Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Larian, of Interest: Planetary Annihilation Woes

"double-dipping"? All the funds raised were for pre-order sales and kickstarter rewards, not investment funds. With all sales, you want to make as many as possible, not some fixed amount. So there cannot be any "double-dipping" as they never claimed to pay for anything twice with duplicate funds. The sales are not supposed to stop with just the actual cost of the development, but also include some profit, or what is the point?

You think $2.2 Million is a lot of money for game development? In what country? Certainly not in the usa. I am shocked they can even do it for that. Most top end games have budgets at $20+ Million.

As a communication "90$ for early access" is probably misjudged. In isolation it looks grasping, whatever the forum. If a game I was interested in launched a Kickstarter and $90 was the bottom tier I suspect I'd have a similar reaction.

In the context of $40 for the game, $60 if you want beta access $90 if you want alpha access it feels a lot more like they are giving bonuses to people willing to support them over the odds. It will look a lot better on Kickstarter than on Steam but it's a coherent message wherever.

I don't see the point why people are upset about that 90$ price for alpha access for Planetary Annihilation.....

What would you say if they instead offer a pay-pal "slackerbacker" site where you could still "buy" kickstarter tiers? Everyone would say: "Cool. I missed the kickstarter and I still want to support the devs so I get that alpha tier for $90".

But now they haven't done it via a paypal option, they've done it via Steam Early Access. Point is: it's the same thing, only the name and platform has changed. The game will still be available for $20 at release so there's no reason to be angry about the pricetag.

The Early Access for the alpha at $90 is only meant to people who still want to support the developers by means of financial support AND gameplay/development support (by givinig feedback during the alpha phase).

Everyone who just wants to buy the game should wait until release to get the game for the "normal" price and everyone would be happy.

You're trying logic against entitled Steam brats? Good luck.
Seriously though, they aren't used to the Kickstarter mindset (and frankly Steam Early Access does seem made for the Minecraft approach instead), so the initial reaction is understandable. Like always some trolls insusceptible to reason have to seriously blow it out of proportion, though. If I were Uber, I would've expected it.

I was following some of the comments on Steam, while peoples reaction was a little understandable it has been blown out of proportion. It stuns me that people can't accept the simple thing that if they don't want to pay, then they don't get access, and that they don't NEED to pay now. Wait till later and pay the normal price to play it.

That said, Uber to my mind really shouldn't have put it up for sale. Just used Steam for Alpha / beta testing and left it at that, then maybe do something as they get closer to release where they somehow open access to others.

Poland (seriously, they must work for cents or something)
The fact that developers there don't spend almost half of the "game budget" in publicity, B-list voice actors and hotel rooms (and food, transportation, rent, ect.) for game reviewers (so they can give a "fair" score to the game) probably helps too.
Developers (publisher, more accurately) could cut some really unnecessary corners around here.

I agree with most of the users' points made here as they're either nicely positive or backed by reasonings. So I just wanted to let you know that someone had posted some time ago about this exact issue at a game media site saying that the Uber team has got some of the best-talented and/or skilled programmers in the world, and so therefore they would need to be paid accordingly for their work.

That and also the fact that the studio may also be wishing to receive further money to continue operating as usual a bit long after they release this new game. That crucial money could be partly used to fund additional content (probably to release for free within patches or as DLCs) and to develop a new expansion or a different franchise. So they may as well take as much money as they desire in order to remain independent.

People are so used to paying 10-50$ for a game that when something goes over that - early access or not - it catches them by surprise. And all the chicken littles immediately start screaming the sky is falling. You only ever hear the loudest voices, just like outside of the intertubes.

So much hostility starting to form on these forums yikes! *passes out special cupcakes >.>* lil home baking and some lil happy drug fix that right up!

Anyway to the OP, you have to think about it this way. It is two diff games..and well I looked at that Planetary Annihilation games site. *shakes head a few times* Just another "end of the world" type game and no real point to it~

Divinity Original Sin has a story to it, and also has more complex things to work on and not just "how can I make this building go boom" There is character creation, maps, models, scripts..just a lot of things!

any who, just remember diff games are made diff ways~

Personally, I will probably just wait until the PA pricing hits beta stage and get it if I have the money, since I missed the original kickstarter. The Early access on Steam seem aimed to those that missed, and I'm ok with that.

On the other hand, I would rather see a game just use Steam to run the alphas and betas in the background and not sell early access if kickstarter-appropriate price levels will just turn people away who might have paid the release price.

I think a lot of people in that discussion are missing that an alpha or beta can also just be a part of the game that needs testing, and not the whole thing, as with Dragon Commander. Maybe that could be used to accommodate a lower early price than the kickstarter, while allowing kickstarter backers access to more.

Hi, I don't know why the price is so high. I mean, people HELP them and don't get a finished product !

See the differences with Larian and the beta of Dragon Commander, noone paid for it, they just gave it for two reasons :
- Give a better product, with a lot of beta testers
- Congratulate their backers and reward us !

83 euros to not play a game is pretty strange and gives a bad advertisement to the game... This is a bad idea, in my opinion.

You don't know what you're speaking about. It's not THAT hard to understand, really.....

They made a kickstarter for the game. They had a pledge tier which gave alpha access for $90. They brought their game to steam. They established a "slackerbacker" option for this $90 tier for people who still want to support them making the game - using steam instad of paypal.

There is NO way to offer the alpha or beta below the price poeple had to pay during the kickstarter. That would be screwing the people who intially supported them, which means their biggest fans. Offering a $90 possibility to fans who came late and still want to support them is perfectly legit. If you don't want to support them, don't buy the alpha. You can still wait until the final release will come out which will have a pricetag at about $30 I guess.....

So much trouble because people don't even try to understand and are not even able to inform themselves before making stupid comments on the topic.....

And there was no kickstarter for Dragon Commander, completely different thing. But if Larian would offer a D:OS alpha option later for less than it cost on kickstarter they would also screw their initial backers....

How charging less in steam is screwing anybody? They pledged $90 and getting exaclty what was promised one way or another.
And more importantly Kickstarter is not a store, you are crowfounding a project, not pre-ordering a game. You can give them any quantity of money, even just a dollar, if they decided to support the game with $90 it was their call, if some of them misused it as a way to "buy" an alpha is their own fault
Why are they entitled to maintain the "price" of the alpha anyway? And at the end of the day that's the money they decided to give, if it goes on early access for $90, $10 or $1 it doesn't affect their pledge in any way, is like buying a game and complaining when is on sale, except that they didn't even brought it, they basically donated money to produce the game, whatever they got for a pledge is more a freebie as a show of gratitude from the creators than something you brought. Are you seriously telling me that if Larian charge less than $135 for early access for original sin you are going to complain?

If it becomes commonplace for kickstarted games to offer alpha access cheaply after the kickstarter is over, then that is one less reason to back games on kickstarter and just wait for a pre-order. For the people who do still pledge, alpha and beta access will no longer be of much value, so it isn't much of gesture of appreciation, or an incentive to move to higher level tiers.

During the D:OS kickstarter you could pledge $25 and get the alpha access add-on for $50. If Larian offers the game with alpha access for less than $75, there will most likely be people who complain, with some justification.

They can't pre-order if the game is not kickstarted tho' that should be reason enough

And if they offer early access for $75 or more, there will definitely be people who complain with all justification.

You can't even start to compare people complaining for paying extra for a game that is not finished yet and the privilege of working as a Alpha/beta-tester, to people complaining that someone got a better deal that a pledge which the principal purpose of funding the game, and receiving something as secondary.

I don't even think that is as "likely" as we are presuming, mostly because it already happened with the original sin kickstarter

Divinity Anthology add-on: $20
GamersGate (66% off 5 days ago) $10.18 USD
Steam (66% off 3 months ago) $10.19 USD

Divine Divinity add-on:$5
GamersGate (66% off 5 days ago) $2.04 USD
Steam (66% off 3 months ago) $2.03 USD

And the next steam sale is starting soon (hell, probably tomorrow) and if they were %66 off 3 months ago, i can easily picture a %75 discount this time.
Where are the "likely" complainers? if they exist, are they any close in number to the ones in the steam thread?

They can't pre-order if the game is not kickstarted tho' that should be reason enough

Reason enough for existing fans, and people who's interests closely match the project. Is that where the majority of money comes from? No, it is not.
Do people who were a little iffy on a project in the first place care if it doesn't get funded? No, they do not. There are lots of other games, they they probably have a backlog already.


And if they offer early access for $75 or more, there will definitely be people who complain with all justification.

If the game is listed for sale at $75 with alpha access as a pre-order bonus, people would complain. If it is listed at regular price and there is an option added in the Larian Vault to buy into the alpha, what exactly would be the justification that that must be cheaper than during the kickstarter?


Where are the "likely" complainers

The DD/Anthology add-ons were released games that had been on sale before, multiple times, and everyone knew or could easily find out how much they had been on sale for. They were never presented as being exclusive to the kickstarter, and no reasonable person would think they would not go on sale again before D:OS was released.

Alpha/beta access when offered as part of kickstarter tier rewards, are implicitly... kickstarter rewards. There is no guarantee of exclusivity, unless that is stated, but placing one value on something for your biggest fans and early supporters, then selling it cheaper to everyone else is a tad rude.

But an exclusive alpha to the game they don't care about (and for $90) is a good reason? the majority of the money comes from people that wouldn't care if the game is funded but are persuaded for an unfinished version (again, for almost $100) of it? i thought that really high tiers with alpha/betas are especially for the existing fans and people who care enough to play a game in alpha state, silly me, is actually for people in the "meh" category. I mean, i can see people trying a beta (if is close to going gold) for FREE for a game they aren't really interested in, but an alpha? and a really expensive one? That's what convince people who are iffy about it, really?


Because the game was already founded? let me turn that question back at you, what exactly would be the justification for charging ANYTHING for an alpha? Sure, is their game, they can make a $15 DLC for every section of the option menu if they want, but there is a reason why almost every game in early access is cheaper than the regular price, you are giving money to the developers for a game that is not out (or even finished) so you can alpha-test it. An alpha make sense as an incentive to get a higher tier (and again, only appeals to people that care) or an add-on in kickstarter because the nature of it...

The problem boils down to if kickstarter is a store where you can buy and sell stuff or a site to Crowdfund projects




Spoilers: is not a real problem, is the second one, this is an empirical fact, there is a "What is Kickstarter?" section in the site, highly recommended reading, the second you are using "buying" or "selling", you are wrong. The ToS is pretty exact with its words, you are "pledging" and what you get is a "reward" for supporting a project. Anyone who would feel offended is wrong in a fundamental level about his approach to kickstarter and have a really toxic ideology

Some new meanings to existing words get added to a dictionary (become official additions to the language) simply because too many people embraced the previously unofficial (and possibly wrong) meaning.

Just a comparison.

the majority of the money comes from people that wouldn't care if the game is funded but are persuaded for an unfinished version (again, for almost $100) of it?

No, the majority of the money comes from people who support lower tiers, who wouldn't be terribly disappointed if the game was not funded. Between these people and the existing fanbase, there are people who can be convinced to move up to a higher tier for various rewards or to reach appealing stretch goals.

You claimed people would pay more for a kickstarter than the value of the game and rewards would be later (before release) to see it funded. Some people will do that, but that is not where most of the money comes from, so that is not "reason enough".

And you avoided my point that having alpha access cheaper after a kickstarter devalues that as a reward, and would mean less people pledge, and those who do would be less likely to choose higher tiers. Some of those people who stick with a low tier that wouldn't pay for alpha access, would wait for a cheap pre-order deal if alpha access was included, and even some fans might start looking at the before and after price. If it becomes commonplace, devaluing kickstarter rewards is self defeating in the long term.


Because the game was already founded?

How is that relevant?

Does any product or service ever drop in price just because the company made back their initial investment, etc?


let me turn that question back at you, what exactly would be the justification for charging ANYTHING for an alpha?

Because it was part of kickstarter tier rewards, and it takes time, effort and money to organize an alpha. Larian also isn't a small developer with no in-house QA and isn't trying to sell enough copies to get their game greenlit.


An alpha make sense as an incentive to get a higher tier (and again, only appeals to people that care) or an add-on in kickstarter because the nature of it...

But then suddenly when the kickstarter is over it has no value, and the developer can sell alpha/beta access for cheaper or give it away, and nobody that backed should be annoyed at all? And knowing in advance that some or all of the kickstarter rewards would be cheaper if they waited, everyone would still pledge?



The problem boils down to if kickstarter is a store where you can buy and sell stuff or a site to Crowdfund projects

No, it doesn't. It boils down to a developer placing a certain value on something during a kickstarter, and then before delivering that, setting another value for everyone else who didn't back the kickstarter (you know, when they most needed the money, and got from backers who they should at least pretend to be grateful to and not treat like suckers who paid for something worthless just to help them out).


Spoilers: is not a real problem, is the second one

Condescension is not a great debate tactic.

Hi guys ... I have two question for this debate (but don't want to stick my fingers in this crushing mechanism)... But ... Why complaining about Planteray Annihilation ? And ... what is the meaning of paying an alpha key ? I mean, every companies should count what profit and how they can improve their game through testers ... Some beta tester, on DC may do a true work for free...

For me, the tier are more something to show your support on the team, and kickstarter gets much more harm from an unfinished product (DoubleFine production, for example ... Even if we need to see the end to be sure). And, people buying a key 20 USD and then needed to buy the game 40 are "normal customer", aren't they ?