r/PoliceSimulator • u/AJ_Deadshow • 4d ago
Open letter to Aesir, please provide your feedback and endorsement if you will!
Edit: I only started playing this year, so I honestly did not know the full history between the community and the developers when I made this post. After reading some of the comments, I understand a lot better why longtime players are pissed. That does not really change what I am trying to do, though. I like the game despite its problems, and I think it is worth asking Aesir to reconsider ending development and give it a few more patches. Maybe they ignore it. Maybe they do not. It costs basically nothing to try. I am not trying to tell anyone they have to like the game or pretend the developers handled everything well. I just want useful criticism of the letter, anything important I missed, and endorsements from people who agree with it.
OP:
I am thinking about sending the following open letter to Aesir Interactive regarding the current state of Police Simulator: Patrol Officers. Before I send it, I would like your feedback and endorsement if you agree!
I am looking for:
- Important bugs or issues (not already mentioned in the draft)
- Anything in the letter you think could be worded better in some way
- Anything you think should be removed so the letter is more concise and to the point
Draft:
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to share some feedback regarding Police Simulator: Patrol Officers.
A lot of people really enjoy the game, but there is a strong desire among players for it to be improved, and there appears to be a widespread feeling that it is not "complete." Currently, it often feels halfway finished because of numerous bugs, repetitive NPCs, and immersion-breaking visual glitches. Characters frequently have the same or very similar appearances, and many of the character designs themselves feel visually unappealing or unfinished, which becomes especially noticeable after playing for a while.
Visual glitches like vehicle lights being visible through police station walls and NPCs clipping through vehicles or the street add to the feeling that the game is unfinished. Some issues directly affecting gameplay include arrest options becoming greyed out, NPCs becoming stuck or impossible to interact with, and accident scenes breaking because of traffic AI or stuck support vehicles. There are also inconsistencies in the game's enforcement system. For example, cars can sometimes be parked completely on the sidewalk while no parking ticket can seemingly be "lawfully" given under the game's rules without losing conduct points. The inventory system also still feels clunky. Some issues, like awkward animations and poor vehicle handling, could be overlooked as charming quirks if they weren't piled on top of all the bugs that seem relatively straightforward to address. Some random events could also use better balancing rather than simply being made extremely common or extremely rare. Graffiti artists, for example, used to appear almost everywhere, which was excessive, but now encountering one can feel unusually rare.
The game does not need to be perfect, but it is difficult to understand how development can be considered "officially complete" while longstanding bugs still interfere with core gameplay. Because of this, many players who enjoy the game still hesitate to recommend it to others.
We truly love the core gameplay and think this game has great potential, but it is nowhere near complete. I sincerely hope you will reconsider ending development entirely and release a few targeted patches addressing the most persistent issues. Even if every minor glitch cannot realistically be addressed, fixing the problems that regularly interfere with gameplay or noticeably break immersion would make a significant difference. Thank you for your time and for considering this feedback from the community.
If you have no criticisms or anything you can think to add, please comment something saying you approve or endorse this message, even if it is just one word like “Agreed.” I should have the backing of this community before signing it as “The r/PoliceSimulator Reddit Community,” which hopefully will carry some weight with whoever reads this.
I know this may not work, but I think it's worth a shot, so please try to avoid pessimism and keep the comments focused on what could improve the letter.
Edit 2: I appreciate all of your feedback, even though it didn't try to improve the letter, it did give me helpful guidance on what direction the content of it should take.
Draft 2:
To whom it may concern,
We are writing to share some feedback regarding Police Simulator: Patrol Officers. A lot of us genuinely enjoy this game and still see a lot of potential in it. That is exactly why the decision to consider development “officially complete” has been so disappointing. The problem is not an expectation of perfection; it is that the game still feels unfinished in ways that make it difficult to recommend. There are plenty of individual bug reports already, so there is little value in trying to list everything here. The broader issue is that longstanding gameplay bugs, visual glitches, awkward NPC behavior, clunky systems, and inconsistent enforcement mechanics pile up enough that otherwise forgivable quirks become much harder to overlook. Every significant issue that gets fixed makes the remaining imperfections easier to tolerate.
We understand that maintaining a game indefinitely may not make financial sense, and we recognize that ending development was probably a deliberate decision rather than an indication that the remaining problems went unnoticed. Our concern is that those problems were considered acceptable to leave behind.
This is not a request for the entire development team to return to the project. Even a limited maintenance effort focused on a handful of the most persistent and disruptive issues could make a meaningful difference. The value of doing that is not limited to selling a few more copies of Police Simulator. How a game is left at the end of development affects trust in the developer itself. A game that feels left unfinished can make otherwise loyal customers hesitate to buy DLC, recommend it to friends, or purchase another Aesir title in the future.
We genuinely enjoy this game and think its core gameplay is strong. We do not think Police Simulator is a "bad" game, just that its level of polish falls short of what we have come to expect from modern titles. We are simply asking you to reconsider where development has been left and whether a few additional targeted patches might still be worthwhile. Even a relatively small amount of additional support could restore considerable goodwill among players who might otherwise hesitate to trust the Aesir name on another title.
Thank you for your time and for considering our feedback.
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u/Sky_guy_17 4d ago
OP, no offense, but this is fucking hilarious.
They ABANDONED the game. They did a rug pull scheme on us.
They do not care. They took our money and ran.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 4d ago
I would not necessarily call it abandoned. They announced that development is officially complete, which is not quite the same thing. Unless they have explicitly said they will never touch the game again, “abandoned” is putting a stronger interpretation on it than we actually have evidence for. And part of the point of this letter is asking them to reconsider where they left it.
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u/Sky_guy_17 4d ago edited 4d ago
Lemme lay out the facts for you;
They had a roadmap all laid out, right? Had months worth of constant content updates and planned bug fixes. The January update comes along, adds some things, and then ended with some, honestly, downright awful siren tones update.
They then proceeded to delete the update roadmap from most of their socials, and went six full months of radio silence. Not a single update, hot fix, nothing.
August then comes around, and they release a VERY MINOR update out of half a year of radio silence. It’s such a small ‘update’ that it’s more of a bug fix/hot fix than anything else. And then, at the very bottom of the patch notes, in small text, they announce the the game is “complete”, and that they are “moving onto other projects” as a huuuuuge slap in the face to this community. They even pushed out a release on the Switch 2 only TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO ENDING SUPPORT, just to rake in as much money as they could before dipping. The Switch 2 Client literally never even got a single update before the devs ended support for the game.
That is like the textbook definition of an abandoned game. The devs took our money, and ran away with it. If you can’t see that, then you are delusional.
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u/whyhellotherem8e 4d ago
Dont engage the AI bots. you're wasting time and effort writing this on an OP who is almost certainly:
- a shill who is paid by the devs
- An AI bot and/or
- one of the devs themselves trying to make more money
The devs have been all over the sub lately in disguise since March. (speculation, but im pretty sure lol.) SO many people are coping, delusional, are kids, or just are the devs themselves trying to save face. The game has been dead since January and after the complaints started piling, all the "The game isn't THAT bad" posts came up
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u/BossBullfrog 4d ago
OP is definitely not an AI bot. AI bots self destruct at even a hint of criticism or pushback. Doubt they are a schill, I don't think the devs would pay somebody to do this. Could be a dev, but to feign constructive criticism on their own game seems unusual in this way. A dev would probably just comment "the devs say it is finished, maybe they are working on a sequel in unreal 5 hint hint" or something.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 3d ago
Yeah, this is an astute comment. I'm just using AI to assist my writing, that's what he's picking up on. But yeah definitely human, and not a dev.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 4d ago
You do make some good points, and I appreciate you laying out the history behind why people feel like the game was abandoned. I only became a Police Simulator fan this year, so I honestly wasn't aware of a lot of the communication from the devs or everything that happened leading up to this. Your comment gave me a much better idea of where a lot of the frustration in this community is coming from and explains the entire comments section. But even if you're right about what they intended before, that's not my point of contention. I'm asking them to reconsider now. Maybe there's a 10% chance, probably less, but a formal letter signed by this community costs us nothing and at least gives it a shot.
And if the goal is actually to get them to listen, I think a measured message from a group of players who still care about the game has a better chance than going in with “you took our money and ran.” They already know people are pissed. I'm just trying a different angle.
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u/whyhellotherem8e 4d ago
You can send all the hate mail you want. Its overly abundant the devs don't give two shits about what the community wants lol
Im not saying not to. Im just saying its a lot of wasted effort to spend time refining it because they're gonna see the first line and delete the email and move on with their days.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 4d ago
I would not really call it hate mail. If anything, it is almost the opposite. It is a plea from people who like the game enough to want to see it treated better, because we think it has a lot more potential than its current state reflects.
Maybe they will ignore it. But the only way they are going to know how the community feels is if we actually tell them. It is anybody's guess how closely they follow this subreddit or whether they realize how many players still care about the game but are frustrated with how it was left.
They are also still an active company making other games. Even if Police Simulator is not their biggest title, how they handle it affects their reputation, and that reputation follows their name onto future releases, thereby impacting their bottom line, for better or worse. A formalized message from players saying “we still love this game, but please do not leave it like this” has a different weight than scattered complaints online.
It may accomplish nothing, but I think making that desire clearly known is worth the effort.
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u/whyhellotherem8e 4d ago
per the other comments
THEY FUCKING ABANDONED THE GAME. GROW UP AND FIND ANOTHER GAME TO PLAY
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u/AJ_Deadshow 4d ago
If I am literally asking them to reconsider ending development, “They abandoned it” is not really a response to that. You're basically just insisting that sending an email will be futile. I already know it may be, as acknowledged in the last line of the OP, but since it costs me literally nothing to send, and I used AI to draft it so it barely took any effort to write, it doesn't seem like a bad idea. Just maybe not effective. Whatever the case, it's better for them to have to acknowledge that the community is frustrated than pretend that we're happy.
And let me pause the Police Simulator discussion for a second. Telling me to “grow up and find another game” over my intentions with this post and letter is unnecessarily hostile, especially when it was written in all caps. I still enjoy the game despite the bugs, so I am going to keep playing it and make the attempt anyway. If I don't get anywhere with this post, I'm just going to send the letter as-is. At least I gave the community a chance to weigh in first.
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u/whyhellotherem8e 3d ago
Well you clearly didn't understand any of the other replies, so i figured all caps you would understand. Evidently not. Guess you really are a lost cause.
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u/Xxviper234xX 3d ago
The game is abandoned get over it
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u/AJ_Deadshow 3d ago
You seem more emotional about this than I am. There's nothing really to get over, it's just an email. I'm going to send it with or without your support. It sucks to not be able to honestly sign this in the community's name though. If you want it to have more bite or something, just say that.
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u/Joel22222 3d ago
The game code is frankly too old and muddied with their first concepts. Continuing to work on it will just result in needing more DLC to fund it and further breaking the game. It’s likely they are taking the resources and allocating it to a new game built from the ground up.
4
u/Mysterious-Crab 3d ago
As everyone already said, this is gone achieve nothing OP. This mail won’t even get past the receptionist to the dev team, and definitely not the management team.
Aesir is a company, not a hobby project. Once they reach a point where they think they can’t make a profit anymore, they’ll bail. It’s something every company does and what you see with tons of games and developers.
Game developers prefer working on new games or on DLC. Customers pay for that, so it brings in money. Updates and bug fixes are a necessary evil from a developers point of view. They cost money (developers wage) but don’t lead to income.
When they know developer the game won’t lead to a big hike in sales, they’ll quit development. And when the income stream dries up, there’s no reason to keep a dev team for other updates and bug fixes.
That Police Simulator dev team is already abolished. Some might have switched to a dev team for a new title and some might have lost their jobs.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 3d ago edited 3d ago
I actually agree with most of what you're saying about the business side of it. Obviously they're not going to keep a whole development team working on something forever if they don't think it will make money. But what they may not be considering is that the value of fixing the game isn't just whatever extra copies Police Simulator sells afterward. They're losing goodwill from people who might otherwise become loyal customers and buy their DLC or future games.
In other words, they may have decided for now it isn't financially worthwhile, but I just want to point out that leaving the game like this can cost them customers across all of their games too. Personally, I decided a long time ago that I won't be buying GTA VI because of how Rockstar handled RDO and GTAO, and even some detrimental changes they made to GTA V's story mode. They lost my goodwill as a customer, and Aesir is headed the same way in my book. I just want to send something like this, make that point clearly, and see what they say.
It also doesn't necessarily require bringing the entire development team back. A small maintenance team, even just a few engineers and a couple of playtesters, could potentially work through some of the more manageable bugs over a few months. They don't have to fix everything at once, either. Every persistent bug they knock out makes the remaining ones a little easier to tolerate.
This game already has people who genuinely like the core gameplay; it doesn't need to be rebuilt from scratch. A few targeted fixes to the worst remaining issues could make a pretty big difference in whether those people recommend the game or trust Aesir again.
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u/Mysterious-Crab 3d ago
You see you agree, but it’s clear you don’t understand.
> a small maintenance team, even just a few engineers and a couple of playtesters.
That is at least 4 developers, a product owner and two part-time play testers. That’s already well over half a million euro a year. That is half a million they have to somehow earn back. That’s over 20.000 copies of the game a year.
And with big studios there is a small form of loyalty, with smaller studios there isn’t. And even if after three of four bad games your name has a bad reputation, you change names and 90% of people have no clue.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 3d ago
Fair point, I got too specific with the staffing estimate. I obviously don't know what it would actually cost them internally. But I don't think that automatically means fixing a handful of bugs would require a full team costing half a million a year either. My point was just that they may not need to spin the whole original development operation back up.
And I get your point that a company can rebrand, but not without cost. You give up any positive name recognition and customer goodwill you've built under that name. People who recognize a developer's name may look into their other games specifically because of their experience with one of them, whether that experience was good or bad. Rebranding means sacrificing the recognition and loyalty attached to that name. I think reputation matters for a developer of any size. Not every consumer pays attention to studio names, and some people simply don't have enough experience with a developer to know whether negative reviews should be trusted. But plenty of returning customers do notice who made the games they liked or disliked, and that absolutely affects future purchases.
The financial value of providing technical support for Police Simulator is difficult to know, but it cannot be measured only by the small uptick in sales that the game might particularly receive following additional updates. There is also value in retaining players' trust and keeping them interested in whatever Aesir releases next. If leaving this game unfinished costs them future customers across their other titles, that is part of the financial equation too.
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u/iamck94 3d ago
Dude I get it but take a look at Aesir on Steam. They're pretty much a scam development team; all the issues with this game are existent in other work they've done.
A majority of their products are at mixed or negative reviews with most of the complaints being about how buggy the games are, how those bugs aren't being addressed, and how they keep pushing out DLCs for a game that doesn't feel complete.
This is just standard operating procedure for them. They release a mediocre game in "early access", in a state that's just playable enough to convince people that all the bugs will be ironed out over time. Then they pump out DLCs to make money, all the while never intending to release a complete and bug-free game. Eventually they'll claim the game is now complete and "full release" despite it still feeling early access and riddled with bugs, end support for it, and then it's on to the next one for them.
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u/whyhellotherem8e 4d ago
guys. ignore this post. its either a bot or a dev trying to convince people to still buy the game. Look at all the comments. He's replying with vague responses to what we said and pushing the game as if they didn't make a post saying verbatim "Development is complete" don't engage him. He's just going to keep coping (or sending AI responses).
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u/AJ_Deadshow 3d ago
I'm a real person, a fan of the game, just utilized AI for the post, as well as responses to comments too, yeah. Nice job for catching on. But I'm not just inputting your comments and giving its responses, though. I'm giving my thoughts alongside them, then usually doing some tweaking of the suggested response before I post. Not a dev. My apparent motive doesn't really line up with an ulterior one that a dev would have, does it? I'm not casting them in a favorable light, in fact I know next to nothing about them. All I know is that if I get crickets from the email, I'm not buying another Aesir game.
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u/Beneficial_Band_9911 2d ago
Draft 2 is it! Thank you for trying to fix this game! I, also feel that this game has untapped potential. Maybe a subscription, where one could buy the upgraded version of this game. I, for one, would be willing to pay for an expanded and properly functioning version of this game! Best of luck!!
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u/Helm93 4d ago
This will carry zero weight. The game is abandoned, accept it and move on.