Diving into this bundle?
Playway titles are an instaskip for me. Abzu was a very nice game. Blazing Sails looks to be on the decline. Koa I'm not interested in. And while I am interested in Crab God, not enough to buy the bundle just for that.
So, this one will pass me by.
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There are a few good ones from Playway. Ok mostly Car Mechanic Simulator.
I was playing Builder Simulator (not to be confused with House Builder, another Playway game lol) just last week after winning it from PA and I was honestly shocked by how many bugs and missing basic QoL features I found in the game that were reported many times by other players years ago and were never fixed.
They seem to be in the volume business, that's for sure. Guess you can't churn out all these DLCs if you worry about bugs.
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What really happens is Playway mostly hires inexperienced but aspiring developers (typically with zero business experience as well) to make one of their game ideas (a simple Playway search on Steam will show you just how vast the number of those TBA games are at any one time). The developer has to cover all costs of development, but Playway kindly offers them a loan, with interest, to be collected from early access sales. In addition to publisher fees which the dev also has to pay. Most of their devs take that deal. Playway then takes 100% of the sales from the game until the loan plus interest plus mysterious publisher fees have been paid. Only then does the developer actually start seeing a return on his/her/their work. In the meantime, Playway will offer them other jobs to make some cash, which they are contractually obligated to take, such as coding or what have you for other games their devs are working on. But the devs doing that sacrifice time spent on their own game(s) which they are likely still allowing Playway to take all the sales from. Eventually, most of them simply run out of money, have unpaid debt to Playway that they are contractually obligated to work off, and can't afford to keep working on their game. So, you get mostly bug ridden and incomplete games under Playway's portfolio; via Playway directly or one of their many subsidiaries, all of which have "S.A." in their name.
Every now and again, one of the devs or dev teams they hire is actually competent and manages to find some success with their game. Most of them don't though. And since Playway takes all the sales until paid off, which happens during the period of time where Steam's algorithm promotes a game (and beyond), by the time a dev sees any money for themselves, the game is generally already buried on Steam and no longer benefits from the algorithm. Playway already got what they wanted though. If a game is successful, bonus, but that's not really what they care about.
TL:DR lol. I personally boycott them after digging into it and finding out how they operate.
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Playway then takes 100% of the sales from the game until the loan plus interest plus mysterious publisher fees have been paid.
Sounds like the indentured servitude to me. Not a loan.
Eventually, most of them simply run out of money, have unpaid debt to Playway that they are contractually obligated to work off, and can't afford to keep working on their game.
I'm waiting for the part of the story where they also take their passports and give them convenient cheap shelter in a hangar out of town so they can save on transportation.
... and actually... from their webpage:
"At the same time he will be soon opening live-in PlayWay Campus (located in Izabelin near Warsaw) where game developer teams can join Playway - with flexible rules of cooperation and free of costs."
Soooo I guess I didn't have to wait long.
I'm flabbergasted. I know modern day slavery comes in many shapes and forms but I didn't see that coming.
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Indentured servitude is a pretty apt way of putting it.
Sometimes a dev will approach Playway with their idea as well. The process is the same afterwards though.
The devs that are successful under Playway's umbrella either are competent and/or don't actually take the loan offer Playway makes. But they are few and far between.
I'm sure devs can and do walk away with Playway debt unpaid, since, what is Playway really going to do about it from Poland unless the dev happens to live there as well, but Playway retains all rights to the games until the debt is paid. And from what I hear, they still charge extra to give the rights to the dev even if the debt is paid or there wasn't a debt to begin with.
*I just realized you pulled that school stuff from Playway's site. I hadn't even seen that part before.
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I'm sure devs can and do walk away with Playway debt unpaid
Oh I'm sure too because otherwise it would actually be slavery and that would be illegal. Can they afford to though? That's the real issue.
Being free to do something and being able to do it are different.
*I just realized you pulled that school stuff from Playway's site. I hadn't even seen that part before.
I literally just saw it after I wrote the part about them also giving devs "a place to live at low cost". It's a classic indentured servitude scheme.
You don't live in the area, it sounds perfect. Then you end up in debt, waiting for your game to actually make you money, being offered just enough money from other jobs to keep you hoping but not enough to get the hell out of there or to repay your debt. And you have no place to go because, well, you gave up your previous apartment since you were going to be living "rent-free" and you're broke now anyway so might as well keep going.
Legally it's now called "bonded labor" because like you said, they are technically free to leave and nobody is going to sell their kids to some other company so I guess they don't want the amalgamation with what is perceived traditionally as slavery.
It's appalling that Steam and companies like IGN are selling their games tbh.
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It's one of those dirty little secrets that I think most people haven't caught onto yet.
This is a symptom of what we are chatting about:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/WuUHk/humble-bundle-summer-splash-bundle#jfzNyMH
Not that the devs do themselves any favors by acting this way, but I gotta think the pressure on them is more than they know how to handle. The Last Whisper dev is like this as well, and is a habitual liar as well, but I still kinda sympathize with him a little bit.
btw. One thing I didn't mention is that while their subsidiaries all have S.A. in their name, they also hold majority shares in like 100 companies, including Games Operators/Jutsu Games, for example. I would think most of their majority shares are in the companies owned by their devs past and present.
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It's one of those dirty little secrets that I think most people haven't caught onto yet.
They are very good at marketing, that's for sure. I was checking some Steam discussions yesterday and someone was complaining that most of their game pages end up with a "coming soon" release date and never get released, which apparently is only because they are using fake trailers and Steam pages to see which games they're going to "make" next but nobody in the thread seem to know that.
What was interesting though is that someone who said they were the "owner of the studio" jumped in to say the games would be released eventually, used the example of The Witcher 3 being delayed several times and asked for patience... and then several other people claiming they were "part of the team" jumped in and said basically the same thing and that the games took time because Playway was "giving devs the time" not to rush. And a lot of corporate party line propaganda.
In the end everyone in the thread who had been complaining seemed satisfied with that loads of BS. It was a perfect turnaround strategy.
Not that the devs do themselves any favors by acting this way, but I gotta think the pressure on them is more than they know how to handle
I can only imagine. I have been lucky enough to mostly only work in great kitchens but the kitchen world is a rotten one and I have colleagues who have horror stories (like one of the guys has burn marks on his arms where one of his chefs held a hot knife after he failed to warm up a sauce) but they still kinda defend it a bit. They say it was partly their fault because they stayed, because they screwed up and that they learned from the abuse (physical and mental) and grew from it.
Like those devs, it's the only way they can move past this and convince themselves that it was for the best so they can minimize the mental scars.
they also hold majority shares in like 100 companies, including Games Operators/Jutsu Games
I had a feeling. There are a lot of similar "games" that bear recurring names like Jutsu and companies like these tend to benefit from the cover of being "an indie studio" while hiding they are a tentacular empire.
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It's pretty wild when you start viewing them through a different lens, just how pervasive Playway is.
I also spent most of my working life in kitchens. What you said about people defending the horrible abuses heaped on them, saying it's their own fault it happened, is true. And is very definitely applicable to these developers as well.
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It would be nice bundle, if only game I am interested in wouldn't be cheaper in summer sale..
Edit: Also, if you are desperate for human contact, I recommend write negative review on Aquarium designer. After that developer spammed me over various areas of steam, adding me to friends, all to force me change review instead trying to fix fails I mentioned.
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https://steamdb.info/sub/103517/ - Ultimate Fishing Simulator
https://steamdb.info/sub/516048/ - Blazing Sails
only those 2 from me this time
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No "Peach Beach Splash" in a Summer Splash.
You had one job HB.
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Summer Splash Bundle
8 Items, 3 Tiers
2nd July 2025 - 16th July 2025
View this bundle on: ITAD - Barter.vg
Previous bundle:
⚠️ Region lock ⚠️
TBC - Post your subs
NOTES
Tier 1 - $4 | 3.41€
Tier 2 - $8 | 6.83€
Tier 3 - $12 | 10.25€
Retail:
CV:
Chart created with Lex's SG Chart Maker
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Are you interested in knowing other ongoing bundles? Feel free to check out the new master thread.
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RaChart™ Enhancer SG Thread (deleted)
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