As Highguard Enters Final Day, Dev Says Online Discourse "Accelerated The Timeline Of Our Failure"

Developer Josh Sobel has reactivated his social media account after originally shutting it down following criticism of his original comments about what happened with the free-to-play game. Sobel returned to social media to say his original post was a mistake, but he doubled down on how online discourse surrounding the game played a part in its ultimate failure. However, he acknowledged that while it may have played a role, online sentiment was not the primary cause for Highguard's failure.

Sobel said, "I believe the online discourse around Highguard had some very dark corners that may have accelerated the timeline of our failure beyond the natural outcome of reasonable critique, but it wasn't the primary cause, and I don't personally believe the ultimate outcome would have been thoroughly different without it."

He went on to say there were "a lot of elements involved" in what went wrong with Highguard, and there is "no way to know how it would have gone under different circumstances."