Fans are judging this game too early.
I’ve been seeing a lot of complaints about Gun being a co-publisher of this game, and yes these complaints are valid. However, when people say things like “Gun is the publisher” they’re simply spreading a false narrative.
Gun isn't the publisher.
People are looking at the history of TCSM and saying "If Gun stopped supporting
TCSM after less than two years they're probably gonna do the same for Halloween." Which is a fair concern from a consumers perspective. A lot of the TCSM community and players felt blindsided by the seemingly random end of support for the game, and have carried that distrust with them over to Halloween. Where the issue resides is that thousands of people talk about Gun as if they can magically snap their fingers and instantly kill Halloween.
That's not necessarily how these partnerships work though.
IllFonic is the primary developer AND THE primary publisher, and there are multiple stakeholders involved (developers, publishers, IP owners, investors, licensors, etc.) so if Gun were to pull funding right now it would not mean the game dies automatically.
The bigger question that people should be asking instead of spreading these false narratives is:
“Do players trust the people involved to support the game long-term?"
"Who funds the ongoing development?"
“What does their contract say?"
“Who controls the servers and infrastructure?"
“How much revenue can this game generate?"
And if I'm being completely honest people have already decided the fate of the game before giving it a chance and they don't even try to get the facts straight. If the game succeeds people will say IllFonic carried it and undermined Guns work. If the game struggles people will blame Gun. If the game ends support early people will say they predicted it. It's no point in trying to converse with people like this.
And just to really drive my point home one major thing people tend to forget A LOT is that games THRIVE when it is SUPPORTED by its FANBASE. (when enough people are spending money on it) so this is why people shouldn't spread false narratives around like this. People are trying to predict the future of a game based off past behaviors of a dev team that aren't even fully accurate, nor are they at the helm of the project.