This kinda backfired

I feel really sorry for the people who have in their mind uber as this greedy company who is the epitome of evil. Just wasting their life fighting the wrong fights. Trying to fight against 'greedy corporations' but then picking entirely the wrong ones it's almost comical. Being unhappy because of an unreality they have built in their heads themselves.

Also kinda ironic that they're all anti-greed but then in the same breath demand free copies lol. Maybe greed does kill everything.

Some of uber's old business models were kind of naive like the boxed early access, but for a while now they have been nothing but generous, tolerant, and wanting to repair their reputation and fix up the game.

The fact that they didn't even put much effort into preventing people from doing this free titan's upgrade indicates that money grabbing wasn't the number 1 thing on their mind.

http://www.pcgamer.com/trine-3-studio-addresses-complaints-that-the-game-is-too-short/

"He goes on refute claims the studio has cut or withheld content in order to sell it as DLC down the track. Instead, the final version is a product of the studio's initial "vision" for the game overreaching its capacity to fulfil it."

That is the problem with Kickstarter, Early Access and DLC. It's impossible to define a "finished" product anymore.

For example, in Street Fighter x Tekken they sold Blanka as paid DLC.

That is the real problem here. $13 is nothing, not a lot of money, but people are getting sick of all the smoke and mirrors and nickel and diming by all these game developers.

True. Scroll up. Uber via minion said of the mod: "...we'd say this would be sidestepping copy protection."

It's a valid analogy.

Because it IS obvious. CLEARLY titans is nothing more than an update to base PA. What percentage of files in base PA have identical content to their counterparts in titans? Go ahead. You tell me.

I had PA until the 18th. See my avatar. Now I have a demo for titans.

That's because that is your dogma.

I'm not going to debate your religion with you any further beyond this reply which I felt I owed you because of my mistaken assumption about you being bought off. (In fact you're worse.)

That was aimed at Uber, not you.

In summation: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/can-i-please-talk-to-an-official-of-uber.69925/#post-1104635

OMFG for the billionth time it's not asking for something free. We're asking to not be billed twice for something we paid for once already!

Did you not notice that the only people who would get a copy of titans are the people WHO ALREADY OWN PA?!

We didn't just walk in off the street with our hands out. And I'm bloody tired of being called a lazy bum.

Spoiler: Sidenote on "bums"

(As if even bums are there because they are lazy. As if sleeping in the park to be harassed by everyone and occasionally set on fire in -20 degree weather is preferable to having a job and a nice apartment.)

Disagree with me or not. Fine.

But for the Nth time.

Laziness is clearly not our %#$^&% motive and I'd like a little honesty from your side about this fact.

Your analogy didn't describe how you came across the realisation that the newly created content that was never promised to you was in fact, actually yours all along.

I have to explain that I paid for the TV I bought?

Ok fine.

I paid for the TV I bought.

The TV in this case: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/can-i-please-talk-to-an-official-of-uber.69925/#post-1104635

I'm tired of talking to the help.

I'll come back when someone from Uber replies. Until then enjoy your echo chamber dog pile.

Indeed, you bought PA, and you got the PA promised in the kickstarer. So what is the fundamental issue here? Is it that PA:Titans is content that is compatible with PA's engine? Is that the problem here?

I have to say, it's pretty great when bsergent demands that people buy the game for him or else they're being hypocritical.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/386070/discussions/0/521643320370048374/

Got your receipt? What does it say you were billed for? hrm.. how did you buy titans a year before anyone else could? Odd.

bsergent just makes me feel sad... His greed and self entitlement .....

He's been told they don't mind if it's played in single player, this is more than generous. But they have every right to block and ban people who haven't paid for joining there multilayer servers with a hack to use something they aren't meant to use.

PA a niche game, with 800000 copy's sold. If everyone who has pa, got titans free there would be very little market left to sell too. The development of the game would stop. I don't see how this helps the game, or RTS.

I think you've hit the nail there. What I would say though, is that having grown up with games, gamers these days expect a *huge* amount from modern games.

Let me give you some examples: TA is oft held up as the epitome of a good game, as it had a single player campaign and so on. The problem is though, that imo if Uber were to release a campaign in the same way as TA (text / voice over between missions, no animated cut scenes and so on) the community *wouldn't be happy*, because post TA, GPG did such a superb job with SupCom 1 and FA campaigns, complete with complex animated cut scenes and lots of in game commentary and such. So the expectation is so much higher, yet Uber has the resources and team size much closer to Cavedog that GPG. People don't seem to understand that a full AAA production requires a lot of investment.

I mean, the amount of work required for a new project in 2015 is exponentially more to reach the same level of 'quality' than a release from 10 years ago, simply because people have gotten used to the scale and polish of the big productions. The new technology we have allows for much more in depth things to be created, what it doesn't do however is make it much easier to create the high quality content in the first place, so the job devs have gets harder and harder.

By your own logic, people who didn't receive a free copy are not entitled to argue that the expansion should be free, because they are biased. Yourself included.

All users of this forum have the full right to engage you in discussion because we are all members of the PA community. If you put opinions out in the public domain, anyone is free to argue against them - they don't need your blessing. You can't cherry-pick who you have this discussion with.

Uber sold physical copies of an early access game, they officially released their game knowing it wasn't finished, and they released an expansion (out of the blue) for a game of which they were still actively working on the base game. Then they remove the base game from sale. They kept changing the goal posts so no wonder people are skeptical of their behaviour. I think people do understand that it takes a lot to develop a game these days, but they also expect the developers to be professionals and be able to accurately estimate costs and properly manage a project.

At least the developers of Trine 3 are honest and people will respect them for that.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/trines-future-now-in-question-after-criticism-of-t/1100-6430011/
"it proved to be more expensive than Frozenbyte anticipated"

Uber knew that the Kickstarter backers would not have accepted paying for this "expansion" so they gave it to them for free. This just also happened to have the added bonus of splitting the player base, so that meant people were now enticed to upgrade (in reality pay again for something which should have been the base game). If Uber thought PA was a finished product they would have allowed people to continue to purchase the base game for a discounted price and upgrade to Titans separately. Uber know that PA was an unfinished game and that is why they had it removed from Steam.

People need to understand that this has nothing to do with paying a measily $13. People want Uber to stop their shady behaviour, or at least not get away with it, because if they do, then other devs will follow suit and we can say goodbye to Kickstarter and Early Access.

We should remember that the platforms of Kickstarter and Early Access are built on trust and that trust is slowly erroding. You can try and defend Uber all you like, but the truth is right in front of your eyes, it's obvious, people aren't stupid.

People actively expressed on the forums that the unit roster need to be fleshed out more (e.g. Orbital), they wanted unit wreckage and better terrain. This just happened to come at a price, a repackage PA called Titans. They decided to give it away free to some and not others, and they decided to remove the base game from sale. People can see through this crap. Once again, you seriously think this is about the measly $13? I could have accepted the Titans alone as paid DLC, but everything else should have been included in the base game.

It's as simple as this:

Do you think they deserve to be paid for ten month's work?

You paid for base PA. You supported one part of their development process.

You also got a 66% discount on Titans. It's like £10. That's less than two hour's work on minimum wage. That's the cost of a couple of beers in a posh pub. How little is your time worth to you that you'd sooner spend multiple hours demanding you be given something you never paid for?

If you'd rather save the money, do so. Go spend it on something else you'll enjoy. Get high and listen to the sound of your own voice some more. Get drunk. Or better yet, go ask a barman for free drinks and then throw a tantrum when he tells you where to go. Make sure you film it. While you do that I'll be microwaving more popcorn.

You got all that from my comment about modern games being hard to make?!

I know your aware of my general view on things, which I think is what your addressing, although it's kinda outa context to what I said above.

My personal position on this is that PA (original) has been finished in relation to the goals laid out in the kickstarter for a while now (no it wasn't at release in September but all the main issues have subsequently been resolved).

Titans adds stuff to PA that was never in the original pitch, that isn't to say that people didn't want it, however you can only really hold Uber to make what they set out to in the first place. There is a difference between them not delivering what they said they would, and them not delivering on the communities extended wish list. I mean a game like PA has such massive scope, they will never satisfy all wants irrespective of how many things they add because people will always want more (case in point look at 'Tech Annihilation' on Spring, that mod has something stupid like 500 units, half of which are experimentals).

I feel Titans hits a lots of big points on the 'extended wishlist' category, and as such it's not unreasonable to make it an expansion. We know Uber aren't flush with cash (or they wouldn't have cut their team in half after HR failed to reach it's target), so they *have* to be able to earn money, and a large expansion to PA strikes me as a sensible way to do that.

The crux of the rest of the argument is that why did one group get the game free and not the other? I'm guessing more bad luck than anything else. I can't speak for everyone, but if Uber had not given me a free key as a Kickstarter backer, I would be perfectly happy to purchase it myself as I believe it adds more than enough to the game to justify it's value (especially at the discount).

I can sympathise that some of the early access steam backers (and website backers post Kickstarter) are disappointed that they didn't get a key. I truly believe this is a case of Uber trying to be nice to the Kickstarter backers rather than trying to snub everyone else though. In hindsight I guess they should not have given it out free to anyone?

Why is this still going on guys? Why do you feel the need to defend Uber to bsergent?

It doesn't matter. You'll never sway him and I've followed his attempts at arguments and they're basically the same thing repeated in a circle. It baffles me that a person can be so bored that they'd spend so much time on something so pointless when they could have simply left the forums and done something else for themselves. This can't be fun for him, and if it is he is just beyond weird and that is further proof that he should be ignored.

I'm always amazed by how people are divided by things like that.

Logic and reasoning won't help you guys in understanding and tolerating each others. Some here are so passionate about PA that would go a pretty far shot in order to defend Uber, in anything I'm afraid. Others are moved by principles that have been offended by how Uber treated their customers base.

Those two motivations will never find agreements in how Uber's conduct is perceived. Bringing this kind of discussions in here is rather pointless.

Unfortunately the facts are pretty much against Uber, a company with extremely talented people (PA Titan is indeed amazing graphically), but with a management that proved enough to be driven mainly by greediness.

And that's a pity.

Personally even if I like PA:Titan, I believe that I've given Uber enough money out of my pocket for a game that has never been completed (PA) and I'm not willing to give them more. They screwed it pretty much, and it will be a long time before I'll trust them again with any Kickstarter or Early Access campaign.

Luckily they seem to have still a full lot of fanboys. Good for them

You're the only person that has even hinted at understanding that. I find myself appreciating you saying it.

I genuinely didn't know how to handle the principle immunity of the bulk of this community.

When the consensus reaction to someone fighting corporate greed is essentially to accuse that someone of wanting a hand out, (as if that's the gravest of human sins, even if true which it wasn't in my case at least) it's clearly pointless for me to continue.

I guess this explains why the gaming community as a whole is so eager to defend any fleecing of them, any shady profit hoarding act executed by any dev firm.

Truly, gamers are the only consumerist group in history to collective oppose their own rights being respected.

And I guess I just thought that maybe it was, in this case, a matter of needing someone to speak up first. Someone willing to put in the time and risk being banned and get in the suit's monolithic face and say dude, wtf.

But I guess I really am wrong. (Not about the nature of this situation, Uber will always be thieves in my view, even if they make good I will forgive but never forget.) About the nature of gamers generally. It occurs to me that this love for being abused by devs and their appointees, is actually part of the appeal.

Great chunks of you all genuinely enjoy being used it would seem. I guess it's some kind of masochistic extension of the desire for challenge and competition. You want the game to abuse you via hardcore modes and intense difficulty. You want your peers to abuse you via PVP and relentless competition. And now I realize you want the devs to abuse you to via ever more greedy, caveat emptor, what have you do for me lately, allabout da benjamins, business practice.

I understand gamer's gate now. Why "SJW" is a slur in most gamer circles. You genuinely don't want things to be nicer, or kinder, or better, or more just, or welcoming. You want bootcamp. You want hell. You want prison.

Alright.

I genuinely thank you all for this learning experience.

I won't bother you anymore.

I can't save people who don't want to be saved.

I leave you all to happily torture each other and pay a third part for the privilege.

I hope you don't feel betrayed by my inability to continue.

Unsubscribed.

I don't expect this argument to break through the thick fog of emotional reaction, but I'm have nothing better to do at the moment so I might as well put it out there. Bsergent has claimed that his dedicated negative commenting on these forms is his attempt to retaliate against what he claims is a shady business practice by uber. Planktum seems to support him in this. When he claims that he is motivated not by a desire for a free game but to remedy what he sees as injustice I have to believe him since in the time he spends arguing about it he could have easily earned the 13 dollars for Titians.

I have two big problems with his arguments. The first is that he has used what I consider an unpardonable debating tactic I.e. He has told his opponent that he has no right to speak or have an opinion. If anything shows an abandonment of reason in favor of conclusions that feel good by virtue of confirming one's own biases it is this. However he has since retracted that statement since the criterion he used for disqualification turned out to be factually inaccurate, so I credit him with at least thinking about the issue he is posting. Just to repost here what I have said elsewhere: I bought the game in beta for 60 dollars and also bought Titians.

My second problem with the arguments that bsergent has presented is that he makes a claim to justice with demands that are by all appearances unjust. We would all agree that no one has an obligation to provide a game to someone who has not paid for it, and none of us would say that the maker of a game does not have the right to give it away for free if he so desires. As a result the only people who could have been treated unjustly by uber are those who bought the game but we're kickstarted backers.

The question is this: we're the buyers like myself and bsergent treated unjustly? Since we are discussing Titians the only way in which an affirmative answer to this question can be given is if either 1) the release of Titians harmed us in some way or 2) we were owed something in Titians that we were not given.

As to 1, such an allegation would be impossible to support. Neither we nor our property were injured in any way by the Titians release. We still have the old copy of PA. It still works it is still being supported. You may claim that it won't be in the future but right now it is and there is no proof that it will stop. It is also irrational to claim that the owners of PA standard are harmed by the fact that other players will play titian rather then playing PA standard with them. While this will likely occur it is obviously not an injustice to us. If it were then we would have to claim that all productions of all companies competing with uber whatsoever are committing the same injustice against us. Commercial competition is not unjust no matter who practices it. Uber was even nicer then they had to be in this regard making the two versions able to play with each other, thereby reducing this affect.

As to 2 the only way that we could be owed something in Titians is if we were promised it before we bought PA because then we would have bought the Titians content which was not delivered. However, there is no element in Titians that meets this criterion. All of the complaints that people had at release (the absence of unit cannons, the absence of save load, the absence of offline mode, the absence of subs, the presence of lots of bugs, the slow sim speed, etc) have all either been fixed or reduced to reasonable levels since, before Titians was released. None of the content unique to Titians was ever promised therefore we have no right to it.

Reason never prevails in Internet debates, but here is an attempt. I intend no personal attacks on bsergent by any of this, I disagree only with his arguments on this thread both as to their anti-reasoning nature (which was fixed before I posted this) and to their conclusions (which are still not supported by any evidence).

Thanks. I've added my vote to the petition.

But I've one question. And I'm genuinely asking it to everyone (especially to Uber's folks).

Wasn't PA supposed to be a long term project, spanning several years (and totally DRM-free on our end)? How comes that's already off the shelves, not even a year later?

Beside, here a brief extract from the original Kickstarter page.