PA is on Sale!

Buy it here: http://www.bundlestars.com/store/planetary-annihilation/

Also head on over to the discussion on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/steamdeals/comments/224fqv/planetary_annihilation_40_off_2999_bundle_stars/

Quite a few people claiming the game isn't worth it and claiming Uber is trying to screw over early adopters and whatnot. Let's add a bunch of positive comments to the thread!

I never understood the logic behind PA being overpriced...
I mean my god, it's practically got infinite replay value, and mods+future updates will just add on to that.

That said I'm probably not going to post positive posts on reddit and I don't think you should either, and here are 2 reasons why:

#1: It's likely going to be labeled as "backer damage control" and fall onto deaf ears.
#2: It's freaking Reddit, AKA 4Chan's neurotic twin, reasoning with it is like trying to convince a baby not to cry in a movie theater.

why am i not suprised about the posts on reddit ....

yep.. literally the day after I bought it for my friend cause a guy who was a mod on the steam forums said the devs said it wouldn't be on sale again for a while..

not ******* obnoxious at all..

Great game though, buy it up people who don't have it.. reason I was willing to buy it for my friend in the first place at full price.. ugh

If the biggest criticism of an unreleased game is the price? This game is looking pretty good.

I sort of find it funny the people who argue the price of something is to high... because well its their money, they make the choice to spend how ever much they want xD if they don't think its worth said cost then they shouldn't spend their money... It should be as simple as that xD this game however was worth every penny I spent on it and would be worth even more to me if I had the money to spend on it

I too believe it has fairly heavy replay value and fairly refreshing gameplay. I don't get it. Why do people have to sink stuff they lemming in the direction against?

I will post in reddit if I can find my account information, otherwise I might make a smurf name.

Even though I spent 60$ on this game I see it totally worth it. But my friends don't... One of my 4 friends who 'want" this game have bought it the last sale but the two others are waiting for a sale, because they have played the game a bit at my place. But still don't see why it cost so much.... Anyway any way we can get a steam sale????? Because my friends can't buy it on a page like that (we're all between 14-15 (9th graders) in Norway and when we want any game we go and bye steam gift cards to ourself and then we buy something on steam)

That is kind of gutting. I remember Jon Mavor saying that he didn't expect to see the game as cheap as that sale price for a long time after official release. so maybe that's where they got that notion from, and it could be expected to fluctuate before then...
Anyway, hope you enjoy the game and forums nonetheless!

the logic is pretty simple:

most people (the vast majority) don't look much further than the price. They see a few bots, the label "rts" and they rapidly decide "worth it" or "not". They don't care how long it's in development, what ungodly work Uber pulled off. They see a game and a price. This is why any kind of response to the price is useless. in a few months they see the game they kinda liked, at a price they like and they'll buy it.


The strategy of PA pricing is sound: people who want to pay more can get it and pay more. The people who dont want to pay a lot can wait and pay less. The latter part is where the confusion obviously exists since people see a game that looks quite finished.

The perception of a price is very relative. If they do not have it, they can't evaluate the game and tell if it does worth it or not.

The problem is, why they do not buy it? What does stop them?

It's also a critical time for Uber to sell the game. It's very close to release, which means that potential buyers who are still in doubt could just wait for what reviews will say in a couple of month, once the game will be "complete".

I know it will not be complete but those people may have a different opinion about the meaning of "releasing" a game after development. Different people have different opinion, and it's a matter of fact.

Buyer discretion is completely understandable. Techy bits such as fighting on a sphere aside, the game

• has yet to have an actual proper single player mode and have it proven to be good
• lacks polish in the balance, and the developers have yet to ever come say "the current balance is where we want it" with the community claiming that it isn't at every turn
• is missing a lot of small graphical details; a lot of things such as explosions which were mentioned as "placeholders" are still the same as they've always been
• is missing a lot of modding capabilities and potentially may not even have some that people were expecting; just to be clear this is hardy a PA specific thing, a lot of games have had the issue of "being moddable," but very little outside of hacks when it actually comes to the interesting bits being moddable; at the moment PA UI is the only moddable thing for the most part
• speaking of modding, it lacks official mod management, official mod resource site, etc

Frankly I expect the game to be somewhat chewed up when it releases by the reviews.

When it comes to the super cool "promised features" people on the outside such as reviewers won't even KNOW of them. And even if they do they will very likely get thrown around as fantasies and failures to meet their goals rather then "well it's going to be so great... in the future," especially since uber essentially boasted about being able to do parallel development on them; which doesn't seem to have been the case.

Personally I have a very cynical attitude on most "promises." Until they're in they don't exist. And even if there is some guarantee they will be in until I see them to be useful/special/cool/interesting I will assume the the worst/cheapest/unusable implementation for them—especially if intermediate results were kept away in secret.

I'm happy with new features and improvements but when I bought the game I bought it because it was playable and the features it had along with it's unique nature were worth it for me at the time. I believe this is how most buyers will treat it as well and is what I've noticed as the attitude in streams of people trying it out for the first time.

Fun fact. Steam Moderators are just normal people. Don't take their word as holy law.

Especially on the Steam forums. That place is . . . surprisingly kinda really bad.

To be fair, that is exactly what I do with all my games - only in PA am I emotionally invested enough to really dig into the development of the game.

On the contrary, from what I remember hearing Uber say, most, if not all, of those bullet points will be sorted by "release".

Well if you still got into it, then there is hope for others like you, surely?

oh, no, it wasn't meant to be a bad thing per sé. Just about everyone is "guilty" of it. myself included. In fact, i think plenty of games would've died out without it or never would've gotten big in the first place

I do seem to remember that being the impression given from the Uber peeps during the long livestream, when the game was on sale on steam/uber/humble/bundlestars on the Gamma release.

Wut?

The current singleplayer mode lacks singleplayer skimish options (where ai starts, ai as buddy to play 2v2 with 3 ais, etc) and is also more-or-less a multiplayer training mode and lacking in "depth" such as ai personalities. Going into multiplayer to create a singleplayer game is also "not cool."

(It's also not great even for what it is; though perfectly functional)