Can you see why he is saying this?

Judging by his finger positioning he may just not be happy with the game being pg7.

Who exactly? TB?

I thought it was funny, but expected.

Hmmm I dont get it.... For years we have complained about half finished games being released as full games. Now Uber release a half finished game with a big label that says "HALF FINISHED GAME" and we are still complaining.

Also we have to be careful of people like TB. They are starting to represent mob rule...

EDIT: Just want to say that the Kickstarter world is a new gaming world. Old rules don't apply and PA wouldnt even be getting made if it wasnt for this New World.

So your logic is "nobody has released an early access game on a CD before, so therefor it is okay!"

No, the reason nobody has done it before is because nobody else has been that stupid.

I said external people won't like things like exclusive content or purchasable commanders. Yeah, don't notice how stuff like that is just wrong and will hurt the reputation of your game. No, I don't think he's talking about the pg7, more likely about the already mentioned exclusive content, >Early Access< (especially when it comes to physical objects) and >pre-orders<.



I told you it's all wrong.
Bad idea and a bad move, that's all.

No major RTS game was kickstarted before by an independent publisher. New rules apply. And I love it.

Mob rule? Is that what you're calling people who support pro-consumer rights?

Also, no "new rules" apply here. Uber are following " industry wisdom " same as nigh-on every other games developer and publisher these days.

How is offering a game that is clearly labelled EARLY ACCESS against consumer rights? They are sayings its not finished and you have the choice to try it now or wait. TB with one pic has implied that this is a terrible thing and his sheep are following. I think that its amazing I have had access to PA for so long now. It wouldnt have happened before Kickstarter.

Selling exclusive Commanders that are marketed as such, limited to boxed retail only IS a very bad thing; it's completely anti-consumer.

It took literally months for Uber to clarify whether the exclusivity of the Armalisk was permanent or timed, and the reason given for their refusal to do so earlier was "Business" and "Contract" reasons. And note, the exclusivity period is not spelled out on the box. People who buy this Commander on the premiss that it's only for the retail boxed version are going to get a shock when it appears on the Armoury page a few weeks later for $5.99.

This shoddy practice is so close to a bait-n-switch that it makes me sick.

Oh is that what you think TB is complaining about? Are you sure?

Yes that is not fair play, but I thought that TB was complaining about the Early access thing?

And thus we see the problem with tweets and a 150 character limit.

Yes but most people seem to be pissed about the early access? It seems reasonable to assume thats what its about unless TB has clarified and I haven't seen it?

I am going to keep posting this.

And like he said, there is a difference, between...

RELEASING an UNFINISHED GAME, and...

DEMOING a PREORDER for an UNFINISHED GAME with a development push to make it a FINISHED GAME.

Uber is really doing the latter. Think of this, really think of this, as a preorder, with a "downloadable demo included". Think playstation 1 demo disc. Was Metal Gear Solid 1 unfinished in it's demo disc back when you grabbed the demo for PS1? I can't even remember if they had preorders back then

Nope. Well relatively it does since a download is even cheaper, but a boxed version isn't expensive at all. They don't build factories to make PA boxed editions. There's a factory somewhere that has thousands of diskwriters putting any kind of stuff on any kind of disk, then coloring the disk, printing cardboard and putting the disk in the cardboard. If the box costs a single euro of the cost price, it's too expensive. The production/distribution gets financed through sharing the revenue, so Nordic gets a cut of whatever PA the boxed edition sells.

Lastly, Uber doesn't have anything to do with the boxed version other than the art of the box and the contents of the CD. The rest is all third party.

Hey, I'm not super-hot on selling Early-Access in a box either. The industry trend towards pushing half-finished games on the public has hit rock bottom as far as I'm concerned.

It's in the fine print, near the system requirements on the back of the DVD sleeve. In capital letters, but still fine print

Nordic Physical Early Access also gets the gamma commander, when it's released.

This anyone can hope is a temp thing just for retail release, but this is the "free hacker costume exclusive to retail purchase of watchdogs". It is a little better than "retail purchase includes online code necesary to play online". It is a necesary evil because no retail incentive means they really didn't actually try to sell a single copy. Think of one AAA game that has sold recently that didn't include a retail incentive to keep people from buying a cheap or used copy instead?

I beliiieevveee the first game I ever bought that did this, was Portal 2. I got build-stripe bar-frame model for p-body and atlas, which shows you bought the game retail instead of used. Since then, that's been the way to do things.

All I can see on the Box is that it is labeled "Early Access". "Early Access" can mean anything realy if you are not familiar with the term. I can easily see someone thinking that this is some kind of deal with the retailer - the retailer gets to sell the game a day or two early and takes a lower cut on sales, but gets some exclusive content. Seing that these kind of deals are being done pretty frequently I would not blame anyone for that trail of thought.

Assuming that the main part of people buying boxed games are those with limited access to the internet and assuming that in order to "Upgrade" to the full game you need to download some part of the game this can be damaging to the consumer.

When I buy something I like to know how that thing I'm buying holds up. When I buy into Early Access there is no way of me knowing what I am buying. The game might, and probalby will, change quite a bit before it is released. This means that even if I inform myself I dont know what I buy, or at least I dont know that what I buy and like now might change direction into something that I then dont like anymore.

Early Access would be fine if I had the guarantee that I can up until launch decide to get my money back and opt out of early access.

The initial internet access for the early access? Yeah, should say internet required. To upgrade to the full game? No. NO. I believe they are actually pushing physical copies of the game, server and client standalone, to the physical copy buyers. So that is not a complaint, they will in fact get physical copies from what I know. Just not of the "early access", but of the release copy.

Also, it assumes most people buy due to lack of internet connection, but I haven't seen too much confusion about it yet, not as much as I have seen through steam sales alone. I can only assume maybe humanity isn't as uninformed as we thought and only people with limited access to digital funds are buying PA from storefronts. That was the actual target, all those countries that don't have secure credit mediums and all their population wanting the game but have no card number to pay for it on the website.

I see his point, he talked more than once about Early Access, and i pretty much agree with it. Was a bit of a shock to see this game sold retail. Not surprised at all Nordic (basically ex-jowood) is behind it, but PA? Didn't expect that one, i really like their work around PA.
TB complains because this is one of the first times an early access title is sold as a boxed copy.

And Early Access has exposed itself as an extremly risky thing to buy in, games earning millions have been abandoned. Even the Rust-devs have recently announced they are going to completely rework the game, because they made to many mistakes with the original one.

Therefore EA is something you have to be careful with, and you should only ever buy into it after being convinced by material, when wanting to support an idea, and if you can accept the money as potentially lost. That's hardly the base games are sold in stores. Furthermore, we had actual scam's on EA.
And the worst thing for PA? Buying EA online means any source of information is only a klick away, even steam has customer reviews and (although potentially heavily moderated) forums. You don't have any of that in a store.

This isn't just about Planetary Annihilation, personally i love the game, but Early Access should never go mainstream or appear in stores. It's already now an issue games like CoD:Ghosts (PC) or Battlefield 4 are sold in a broken state, with few hope to ever be completely fixed.
Selling a boxed EA-title is a dangerous precedent, because it relies on the idea that selling unfinished games for full price is an 'ok' thing to do, when it should be the absolute exception. Even PA is unfinished and can still go in any direction you might not like, and that game had a successfull kickstarter backing it.