased delays [from LadyAijou's "The acquisition of the company last year has presented us with a number of very difficult issues to tackle, and we have been clearing those hurdles as efficiently as we are able. This has been compounded by the office being relocated"]
-since it's all about coordination and integration with payment processors weekends and holidays cause delays [from LadyAijou's " is a federal holiday, which makes getting in touch with people harder, but once that's out of the way we should be hitting the ground running on Tuesday."]
-LadyAijou has reached out to any dev's that think they may have been lost in the shuffle [from LadyAijou's "we will absolutely be paying all accounts due. If you have not reached out about your issue, please email one of the above addresses, and you WILL get a reply from me personally."]
We are not going broke, Desura is not in any kind of financial crisis. We should have prioritized automation over the new client early, but we felt at the time that launching Desura 2.0 would answer so many problems at once, that we could keep doing manual payout till it was ready. It wasn't a problem until some of the other issues from the acquisition complicated matters beyond what we thought it would.
Edit: I misread your post, sorry about that! We're not going broke, and we won't let you either. Hang in there a little longer, Tony was to be released late yesterday, and we should be sending payments tomorrow to as many accounts as we can while going over all the options for automation.
Just remember to contact Polygon and Gamasutra again next time this happens, it will probably be the only way you will get paid.
Thanks for the informartion. I hope Tony is well again soon.
He was released yesterday, so we're very thankful! Lots of meetings coming up tomorrow to get things moving forward.
Thanks for clarifying the issue. Look forward to it being resolved and best wishes to the CEO on a quick recovery!
We appreciate your patience so much! We're going to have one crazy week over here, but I'm actually very excited over the plans that are coming together. :)