A Note To Planetary Annihilation Fans About Human Resources

You might want to prove those assumptions you're making.

Look what happened to their older products when PA went on kickstarter.

You mean the free game they released 33 more updates for after PA and continued supporting for months afterwards? (Source)

I thought mentioning Starcraft would be a dead giveaway.

A game which has undergone numerous balance patches.

PA isn't finished, they still have more to do. Moving the focus to maintaining the game is the wrong move and shows abandonment of the project.

And is worse off for it, I think.

This is factually incorrect as long as they get revenue for PA they will continuously add new features such as new game modes, etc.

I'm sorry, I meant it's a sign that Uber is in the process of abandoning PA. I believe Uber is moving ahead of themselves. Moving onto maintenance, I think, gives the appearance that the people at Uber are disinterested in fulfilling the promises and plans they made, since funding for their Kickstarter project for PA started.

Uber is not in the process of abandoning PA. they are in the process of finding work for staff that are not going to be used for PA. E.g. artists, etc. The reality is they need to find work for these people or lay them off. the thing is Uber is really poor at communicating with people thus the misconceptions. Understandably people don't understand what's going on and HR is not going to get funded. Where inXile Entertainment clearly and honestly communicated the rationale behind their Torment kickstarter well wasteland 2 was still in development. So again Uber is not abandoning or in the process of abandoning PA. They're just really poor at communicating.

edit:


About one minute into it. They tell you very important detail. which of course Uber leaves out.

I would certainly like to better understand their decision. Like why they don't throw things into hyperdrive and use the staff they reallocated to HR to finish PA; and, then put them back on HR - which isn't as easy as I made it sound, I know. Perhaps all they need to do is give an explanation, but until they do I feel they're abandoning PA to the balancing bog rather than completing it. I do so want a better explanation than the one they gave in this post, and on other sites - the same post. What I want to hear the most is a plan for PA stating what they will finish, perhaps before HR's Kickstarter ends, and what is on the books for after it ends, with success or failure. Such a plan, made public, would give me more confidence, and I think for others as well.

I can understand where you're coming from and I would like them to explain better as well. The thing about game development is that you have staff that have different skill sets. So the artists cannot do programming you need to find something for them to do. Also goes down throughout the entire staff; you need to find something for them to work on or leave them off. Which would make me not really happy so I hope this kickstarter is successful.

Uber's number 1 problem is communication. For whatever reason they just suck at it. They should employ someone who truly understands marketing and communications. Their game concepts are awesome and we can definitely see the potential in PA once it's properly polished. Just sort out the communication side and they will have a truly winning formula. If people didn't like the game so much, then they wouldn't get this passionate about it on the forums; the forums would be quiet. The community only gets this passionate and vocal because they truly want to see PA (and Uber) succeed.

The new game looks interesting to me. I might support the kickstarter, as to me, PA lived up to its promise in the beta days. (Launch sucked, but how much do I expect for $30? Half a dinner date, and blah blah blah her life's so interesting.)

I'm continually amazed that more developers don't move to a subscription model for multi-player. It's worked out for MMOs, and they're boring. Developers wouldn't just be sticking consumers with a boxed product and moving on, and players would get the support we expect. Just make the signup (and cancellation) process hassle-free.

That wouldn't have worked 10 (20, 30) years ago, but most gamers these days aren't so young that we need make our purchases with birthday money.

Find a way to attach a subscription to a major modder's work (profit-sharing, penny on the dollar or whatever), AND make a strong base game, and (you'd piss off every adolescent gamer in the pirating community) you'd have a solid income.

Except it hasn't, which is why almost every MMO either launches as F2P or moves to F2P shortly after launch.

What part of "free to play" is free to play? If you like power gaming, but don't have the time, that **** costs thousands of dollars.

Let anyone play as they like for up to 20 hours a week. Buy the rest. Innovate a little. Somewhere, there has to be a happy medium where people are willing to pay to continue gameplay development in someway more meaningful than bite-sized dlc chunks and chipping in for effortless model tschotskes. Otherwise, why should a developer bother?

Uber kickerstarted the first half of the game. Kickstart Season 2.

Alternatively, combine both the bite-sized dlc and the model tschotske notions and release a new unit every week ala Cavedog, only charge for use. (Nothing gamebreaking, but innovatice and fun. They can be used *against* you, but pay to have for yourself. No extra units were promised, so not like anyone's getting cheated.) Charge a couple of bucks each. Gameplay fixes can occur concurrently using generated funds, and act as an inducement for further purchases.

No matter the situation that is a pretty unfortunate combination

Last MMO I played was FFXIV. Have a more than full-time job, so joined a "casual" raiding guild. Ground up the "honest" way, since it was easy in that game. Still ate up more than 20 hours a week (raiding only ate up 10 once leveled). About half of those I ran with did the same. The other half (many with families) comprised some combination of paying gold farmers, running bot-scripts, or begging the rest of us (Guild leader was a mooch). I got to look down on the botters and farm-goers because I put the effort in, but practically speaking if I'd forgone the grinding for just one week and spent that working instead, I could've purchased anything the Chinese had to offer with the cash - many did. We had workers in corporate management, medtech startups, college students living on ramen noodles, the odd divorced housewife, etc. XIV was sub, but F2P's largely the same, with the company taking a greater share of the farmer income - not everyone has to pay, but many of those who do pay through the nose. Kickstarter's kind of the same way.

I'm fine with that. Lifetime, kid playing Coleco to adult, I realize that I've spent 90% of my game time with 5% of the games I've played, so good games offer an extraordinary value. Kickstarter's ideal for this, as it lets me kick in what I think a game will be worth to me with a discount because of the risk. I'm willing to pay to help continue development of games I like as well, but that's not as easy, and if I pay $10 for a model with no gameplay value that's not really rewarding behavior I want.

Anyway, HR looks neat.

Looks like they took my advice!

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...A==--32ffa4e9de5d5749a774bf01e7e1c0b9ac3960cd

Obviously they already had this in the pipeline, but I'll take credit for it anyway.

HR's funding progress is not so optimistic. It trends to not being able to be funded.
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/659943965/human-resources-an-apocalyptic-rts-game/