An Open Letter To Dtg And Rivet Games, Tsw, Slop, And You. Where Do You Draw The Line?

You're wrong. It's very difficult to judge DLC based solely on the publisher's presentation or reviews from other players. Only after purchasing it and playing for at least a dozen or so hours do we find out what we've actually bought.

For God's sake, Rivet Games sells Class 377/3, but aside from the exterior model, they haven't made any improvements! They haven't fixed the six-year-old bug that causes the GSM-R radio to shut down automatically while driving! In which review will you see something like this before buying?

And I'm damn sure I saw passengers on platform 2 in Falmer at the pre-release presentations and video reviews. It was only after I bought the DLC and lost my right to request a refund on Steam that the passengers in Falmer disappeared and the six-year-old scenery that had previously worked smoothly began to lag heavily. Worst of all, the destination displays stopped working in other DLCs, even though I made sure they worked as you suggest before purchasing them. What has your diligence been good for?

And I would like to know in which publisher's material or in which review was the information that the widely advertised random speed limits are not random at all but always appear in the same predefined locations (the first is in the Southease area and the second is halfway between Falmer and Lewes.).

 

From what I've been able to find between 170-180 personnel work at DTG, there is no breakdown on how many work in each department tho

 

No I'm not. It's how I've purchased pretty much every DLC for the last four years. I've never felt the need to refund unlike some on here seem to.

Feel free to disagree but I don't need to be told by you that I'm wrong when I'm going by my own experience.

 

Thanks for the clarification. With the people overview it looks like there is a lot of management, marketing and community managers staff and not many developers. So it gives a "slightly" wrong picture of the company.

 

Interesting what comments DTG make a very rare reply to!!

 

I have most of content and except maybe Luzern Sursee I play em all... I discover issues, post em here, sometimes they get fixed, sometimes they stay the same... but in general I am ok with recent releases, and will be buying Liberec Stara Paka and probably both upcoming UK routes (Trent and Medway Valley)

I revisited 313 after a long time and found out it has kinda similar issues to Tube stock (aka not 100% well implemented throttle/drive system), so wont be playing that one too often, but then there are 377s and 171 which I like... 171 is very similar to 170 on Fife, so fine for me

I wont say this game is perfect and it often takes em a lot of time to fix things, but in general I'm ok atm

 

That is NOT a small indie workforce. That's full-on AA, on par with Warhorse or Larian.

 

Aye it's a good size staff, but without the breakdown of who does what its hard make and educated guess as to there effectiveness, i own a smallish garage with in total 14 staff, but you would probs only ever see between 6 and 8 in the depot at any one time.

 

Frankly how a company uses their employees is NOYB.

Unless your a shareholder you don't need how they run their business.

Just play your game and enjoy people no need to scrutinize this deeply or make up conspiracy throries.

 

I'm sorry, but I think if as customers we are concerned with the quality of the product, then the efficiency of the workforce makes a difference. If a restaurant has slow service, it makes a difference if they have one frazzled waitress trying to handle 12 tables, or 6 waitstaff who spend half the time taking smoke breaks out back.

 

Kinda wish DTG would come back and make a route. GOBLIN was a great route visually. DTG routes generally were quite good.

 

I don't blame them here, especially when people were drawing (or attempting to draw) conclusions on DTGs staff effectiveness based on the "our people" page. So that's kinda fair.

They also do reply to comments when there is value that they can add in reply to a well formed comment. Usually "oi, why are you Muppets doing this" or "aye, fix this broken thing now" don't give much to work with.

(Adding: not saying you specifically but rather in general, I'm sure you get what I mean)

 

So in those situations you demand to know how exactly a business is run. How many employees do you have? Whats the ratio in hours worked? These type if questions like people are demanding to know.

When you drink a Pepsi do you wonder how many staff they have doing what at the factory?

Again those facts are none of our business.

Things like when is stuff going to fixed, do you have a timeline or anything about the product itself yes. But to know how many you have working on something is no business of ours to be asking.

You may as well start asking what people are paid.

 

Certainly I think we can wonder why DTG cannot seem to manage the quality levels of other studios of similar size. An indie can be allowed a certain leeway, a certain level of jank and bugginess. But a AA studio should be held to industry standards.

 

Yes those are very good questions you can wonder, and yes answers to those would be good and our business but to ask the specfic of employee numbers working on what is not one of those questions you mention.

I'm specifically talking about the people asking that very question of DTG on this thread.

I have no problem with the thread and wanting answers to relevant questions but the actual specfics on employee time management is not something that we need to be privy to.

If they say there is a dedicated team working on something great that is all we need to know. And preferrably a time line.

And pehaps what the plan actually is if they are a good one.

But they don't need to tell us we have 6 people working on this and 5 on this project and there are 5 mangers they all report to.

Unless your an employee or shareholder you don't need to know the inner workings.

There is a difference say going into a McDonalds and before you order ask how they are going to prepare your food and expecting an answer.

Then going up and asking how many staff do you have on shift tonight and how many are allocated to sandwiches and fries and drive thru and front till? How many are cleaning staff? I would expect them to show me the door.

Also in no way have I pointed to you doing this personally in the thread either so please don't think I'm accusing you.

 

It's all good

 

It's almost as if some wake up and think "what can I get angry on the forums over today, I know I need to know how many employees they have and what they are doing and if it's not to my liking I'll make a fuss over it"!

Then you get "they are abandoning the forums"!

Cause and effect.

 

I mean, often when you get into that, the answer is "not enough".

 

With DTGs track record of failure, it really isn’t hard to find something to be irritated about. Just drive any route and note down when you see a bug of some kind, I’m 99% sure you will see something on every route on every run.

 

I only can disagree with your opinion. For (potential) customers it's actually quit interesting to know something more about the company. Also companies do think this way, as they are kind of open about their company and the people working for them. DTG has a section on their website with "about us and "our people" to tell people something more then only "here is your game, just play it and shut up".

Some openness can gain trust, think about explaining how things are working inside the company and how issues are solved. It's a form of communication and I like it when companies do this, instead of having to ask yourself, who is behind the company and what are they actually doing. Companies are even making video's about their company to give some insights, here a DTG one:

 

I've never bought anything and thought I'll check out the companies employees first.

I think it is just considered good PR to have some faces on your website, sometimes it can be nice to put a face to a name I guess.

How they run their company is none of our business though. The only time it would bother me if I found out that a company was behaving badly towards staff.

 

To all those wanting to know about the number of employees DTG have and what each one does, care to share everything about yourself that is no one's business but yours?

I can guarantee the response would be something along the lines of "it's none of your business".

 

According to the last publicly posted financials, the average number of DTG employees for the year ending March 31, 2025 was 179. A safe assumption can be made that, as with pretty much any other company, the numbers of people by their function are stacked in favor of bringing in revenue. What else is needed for us to know?