Dear 505,
You may have heard that one of your studios, Infinity+2, rather messed up over the weekend. Their game, Gems of War, was completely unavailable for about 12 hours on Friday, 20th March 2026 (Friday being the “game day”), and all accounts were rolled back to approximately 18 hours before the shut-down, with all players’ progress from those 18 hours completely erased.
Infinity+2 felt this was the only way to correct a completely-avoidable mistake on their part, where they sent an ever-increasing amount of in-game currency to players. To be fair, that was probably true. But we, the players, have been urging them to improve their QA processes for most of a decade, precisely to avoid this sort of catastrophe. Despite that, they have failed to make even simple changes. For example, the process to add new text to the game still does not incorporate the simple step of putting it through a grammar checker!
What’s worse is that, after the initial announcement of the server rollback, Infinity+2 refused to provide any further information to the players. The server status was not updated to tell us that the game was down. Not a single update on a reinstatement ETA was posted. In fact, Infinity+2 chose not to tell anyone when the game finally came back online. I suspect there has still been no communication, as we near the middle of Monday’s game day. This absence of critical communication with players is completely inexcusable.
Sadly, experienced players have come to expect Infinity+2’s utter contempt. The general consensus is that the only compensation likely to be issued to players is 50 Gems. That’s less than the majority of active players receive from claiming their hourly tribute just twice. That would be a grievous insult to every player. And we doubt there’ll be any apology, either.
Consequently, I expect a large section of the player community to stop playing this game. Almost everyone on the forums and in Discord groups is saying they’re at least thinking about quitting Gems of War. This won’t happen immediately. For now, people are waiting and hoping that Infinity+2 does the right thing, for a change. But if they are disappointed yet again, there assuredly will be an exodus over the next few weeks.
I would like to prevent this.
Despite the tremendous disrespect and insulting behaviour from Infinity+2, I would like to help keep Gems of War alive. Beneath all the mistakes, bizarre design choices and misguided development directions is a really solid, fun game. It’s always been there. We love to play it. But there’s only so much we can take.
So, I wish to propose a compensation package and an accompanying restitution package, that should be sent to all players, that will be fair, appropriate and carefully considered. I believe it will have no noticeable impact on the game’s economy or the sale of cash items within the game. Yet it will satisfy players sufficiently that they will continue to play the game.
I propose to determine the contents of the compensation package by logically analysing what players actually missed out on because of the server rollback, tempering that with the reality that it’s not worth the effort of precisely calculating every player’s losses.
I propose to determine the contents of the restitution package by considering which in-game resources are most difficult to get, and would therefore appease players about losing 18 hours’ worth of effort. Players need to perceive the restitution package as a sincere and meaningful apology for Infinity+2’s eternal bungling, culminating in this total stuff-up.
Infinity+2 – and by extension, 505 – have wasted a tremendous amount of players’ time and effort, cost them significant progress in the game, and lost any remaining trust from the majority of players. It’s finally time for Infinity+2 to set aside their pride and own their mistake.
The details of my proposed compensation and restitution packages, along with detailed reasoning and calculations, can be found in the following thread on these forums:
I ask that you, 505, support my effort to properly hold Infinity+2 to account on this one, disastrous occasion. I ask you to encourage them to change their Quality Assurance mentality and processes so this kind of thing doesn’t keep happening on a regular basis, as it does now. Force them to hire a competent process analyst, for God’s sake!
Sincerely, and on behalf of the entire, long-term player community,
Starlite (daily Gems of War player since 16th June 2018)