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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Summer Splash Bundle
8 Items, 3 Tiers
2nd July 2025 - 16th July 2025
View this bundle on: ITAD - Barter.vg
Previous bundle:
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TBC - Post your subs
NOTES
Tier 1 - $4 | 3.41€
Tier 2 - $8 | 6.83€
Tier 3 - $12 | 10.25€
Retail:
CV:
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