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Mew-Genics on hold, will return when it's 'more coherent'
Mew-Genics is officially on hold, Team Meat's Tommy Refenes confirmed to Joystiq at PAX Prime in Seattle. The game was first revealed in October 2012, though the Super Meat Boy developer did not fully explain how the genetically-altered cat lady simulator would operate for another four months. The decision to drag the game's esoteric explanation out is one that Refenes seemed to regret, saying the developer "shouldn't have been talking about it as much in the beginning as we did, because the game expanded beyond what it originally was." As a result, the game grew beyond Team Meat's own original vision: "Even some of the posts that we made in the beginning, that stuff doesn't exist in the game anymore," he added. For example, the developer discussed a "trinkets" system in December 2012, which is now gone from Mew-Genics, as it's "expanded into the stores" in the game.
Earth Eternal development on hold once again
It's been a tough ride for Earth Eternal. We first heard about the original developer, Sparkplay, only days after Massively came into existence in 2007, and we've been following the company ever since. Earth Eternal was voted one of Beau's top F2P games in 2010, as it was enjoying quite a strong run that year -- even to the point where Sparkplay mentioned creating more games outside of EE. Well, that soon ended as the company ran into some serious financial problems that led to the game's hold status. Fast-forward a year, and the game was reborn with a new developer (TurnOut Ventures with OutBlaze)! It re-entered open beta status and looked to be on the road to recovery. Well, the rollercoaster is back on the descent, according to the game's forums. It turns out Earth Eternal's development is once again put on hold until further notice. The servers are still online and the game is still playable, but the small development team at TurnOut has been relocated to other projects. So right now, it seems to be a completely free game with no cash shop. We'll be sure to keep you up-to-date on any further news we hear. [Thanks to Keith for the tip!]
Customer service stories
Mike Antonucci of the San Jose Mercury News describes his recent customer service interactions on his company blog. He contacted Comcast and Sony about a problem with a PS3, and Microsoft for another unspecified issue. With Microsoft, after a lot of time on hold, he got stuck listening to someone with limited English skills perform an unhelpful script. Comcast and Sony yielded better results, clearing up his issue.While these three results are one person's anecdotes, do you have any other customer service stories to add to the fire? Which companies have been helpful, and which wasted your time?
