Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

"The invisible hand of the free market gave this "high art" product a knockout punch."

- Ian Miles Cheong

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a narrative-driven adventure game developed by developed by Dim Bulb Games and Serenity Forge, and published by Good Shepherd Entertainment. It was released for Linux, macOS, Windows in February 2018. It was later ported onto the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 29, 2019.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The game contains numerous bugs and glitches due to what seems like lack of testing and inexperienced developers.
 * 2) The game's user interface is simply counterintuitive and hard to use with a mouse and keyboard despite the fact that the game was developed for PC.
 * 3) The devs did a very poor job at presenting and publicizing the game. While reviews from outlets like The Washington Post and Rock Paper Shotgun are generally positive, they focused more on the “artistic” aspects of the game and have little to no mention of gameplay or any of the aforementioned issues.
 * 4) * The screenshots and videos posted by the developers also left many gamers confused over what the game is about. Some even claimed that it “looked less fun than Sunset”.
 * 5) ** Speaking of Sunset, Johnnemann Nordhagen’s attitude is reminiscent to that of Tale of Tales.
 * 6) ** He also wouldn't accept the game's failure, claiming that “First, many headlines have said that the game was a ‘failure’ or a ‘flop.’ That’s not true, and definitely not how we feel about it. Regardless of sales, this is an amazing artistic achievement and we believe the recognition we’ve gotten proves that. Sales were disappointing, but sales are only one aspect of a successful game.” (Sales are actually the BEST indicator of a successful game)
 * 7) There are notable people who have worked on the game:
 * 8) * VICE Waypoint's Austin Walker, who refused to review mh:awesomegames:Kingdom Come: Deliverance simply because it didn't pander towards his |SJW ideology.
 * 9) * Kotaku's Gita Jackson.
 * 10) * Silverstring Media's Maya Kramer, who’s in charge of the game’s PR.
 * 11) * Leigh Alexander, her name will most likely leave a sour taste in many gamers' mouths.

Good Qualities

 * 1) At least the games soundtrack is decent.
 * 2) It isn't a walking simulator like the dev's previous game.
 * 3) The story, based on American folk lore, is far more interesting compared to Gone Home.

Reception
The game is a commercial failure, selling less than 4,000 copies in the first few weeks of its release, despite receiving overall positive reviews from critics and journalists (it received a 8.5/10 from Destructoid, a 7.5/10 from Polygon and a 9/10 from Game Informer).

According to designer and programmer Johnnemann Nordhagen, the game's sales actually peaked at 6,200 but almost half of its owners requested refunds for the title after playing it for less than two hours, bringing the figure down to around 3,800.

William Usher viciously attacked the game on OneAngryGamer.net, claiming that "The reality is that press coverage doesn’t mean anything anymore. "Gamers don't (and shouldn't) trust the media."

Ian Miles Cheong stated on Dangerous that if gamers are really "over" like how Leigh Alexander claimed, Where The Water Tastes Like Wine wouldn't have been a commercial failure.