I've been cruising the net for DFRPG related interviews and the like. I just finished one at gameplaywright.net. I stumbled upon a quote by Fred:
"If I were to somehow distill it all I’d say the project has taught me that living life as a publisher with maximum transparency is all kinds of good for you. It gets fans on board and watching your back. It keeps people from feeling like you’re hiding a failure from them. It brings people into the circle with you, to where they’re with you along on that journey. So when you make big honking rookie mistakes — like we did — they understand, they forgive, and they help you get back on your feet."
And I just need to say, bravo. I really wish other game companies would learn this lesson. I'm not going to name names, but there's another gaming company I used to be a huge fan of that has totally put me off by being so opaque with their game design process; it's made things incredibly frustrating when something's obviously going wrong, but no one in the know will say anything about it. With Evil Hat, they just pop online and say what's up. It doesn't totally get rid of the frustration, but it makes it feel almost like you're on the same team since you know they're feeling the same frustration.
Thank you guys. I just wanted to say that you're doing it right.