No bashing here. Just try to understand the fans that you've lured in for years point of view. Try to understand why they're disappointed and also why things like this hurt and effect other Devs as well. Shoehorning them with content that wasn't in the plans from the start isn't a good look. Now sure, you're going to have unknown accounts and people you've never heard of or supported this game before suddenly encouraging this move but in all fairness you had to know what the reaction was going to be. Again, honesty with Devs is like finding a silver $2 dollar bill, it's rare these days. Actions such as this and your response definitely doesn't help, it doesn't help backlash, it doesn't help the honest Devs that are out there and actually stick to their words and most of all it doesn't help the consumers who may want to spend money but don't feel Devs are trustworthy enough to deserve it.
That's all I'm going to say, I'll ignore this but good luck.