Brahma
Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
- 12,777
- 47,860
Is this the "Total Annihilation" team? Or the next in the series. Those of us that remember it can tell you it may just be the best RTS game ever. It's in the convo for sure.
Steam Deals and Digital Sales
- Thread starter Troll_sl
- Start date
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Eomer
Trakanon Raider
- 5,472
- 272
Just watched one of the videos on Steam (the first one wouldn't play for whatever reason). Looks pretty neat, but not $89.99 neat. Spiritual successor to TA for sure, but I don't think that the main people are involved, as that would mean that Gas Powered Games and Chris Taylor would be working on it.
edit: nevermind, looks like some old Cavedog people are working on it.
edit2: they responded about the pricing:http://steamcommunity.com/games/2332...30021561594175
greedy opportunistic retards do, apparently. Welp guys we're resigned to selling it for $90, this sure is an unfortunate predicament!!
Just don't sell the alpha on steam then, you morons. They deserve every little bit of bad press.
Cutlery
Kill All the White People
- 7,138
- 21,568
It sounds more like alpha and beta access was a part of the kickstarter. If you didn't hear about said kickstarter (like me) and still want alpha/beta access, you can pay $90, or $60, and still get it. I suppose that's entirely fair, as it would be pretty shitty to give away alpha access for $90 during the kickstarter and then sell it for base game price when the alpha comes out.
So no, I don't think they deserve any bad press for it, they're doing that as to not piss off the people who funded their project. You don't have to buy alpha access now, you can buy the base game and play it at release.
So no, I don't think they deserve any bad press for it, they're doing that as to not piss off the people who funded their project. You don't have to buy alpha access now, you can buy the base game and play it at release.
Forget everything you think and believe about the Magical Realm of Jewry called Kickstarter.
Just think about the scenario in isolation
Someone is trying to sell alpha access to their game on Steam - a Digital store - for 90 dollars. There is zero precedent for charging such an exorbitant amount for an unfinished version of your game in standard retail outlets. If anything, it's the opposite. Look at Arma, or Minecraft, or Mount & Blade of examples of selling the unfinished version for less, not 3 times more.
What people donate to your game, and what promises and perks you offer them to do so, is irrelevant to what you put in a store for sale. There's no one forcing them to set this price, or to even try to sell the game yet. So yes they deserve to be laughed at they deserve bad press for what is unmitigated greed hidden behind the pretense of "well we jewed these guys, so we have to jew you too"
Just think about the scenario in isolation
Someone is trying to sell alpha access to their game on Steam - a Digital store - for 90 dollars. There is zero precedent for charging such an exorbitant amount for an unfinished version of your game in standard retail outlets. If anything, it's the opposite. Look at Arma, or Minecraft, or Mount & Blade of examples of selling the unfinished version for less, not 3 times more.
What people donate to your game, and what promises and perks you offer them to do so, is irrelevant to what you put in a store for sale. There's no one forcing them to set this price, or to even try to sell the game yet. So yes they deserve to be laughed at they deserve bad press for what is unmitigated greed hidden behind the pretense of "well we jewed these guys, so we have to jew you too"
Cutlery
Kill All the White People
- 7,138
- 21,568
Good thing the scenario doesn't exist in isolation, and actually does include kickstarter, and that negates your entire argument.
But hey, nice try.
Then why sell it on steam? "Oh this lil product here, heh it's not for your type I'm afraid"
Cutlery
Kill All the White People
- 7,138
- 21,568
Yeah, you're fucking retarded.
There are tens of thousands of games on steam that you don't want to play. Do you bitch about all of them?
Cutlery
Kill All the White People
- 7,138
- 21,568
You're one dense motherfucker, I'll give you that.
I didn't donate to the kickstarter. It's the reason why it's priced what it is..so as not to fuck over the people who actually did contribute to get the game built. If you don't want to play a fucking $90 alpha, don't. Quit your fucking crying about it. Do you sit around and cry that you can't afford an upscale apartment in NYC off the $7.15 you make down at Walmart? It's exactly the same. You can either pay it and play it now, or you can wait until it's finished and pay less for a finished product. The "public reaction" isn't going to change anything, and the vast majority of the public is going to buy it when the game is released and play it anyway.
Remember this? Yeah, that's you in December.
hodj
Vox Populi Jihadi
- 31,672
- 18,378
I'd say the situation is closer to The WarZ, which got removed from Steam for a time after user outcry.
http://kotaku.com/5969836/the-war-z-removed-from-steam
This release on Steam is a clear mistake in terms of the user base is literally revolting over the decision. You may think there is no problem here, but the 44 pages and literally hundreds of thousands of negative posts I would say are a pretty big deal.
I don't think the comparison to the protest for Dedicated Servers in Modern Warfare is fair, because Uber doesn't have a billion dollar warchest like Activision/EA (its activision that publishes Call of Duty right? Its been so long since I bought one I can't recall for certain) and they don't have the built in consumer base of the broad popular culture to off their title on no matter how the core gamer segment feels about the issue.
In the case of planetary annihilation, the vast majority of people haven't purchased this game yet, this company has virtually no advertising dollars or name recognition or broad consumer base which it can rely on to salvage it through a bad PR debacle, and now the vast majority of not in the know Steam users see this company as effectively trying to gouge for early access. Whether that's actually the case according to the story given by Uber or not is basically irrelevant. The broad consumer base that is Steam users is not aware and honestly couldn't care less about Uber's kickstarter obligations or whatever, and expecting the customer to take the time to read, and then feel compassion for, and care, to the extent someone who donated early does to a project they are invested in emotionally, about those obligations is a pretty big leap. Steam users are here to chew bubble gum and buy video games on the cheap, and they're almost out of bubblegum.
Also Steam isn't Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a charitable donation (or was until the Kickstarter people started wanting to avoid the tax issues and wanting to take a slice of the pie). Expecting Steam users to pay the same as people giving out of their charitable good will simply out of a sense of some abstract concept of "fairness" to the charitable givers is ridiculous on its face. If a kickstarter project fails, for instance, there is legal recourse to get your money back, supposedly even if the project was funded and the company fails to deliver a final product, you can get your money back or the company in question can be sued by kickstarter. On Steam, in the US at least, there is no such legal recourse. You pay 90 dollars for this game, it bombs, the company goes under. You're out 90 bucks. So you aren't getting remotely the same deal as on Kickstarter due simply to the nature of the venue. Steam is the final retail outlet. Kickstarter is a charitable fund drive for for profit organizations. There are also some pretty big differences between what the company claims prices will be for beta/final product, and what the prices they claimed on kickstarter for the exact same products are listed as. For instance, beta access on Kickstarter was 40 dollars, now they're saying it will be 60 dollars on Steam. The final retail version on Kickstarter was 20 dollars. Now they're saying its going to be 40 dollars on Steam. So Uber is inconsistent with their own positions and pricing structures in between the two, yet somehow Kickstarter is magically dictating the price on Steam? Something smells fishy in Mary Jane's underpants.
I'd say the biggest issue to me is the precedent it sets for future alphas and unfinished games on Steam. This pricing model is completely backwards, they're charging people 50 bucks extra to....debug their game for them. So if this game sells, and it won't (evidence: a game like this comes out, usually its in the top 10 for at least a few days, every early access game so far has seen at least top 20 for a day or two as far as I've been able to keep track, this game isn't even in the top 100 for sales on its launch day, and early access is launch day, whether the company and its fans want to believe it or not) but if this game sales at this price, what's to stop the next indie company with a 90 dollar kickstarter from doing the same thing? Mixing Steam and Kickstarter pricing goals is a bad idea, in my opinion. I don't have a problem with kickstarter per se, but the games coming out through it really need to just be completed before they hit Steam for sale to the broad consumer base.
While I understand the company's position on the matter, I really think they screwed the pooch on this launch. They've almost certainly burned bridges with tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of potential customers on the most trafficked and largest online digital distribution retailer. In the long run, the bad PR from this is not going to make their company/product more recognizable in a good way, or drive up sales for their product.
What they've done, instead, is effectively shit on their entire first impression, you don't get that again.
Finally, the argument is being made that Uber "doesn't want scrubs buying their game". I just want to point out that if that's what they want, that's exactly what they're going to get. No one but the most die hard fans are going to buy it (oh but wait they already bought in during the Kickstarter, so there's nothing for them to buy), Uber is already over development costs as is, so at some point, they'll be unable to recoup everything they've spent, and will go out of business. That's the end result of that argument taken to its logical conclusion. If that's what they want, they're going to get it, and get it good and hard.
Defend them all you want, its your right and I do see your/Uber's point of view, they may be justified in their reasons, but it was still really dumb to put this up on Steam at the 90 dollar price and expect the consumer base that's used to paying about 5 bucks for 10 games during a Summer/Christmas sale to just say nothing. What they should have done was waited for Beta, and released it at 40 dollars like on Kickstarter. They'd have rocketed to the #1 sales position and probably stay there for a good week or two at that point. Now, its questionable how much of the product they'll actually be able to sale due to consumer backlash.
http://kotaku.com/5969836/the-war-z-removed-from-steam
This release on Steam is a clear mistake in terms of the user base is literally revolting over the decision. You may think there is no problem here, but the 44 pages and literally hundreds of thousands of negative posts I would say are a pretty big deal.
I don't think the comparison to the protest for Dedicated Servers in Modern Warfare is fair, because Uber doesn't have a billion dollar warchest like Activision/EA (its activision that publishes Call of Duty right? Its been so long since I bought one I can't recall for certain) and they don't have the built in consumer base of the broad popular culture to off their title on no matter how the core gamer segment feels about the issue.
In the case of planetary annihilation, the vast majority of people haven't purchased this game yet, this company has virtually no advertising dollars or name recognition or broad consumer base which it can rely on to salvage it through a bad PR debacle, and now the vast majority of not in the know Steam users see this company as effectively trying to gouge for early access. Whether that's actually the case according to the story given by Uber or not is basically irrelevant. The broad consumer base that is Steam users is not aware and honestly couldn't care less about Uber's kickstarter obligations or whatever, and expecting the customer to take the time to read, and then feel compassion for, and care, to the extent someone who donated early does to a project they are invested in emotionally, about those obligations is a pretty big leap. Steam users are here to chew bubble gum and buy video games on the cheap, and they're almost out of bubblegum.
Also Steam isn't Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a charitable donation (or was until the Kickstarter people started wanting to avoid the tax issues and wanting to take a slice of the pie). Expecting Steam users to pay the same as people giving out of their charitable good will simply out of a sense of some abstract concept of "fairness" to the charitable givers is ridiculous on its face. If a kickstarter project fails, for instance, there is legal recourse to get your money back, supposedly even if the project was funded and the company fails to deliver a final product, you can get your money back or the company in question can be sued by kickstarter. On Steam, in the US at least, there is no such legal recourse. You pay 90 dollars for this game, it bombs, the company goes under. You're out 90 bucks. So you aren't getting remotely the same deal as on Kickstarter due simply to the nature of the venue. Steam is the final retail outlet. Kickstarter is a charitable fund drive for for profit organizations. There are also some pretty big differences between what the company claims prices will be for beta/final product, and what the prices they claimed on kickstarter for the exact same products are listed as. For instance, beta access on Kickstarter was 40 dollars, now they're saying it will be 60 dollars on Steam. The final retail version on Kickstarter was 20 dollars. Now they're saying its going to be 40 dollars on Steam. So Uber is inconsistent with their own positions and pricing structures in between the two, yet somehow Kickstarter is magically dictating the price on Steam? Something smells fishy in Mary Jane's underpants.
I'd say the biggest issue to me is the precedent it sets for future alphas and unfinished games on Steam. This pricing model is completely backwards, they're charging people 50 bucks extra to....debug their game for them. So if this game sells, and it won't (evidence: a game like this comes out, usually its in the top 10 for at least a few days, every early access game so far has seen at least top 20 for a day or two as far as I've been able to keep track, this game isn't even in the top 100 for sales on its launch day, and early access is launch day, whether the company and its fans want to believe it or not) but if this game sales at this price, what's to stop the next indie company with a 90 dollar kickstarter from doing the same thing? Mixing Steam and Kickstarter pricing goals is a bad idea, in my opinion. I don't have a problem with kickstarter per se, but the games coming out through it really need to just be completed before they hit Steam for sale to the broad consumer base.
While I understand the company's position on the matter, I really think they screwed the pooch on this launch. They've almost certainly burned bridges with tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of potential customers on the most trafficked and largest online digital distribution retailer. In the long run, the bad PR from this is not going to make their company/product more recognizable in a good way, or drive up sales for their product.
What they've done, instead, is effectively shit on their entire first impression, you don't get that again.
Finally, the argument is being made that Uber "doesn't want scrubs buying their game". I just want to point out that if that's what they want, that's exactly what they're going to get. No one but the most die hard fans are going to buy it (oh but wait they already bought in during the Kickstarter, so there's nothing for them to buy), Uber is already over development costs as is, so at some point, they'll be unable to recoup everything they've spent, and will go out of business. That's the end result of that argument taken to its logical conclusion. If that's what they want, they're going to get it, and get it good and hard.
Defend them all you want, its your right and I do see your/Uber's point of view, they may be justified in their reasons, but it was still really dumb to put this up on Steam at the 90 dollar price and expect the consumer base that's used to paying about 5 bucks for 10 games during a Summer/Christmas sale to just say nothing. What they should have done was waited for Beta, and released it at 40 dollars like on Kickstarter. They'd have rocketed to the #1 sales position and probably stay there for a good week or two at that point. Now, its questionable how much of the product they'll actually be able to sale due to consumer backlash.