Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)

[x4000]

Long-winded or not, it was an interesting read! And I think most people will be content to have an explanation like that (not something you get from very many developers).

Thank you!  It's always really nice when something like that is interesting to folks.

[crazyroosterman]

you know I never fail to be amazed just how nice some game company's are when most company's when compared to a good deal of other types of company's its probably to do with just how important pr is for games company's sometimes even for triple a developers.

[x4000]

I think there's a really good spectrum across all businesses, honestly.  I think that with big companies it has a lot to do with what the public-facing people are like, and with small companies it has to do with what all the people are like.  There are companies big and small in all industries that are jerks, or that are really cool about things.

[TheVampire100]

A small company can act immature exactly like a big company can. The thing is, a big company gets noticed from more people and if they screw up with something you can be sure that all the news sites will talk about this so everyone knows what happened.
Small companies lack this kind of attention. When they do something bad or start to harass their customers only their fanbase/customers will notive this plus some extra guys. Maybe one or two gaming magazines will talk about it but since this isn't a really popular company like, let's say Eelectronic Art that gets backlash for everything they do whenever they do it, the tide will quickly calm down again.
Remeber the moment when the leading developer of Paranautical Activity twittered that we wants to see Gabe Newell dead? Well, the game got removed from Steam afterwards. But now it's back and most people have already forgotten that this happened. Of course anyone will say "Oh, yeah, right, this happenes, I remember" when you tell them but they don't think activily about it.
Another example? EA screws over with their in-app purchases in almost any of their game, regardless of a free mobile game or a 60$ massive multiplattform title. And people always get reminded of that whenever they play said games or whenever they read "EA".

Boy, I talked a lot about this but to make it short: Just wait and they will calm down eventually (if they already haven't). They always do and it isn't really a big incident, it acutally is no incident, just a bunch of players that feel betrayed of their money when they aren't (really, slaes happen all the time and tehy PICk this one for a fight? Really bad move).

[x4000]

Actually the folks in the thread have been super responsive and mature about things.  They don't all agree with me -- which is fine.  But I treated them with respect and candor, and they've returned that admirably.  I didn't expect to change everyone's mind, and haven't, but I also didn't expect everyone to be so darn nice, and they have.  So: score one for the world being better than I expected, today.

[Misery]

I just saw all of this in that email you'd sent out, Chris, and just.... ugh.  This sounds REALLY irritating and stressful.   Doesnt exactly please me too much either.  Was hoping to see this spark some more interest in the game, since more sales might = more content down the line, or whatever, but.... 

Well, here's hoping it goes well in the end.

Considering the price is just about 5-6 bucks it is really confusing. This is an amoutn even a kid with no own income can easily get just by asking it's parents. This is something you don't have to save for the half year.

Do you know much about mobile gaming at all?  It's a good example of this.

People FREAK THE HELL OUT if they have to pay 50 cents too much.  Or sometimes, if they have to pay a dollar.  Not "a dollar more than a certain amount", no, I mean, "if they have to pay a dollar at all".  Because of COURSE things should be hyper cheap or free, and to hell with however much it costs to make the game.  How DARE the developers try to earn money off of it?

That obviously is a bit of a different market, thankfully, but it does show just how astonishingly cheap people can be.   And maybe it's just me, but there's more of a sense of "entitlement" these days than ever before, which just makes it worse.

Or I'm just being negative.  Or both.

[Draco18s]

People FREAK THE HELL OUT if they have to pay 50 cents too much.  Or sometimes, if they have to pay a dollar.  Not "a dollar more than a certain amount", no, I mean, "if they have to pay a dollar at all".  Because of COURSE things should be hyper cheap or free, and to hell with however much it costs to make the game.  How DARE the developers try to earn money off of it?

I've been there.  But almost always it was because whatever the thing was, it was not worth a dollar.
Look at hats in TF2.  Some of them are available on the Mann Co. Store for like $25.

Twenty five dollars.

Sure, there are people who will pay that, but honestly most of the hats are like "a dollar or two" in perceived value for me.

[Captain Jack]

Actually the folks in the thread have been super responsive and mature about things.  They don't all agree with me -- which is fine.  But I treated them with respect and candor, and they've returned that admirably.  I didn't expect to change everyone's mind, and haven't, but I also didn't expect everyone to be so darn nice, and they have.  So: score one for the world being better than I expected, today.

Hate to break up the pity party, but you should recheck the thread Chris: you DID change the mind of everyone active in the thread! The sole holdout elected to hold out because the value proposition was only going to improve, and they had yet to play the base game. 

Can't say anything about non-participants on GOG or people who are buying from Steam, but you did something wonderful there and they responded in kind. Congrats!

Do you know much about mobile gaming at all?  It's a good example of this.

People FREAK THE HELL OUT if they have to pay 50 cents too much.  Or sometimes, if they have to pay a dollar.  Not "a dollar more than a certain amount", no, I mean, "if they have to pay a dollar at all".  Because of COURSE things should be hyper cheap or free, and to hell with however much it costs to make the game.  How DARE the developers try to earn money off of it?

That obviously is a bit of a different market, thankfully, but it does show just how astonishingly cheap people can be.   And maybe it's just me, but there's more of a sense of "entitlement" these days than ever before, which just makes it worse.

Or I'm just being negative.  Or both.

You're talking about the devaluation of game software. It's not just mobile where it's happening: plenty of Steam/GOG/console users will refuse to buy a full price game if it isn't THE hottest new thing, whether it's a $60 AAA or a $10 indie. They've learned to wait for the sales, which is a GOOD thing since it extends their purchasing power many times over, and a TERRIBLE thing because it lowers the perceived value of ALL games.

It's worse in the mobile sphere because there is no time when a game is "allowed" to have a price above several dollars, no matter what it's actually quality(value). See: Monument Valley. Since gaming is a leisure activity and, economically speaking, there's no difference between shovelware and high quality releases, far too many people gravitate towards the "free" stuff and expect the same price for all their purchases.

tl;dr: Steam sales rot people's brains.

[Toranth]

tl;dr: Steam sales rot people's brains.

I'm a dedicated CAG, so I love Steam sales and bundles and the like, so I must disagree.
I think the deep discount sales are a symptom, not the cause.  The root cause of low prices is that there is SO MUCH out there, you can always find something else similar at a lower price.

As much as it may pain people to admit, games are semi-fungible.  When the supply goes up, price goes down.

[TheVampire100]

Considering the price is just about 5-6 bucks it is really confusing. This is an amoutn even a kid with no own income can easily get just by asking it's parents. This is something you don't have to save for the half year.

Do you know much about mobile gaming at all?  It's a good example of this.

People FREAK THE HELL OUT if they have to pay 50 cents too much.  Or sometimes, if they have to pay a dollar.  Not "a dollar more than a certain amount", no, I mean, "if they have to pay a dollar at all".  Because of COURSE things should be hyper cheap or free, and to hell with however much it costs to make the game.  How DARE the developers try to earn money off of it?

I know about the mobile game market and it irritates me. I don't have  a problem to pay10$ for a mobile game if the value of the game is worth the price. Square Enix is one of the few developers that refuses to sell their full games for less what they are worth and I gappily bought FF1-5 from the app store. Also FF Dimensions which is an episodic title and despite I really HATE episodic games. They trick you into having a free or cheap game while only selling you part of it with the rest of the game missing except you pay  a lot of money, sometimes more than a game normally costs. They make ypu believe that you pay for multiple games and you can "always stop at any game" but this is obviously not true, you miss the whole story of the game if you don't buy everything and they ALWAYS will leave you with a big cliffhanger after each episode.
However, FF Dimensions was actually a really good game that I enjoyed. And it really wasn't cheap. It may have been a little too straight forward for an old-school FF title but in the end you could explore the whole game world anyway.

I'm also a big fan of Junk Jack. The game itself costs already around 4 or 5 dollars (don't remember anymore) and it still sells you in-app purchases (which are entirely optional) but the game is worth the money and I even bought some of the IAP because I like how the developers handle the game. They make another big update after every 3-4 months. Not small updates with little changes, mostly really big updates with entire new planets to visit or another new gaming feature. Over time they included fishing, alchemy, season themed biomes, gardening and electronics. I've played the game for over a year and I still haven't seen all the content. And soon the game will be out for PC ith crossplattform multiplayer. This wouldn't be possible if the game was open for free.

And if I look at the "free" games of Electronic Arts I just want to vomit. While the games themself are free, they are so damn hard that you will be forced to play... or suffer. They really will let you suffer for playing as long as you don't play. The time when games were about fun are over.