Board Thread:Ask Questions/@comment-30088034-20161230152243/@comment-25646419-20161230180054

Both sides did some wrong and unfortunately there are folks who only listen to one side of the story. Some things off the top of my head... I don't remember too much detail from his videos:

Torm kept going on about some staff member's girlfriend and the staff favoring this girlfriend. ...There was no girlfriend. It was a man who wasn't associated with BMG but Torm was fixated on saying that this girlfriend [really some random guy] definitely was.

Torm was upset that BMG stole his ideas ... "His" ideas were requested multiple times in the forums by players.

Torm was banned from the game. This is true. The ban was undone in about/under 15 minutes. The creator who banned him acknowledged it was a knee-jerk reaction from being annoyed with Torm and the creator apologized for it. The ban remained on the forums due to Torm's behavior there. (Like HAWAIIAN, I was also there to see the posts before they were deleted.) Again with the whole story of mods favoring the "girlfriend" over Torm. He wouldn't own up that he was being very rude.

The creator lied about Torm asking to raise the friend limit before the 1000 limit. This very well may true. Why would the dev lie? Eh, who knows. His memories may be distorted which is normal as more time passes or maybe he wanted to take a shot at Torm. Really can't say. Torm's fans did go to the forums and Twitch streams to ask to raise the limit despite being told no. Someone supposedly made a joke which he took out of hand as a threat.

People have gone on about the devs taking a vacation in Europe and yet no one for whatever stopped to think... Maybe they're human? Maybe humans like to go on vacation? Maybe it was a trip planned ahead of time? Maybe it was partially a gift from family? But so many people were on the bandwagon to hate. The co-founder ended up responding to this:

"I guess we should clear this up so people stop bringing up our personal lives during business discussions. Yes, Josh and I went to Europe to help decompress from the stress of the Kickstarter. The trip was a budget trip where we stayed with a friend of mine in Holland instead of in expensive hotels. We did not spend much on the trip. Most of it went onto our personal credit cards. Josh and I are making less as the founders of BlankMediaGames than we would at any other job with our skills. We use the profit from the company to re-invest back into the game and our employees. I understand some people did not like the Merit point change but please don't bring our personal lives into the discussion." (Reference)

Merit Points - Torm made a video on it but it doesn't fully explain things. It makes it sound like BMG is some monster hungry for money. Let's be real here. We all know how the Merit Points system works. You basically need to wait a few months to buy a cosmetic with Merit Points. Is that really the most cruel thing ever? It doesn't affect the gameplay at all. BMG did somewhat wrong though (depeding how you look at it) which they have acknowledged. They maybe should have given users a head up about the Merit Point change. But by playing the game, players agree to the Terms of Use.

Again, some people will blindly follow a person instead of thinking for themselves and investigating both sides. For example, there are folks who seem to genuinely believe that the creators pocketed $500,000 from the Kickstarter. Do they understand that making a card game isn't free and that shipping isn't free? Do they get that BMG has to pay their employees and pay to have their game online? But the Steam profits! - They don't get the full profits and a lot of times the game is on sale. Money also needs to go back into the game and not directly into pockets.

Yeah, there are seven staff members: http://www.blankmediagames.com/the-company/

The creator may has appeared unprofessional a few times, but as a person, I can't blame him. Having to read a bunch of people complaining would take a toll on someone. The ones who have to complain are going to be much louder than the ones who are feeling content. For anyone who has ever had friends who were constantly negative or for anyone who has ever worked in retail - you know that flummery gets old fast. From a professional standpoint, the creator's blowup wasn't the best thing to happen. From what I've seen, the community manager does a phenomenal job responding to players and keeping a cool head, so thank goodness for him.

Here we are about to end 2016 and Town of Salem is still a game that's free to play. Is life really that bad? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯