Ah okay thanks for the clarification.

What a shitshow.

1. This 'closer relationship' is in fact the single developer and the people that work with him taking the time to consider and implement suggestions from many others, not just speedrunners, over a 4 month long period. I myself have been bouncing ideas with them over a year and a half ago when the game was known as Impact and then when it resurfaced as Severed Steel. Not everything is a malicious conspiracy.
2. The game is out. This promo garbo started when the game was out.
3. Lmao what is this childish troll run behaviour. ooo heeehee nice one you really showed them. What is this, primary school? Sending messages through troll runs solves....?
4. Christ man just dont run the game if it doesn't interest you. Is the dramatics about boycotts necessary? Shitting on a fledgling speedrun community (one that is now getting boosted by the ads, sure, but I'd think these people joining are ones that actually like the game, they dont seem like robots when I talk to them) is really supportive of speedrunning!!
5. Yes delete the game because it had ads. Arbitrarily move this otherwise legitimate commun to using spreadsheets because of a thing out of our control. Did I, the person with the most time and effort spent on everything speedrun related in the pre-release versions, ask for this? nop. I had no idea it was going to happen.
6. You're all getting gassed because of your pent up anger for Elo and doing collateral in the process.

@FEMALE got banned lol

:DD

Originally posted by Camcorder
Speaking of mod tools... we'll be releasing our Moderator Hub tool next week. The initial launch focuses on improving the run verification tool. It will make it easier to see the verification queue status for games you moderate, find runs in different states more easily, see all of the metadata (variables, etc) for a run in one place, and easily review then verify/reject without navigating away from the page.

Originally posted by Camcorder
- This is a limited time promotion and the game will be treated exactly like others once it's over

Originally posted by Camcorder
- We will continue working to improve the site, both with features/fixes and better communication

Originally posted by Camcorder
In a series of future updates we're going to tackle the mess that is levels/subcategories/variables

Also I only noticed that they have 2 twitters linked now, will other leaderboards also be getting the ability to have multiple links on their page or do I need to pay money for that? If so, how much?

Originally posted by Mortar
What a shitshow.

Originally posted by Mortar
one that is now getting boosted by the ads, sure, but I'd think these people joining are ones that actually like the game, they dont seem like robots when I talk to them

You hate me for something dumb I said or the simple fact that I happen to speedrun a game that is trendy to hate now? or both

I was joking about the hating you part lol

But since we're on this topic I guess I hate you for having a not circular icon next to your name (you were going for a circle right?)

haha sry! And the icon, its not circular yeah. long(ish) story. It is Boll

how much do i have to pay to promote this game

This game is too chad for it to be worth paying anything for promoting it.

i actually checked the site to see if that was real

Can I promote a game then? Can I donate ten bucks and they will promote mine? lol

i regret nothing

I’d like to throw my hat in the mix to try to follow what @11 said where they wanted someone who didn’t sound like a bot to respond to the entire thing. I’d like to open by saying thank you for starters to @CamcorderCamcorder for genuinely giving a response to a topic that has given some rise in the community, (as many new features and additions to the site always does,) and not just sweeping it under the rug. We have seen previously from past owners of SRC that they genuinely couldn’t care about feedback.

Firstly, the problem that I see is people see this as a paid promotion that no other game dev can actually achieve. I’m not going to mention names or people, but this was lead by people at Elo for a specific reason and at the end of the day, no matter what anyone says, this is an ad for the game, no matter what, paid or not. You can make the excuse it is to promote a game that wants to coincide with speedrunners, but there is plenty of example of games succeeding without the need to reach out to SR.C to gain traction, (Katana Zero, celeste both being good examples of this.)

Secondly, there are no resources for other devs to achieve the same goal Severed Steel has reached. Who wouldn’t want the devs of games to want their game promoted on a speedrunning site where there is plenty of people to sell copies to? Speedrunning started as a market tactic and many new developers are using this tactic to sell copies(if you don’t know speedrunning has a wiki that explains this and how it was originally a marketing ploy.) Why is SS special compared to other indie developers? I personally have no grievances with the feature as who really even goes look at the game tab on SR.C, but the problem is this game, in particular, is the one that stands out even after the article being written about it months ago (which no matter what is still an unpaid advertisement, you’re still promoting the game even if it’s to showcase it,) because of this people are seeing two stars aligning and believing that this entire time SR.C/Elo had this already in the bag as a marketing tactic.

Thirdly, Which is my biggest problem with the entire situation. Why have we not received any updates about the site’s development cycle? We have yet to actually receive a full-on road map for what is to come, we’ve had minimum examples of what’s to come and are promised things that we don’t even know will do. I am very glad that @CamcorderCamcorder at least had mentioned next week we will receive the mod tools. However, like previously stated, why is it only now we receive it once SR.C gets a slap on the wrist over a promotion that they tried to sweep under the rug without even mentioning the feature in an article. They have written multiple articles for previously released features (even if they were god awful.) The seclusion of this feature from the public really shows the overlying truth of the matter at hand. The same thing when they added all the ads in the first place, no mention or notice of it in the public. I fully can understand, SR.C costs money to run, mention that to us, and people will understand more than getting ads shoved down our throats. Comparing SR.C to other sites, there is at least a public road map that is frequently getting updated and mentioned. Some other sites even add it to the front page for all to see “what’s to come” without having to search for it. Many times, even when PAC owned the site, everyone was left in the dark and basically had to cope when a feature that nobody knew or wanted was released. I highly suggest Elo takes this into account and gives a PROPER road map with actual updates on what’s being made and developed. The last instance I found was when they originally purchased the site a year ago, but I may be incorrect as they post everything in uninteresting UPDATE articles that I’m sure fellow speedrunners are uninterested in reading as well.

Finally, I would like to have my fellow speedrunners know that when you don’t like a feature, you don’t shit on the mods of the game for something they can’t control, don’t shit on the helpers of the site, you don’t troll the board, and you obviously don’t be a dick to anyone, because when you do this you’re just making yourself seem like all you want is attention and no real change. Additionally, being rude to people who are giving you genuine answers is a quick way to get banned, which if you don’t care about being banned then you genuinely shouldn’t care about the resources and other features added to the site. If you want to act like you don’t want to be on SR.C then please don’t because all you’re doing is adding toxicity in a sensitive situation. We ALL know what happened when PAC pushed the new layout changes to SR.C and how everyone got riled up and treated the site like it was shit and didn’t deserve their time. When you do this you’re not really showing genuine care, there is a massive difference between dislike a feature and asking for changes then being an asshole to people you don’t know, all you’re doing is showing that you’re a toxic person. So I’d like to also give a formal apology to @MortarMortar as he obviously isn’t a part of the transactions that take place between Elo and the sole dev of SS, and he shouldn’t have to deal with troll runs on the board or getting hate comments towards him.

Thank y’all for reading through this and I really do want to hear other people’s proper feedback as that’s what this should be about, not anything besides a feature the community doesn’t like and would like to see changes about.

Originally posted by KunoDemetries
Secondly, there are no resources for other devs to achieve the same goal Severed Steel has reached. Who wouldn’t want the devs of games to want their game promoted on a speedrunning site where there is plenty of people to sell copies to? Speedrunning started as a market tactic and many new developers are using this tactic to sell copies(if you don’t know speedrunning has a wiki that explains this and how it was originally a marketing ploy.) Why is SS special compared to other indie developers?

Originally posted by KunoDemetries
who really even goes look at the game tab on SR.C

Originally posted by Camcorder- The blob post that was written by Meta about Severed Steel a few months back was not part of any kind of paid (or unpaid) promotion, it was just a post about a cool upcoming game that the author was really excited about.

This has been mentioned multiple times, but people just don't trust Elo, and I can't blame anyone because we've yet to be provided a reason to. People were skeptical of Elo's acquisition of sr.c due to previous Elo-owned sites. A year in, we've seen 1 attempt of sr.c trying to gain the community's trust (having mods in the community) and various attempts to seemingly take the residual trust built by previous owners and completely turn it to dust.

The way users see it is "SR.C blog poster writes a major fluff piece about a game, bordering on an advertisement -> that user then gets promoted from a blog poster to community manager -> a month later, the game that they fluffed up is now in a financial relationship w/ the site, with said CM as the board's head mod."

If there was a reason to trust the website, then sure this could be considered not a big deal. Meta probably did actually like the game, and the business relationship likely came from Meta's interest as oppose to his interest being fabricated by money. But given there's no trust, no one is willing to give the benefit of the doubt on that, and assuming malice is frankly where any reasonable person would go when a corporation does something that makes them money against the will of a userbase.

Even this promotion has actively hidden any mentions of money exchanging hands, which actively completely destroys people's trust and in some places is outright illegal. The only bit of confirmation of this being advertising is about 3 clicks in (assuming you see it on the games page and not the front page stream, at which case there are 0 direct links to that information), in response to a forum post of a user not knowing whether or not the game was an ad or not. Which leads to the final point:

Originally posted by Camcorder- We know that your trust is a precious commodity am sorry we missed the mark here
- We do read all of your feedback and take it to heart
- We will continue working to improve the site, both with features/fixes and better communication

The fact that this all went down makes me doubt these 3 lines at all.

- If y'all understood that our trust was a precious commodity, you'd not actively avoid disclosing this partnership until questioned. The game was spread on the front page w/o even mentioning that there was a business relationship at all, and even in the games page ad, the wording "Promoted Game" is incredibly ambiguous. Sr.c has used "promote" to reference things where no money has exchanged hands at all. Disclosing business relationships builds trust, and hiding them absolutely guts it.
- If y'all read feedback (particularly these forums or social media like twitter/reddit), you'd understand that people already feel that the community has been exploited by Elo, and the last thing people want to see is Elo finding new ways to monetize boards while not providing anything of benefit to the end users.
- And if y'all wanted to improve the communication, you'd have disclosed all of this in a blog post, or at the absolute bare minimum tweeted it out. Just say ANYTHING. At the v least, y'all could copypaste Meta's post on the Severed Steel forums about being an ad into a blog post and hit submit, or tweet out a picture of that post. It'd be awful but it'd be better than the Literal Nothing we've gotten thus far.

If them having promoted games is somehow good for the site because of financials or whatever, they should just auction off the top three-five slots in the games page for a weeks time or whatever and use the funds to better the site but something tells me they aren't gonna do that. There are a lot of people here whose livelihoods are actually tied to this site (big name speedstreamers on the popular games) so I think concern over something like this is certainly warranted. The fact that promoted games isn't explained/nonobtainable for the average person wreaks of nepotism. If they had a rotating community spotlight or something that could be cool.

@PinkaPinka I raised the same concerns with the vague wording on the speedrun.com discord. Only there did I get the answer that it was a paid advertisment. This would is illegal in most countries, it is not clear at all as you already said. So I can only agree on how this further breaks the trust.

I swear, every time they say they listen, they read the feedback but they are more and more silent about a lot of the changes that happen.
Another example of that was the load more button that only got mentioned, once it started causing issues.