Escape From Tarkov studio boss says he "did not foresee" players would get mad about charging extra for PvE

rockpapershotgun.com:

The Escape From Tarkov developers' efforts to escape from a DLC paywall quagmire of their own quagmiring continue with an update and apology from Battlestate chief operational officer Nikita Buyanov, who says he "did not foresee" the adverse reaction to selling a new PvE mode as part of a new special edition, after telling purchasers of a previous edition they'd get "all subsequent DLC" for free.

Are you new to the scandal? You lucky devil! Hey, take a seat, let's go through it in mildly exhausting detail. Actually, let's not. The crux is that last week, Battlestate revealed that a new PvE mode would be exclusive to the $250 Unheard Edition, much to the displeasure of people who'd bought the previous and now delisted Edge Of Darkness edition, which came with the above promise of free future DLC. Edge Of Darkness buyers were offered the Unheard Edition at a discount, in fairness, but still - pretty cheeky.

Facing a backlash, Battlestate argued that the new game mode is not DLC because "DLC in our understanding is the major additions to the game, including various functionality and content that are released after the official release of the game as a themed DLC pack". They also argued that the game doesn't have the server capacity to support everybody playing PvE right now.

Tarkov Escapees were far from appeased by this splitting of hairs (the stuff about server capacity is more convincing), and the developers eventually U-turned over the weekend, promising that everybody would get to play the new PvE mode - but only after the game leaves early access. Now, here's the latest from Buyanov. "First of all, I would like to say that I am very sorry that fans and the game community in general are experiencing these feelings," he wrote in a Reddit post. "Unfortunately, I somehow did not foresee the fact of such a reaction and now I have drawn conclusions for my future decisions." He also thanked players "for your time, love and hate, and thank you for your increased