Greedy Uber Entertainment?

You are making people pay 20 extra for beta and 50 extra for alpha?

What the hell is going on? You guys disgust me, I have never seen such a greedy company before.

You make people PAY to test and help you polish the game for release?

It's not like paying extra to help fund a game was completely optional or anything.

I...what?

Since you must be a backer, and realize that they have absolutely no publisher whatsoever, are funding this on their own, and used beta and alpha access as part of their kickstarter, for a non F2P game anyway...

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Some people just have no idea how much work goes into making a game

We've had a topic like this before. recently in fact :?

I wasn't around at the opening of the Backer Forums... I wonder if anyone was complaining at that time... or is this a new thing. Anyone know if this is a new thing?

Uber would be greedy if they were taking more than they were offered. Since funding them in entirely optional, I wouldn't call them greedy. If you have the money and want to pay, then pay. If you don't want to pay, or can't afford it... that's not Uber's fault.

I'm sorry but you're being really juvenile with this thread. I've seen one before too.

They are offering you a choice to do something by making you pay to do so. This not only helps them make a better game (something you want? ;s) but also it would be odd offering it as a reward to higher giving backers and then just giving it to all backers anyway, if you feel the prices are too much just wait and don't pay.

You decide if it's worth it. There's no point complaining about it if other people are quite happy to pay.

You just wait, try to focus on something else and enjoy yourself. In about a years time you will have probably have forgotten you were "disgusted" about this.

According to Kickstarter the access to the backers forum (private discussion community) was reserved to those who pledged at least 40$. The alpha key was reserved to those who pledged 90$, that is exactly 50$ more. At that time nowhere was said that after the end of kickstarter other people would have an opportunity for obtaining alpha or beta keys. All of this was well known even before the project started, and all backers implicitly agreed with that simply by the fact that they gave money to Uber.

I pledged 40$ during kickstarter and then upgraded to Galactic edition, and I got a discount for being a becker. So I will receive an alpha key for less money than the 90$ backers spent, even if I will not receive the Alpha and Progenitor commanders.
I cannot see any real disparity with what was promised almost eight months ago.

Dear for-profit enterprise,

Why are you demanding money for goods and/or services?

Signed,
Someone who doesn't understand capitalism.

There are two reasons, mostly already covered in this thread for the beta and alpha pricing.

First, and the most important, is that it's what the levels were determined at, or in the case of beta a little bit higher, during the Kickstarter. It's unfortunate that you don't like it.

Second, this means that, for the most part, we have very interested, motivated alpha and beta testers that are also eager to help not only the project succeed, but have a direct hand in the release product. They will also get their hands on the game, in various states, multiple months prior to release, which.. apparently some people really like that thought and think it's worth the premium.

I'm leaving this thread unlocked, because even though while your accusations may be harsh, you're criticizing our business model and our development, which frankly is fair game. Have at it. We'll respond, as always, to what we can, but we won't go into detail into our overall business strategy. Or at least I won't. Not my call to do so.

So you think the price is too high. By your same logic, you'd be just as "greedy" by asking that they lower the price.

There is no such thing as a "fair price." What is fair to you isn't fair to somebody else. All value is subjective. You either agree with Uber and pay what they ask, or negotiate a new price, or you don't exchange at all. Simple as that. Remember that they don't owe you video games.

Unless you paid them for video games.

Might be more accurate to say that they don't owe you Alpha and Beta Access......unless you pay for it, and you are not in any way forced to do so. If you feel the monetary cost does not properly reflect what you think you get in return, you are in no way forced to pay it.

Mike

Personally, I saw it as a great opportunity. If you have the money to throw at it, you're giving more money to help develop a better game. In publisher developed games, you're just paying the money for a game that's already done. Not only that, but the opportunity to be involved in such an awesome and revolutionary game, to help give feedback and aid in the development of it, is just plain cool.

Ok, Im not the most vocal of people....
I usually sit in the background and just read what is going on..

However, I do like being in on the ground floor, and having regular paid for access to alpha and beta on games that looked interesting to me...

I have played and owned every version of TA, and SC. Im play with game development in my spare time, and very much enjoy seeing a game go together and seeing it evolve over the alpha and beta period...

I consider it money well spent, as it give me insights and research into my own hobbies, and early access to games I enjoy.

I really hope PA turns out to be the games it looks like it will be, and with the support and insight on these forums, which will no doubt increase with alpha access, it should be a game we can all enjoy and play for many years....

"u better shut ur mouth u cheeky little runt i swer to christ i'll hook u in the gabber m8" /chav :lol:

They have no publisher. And unlike Bohemia with Arma 3 alpha, they dont have millions of extra copies of an old game being sold because of a simple mod. The money goes directly to funding development costs. Don't want to play alpha? Then don't pay for it. This isn't some MMORPG where 'open beta' is really the free demo for the public. Alpha is going to involve alot of polishing and work from devs and testers.

If Uber is greedy, what are these other huge companies compared to them? You know which ones I'm talking about.

I paid over $100 without even thinking about alpha or beta access, I just wanted the friggin' game to be made. What you consider "greed" is in this case a personal opinion.

LOL.

'nuff said

It seems you haven't noticed what's going on these days. This is a trend that has been going on for quite a while now. With most developers and companies. Hiring testers is a thing of the past and now people pay to work. Although it's much more like playing and having fun than working, i think. The trend has taken on some ridiculous aspects too, i think, but if it helps us get the kinds of games we want, i don't see a problem. Mostly because as many pointed out, paying for a lot of things is optional, and we can actually get things cheaper these days. I think paying for the non-essential things as donations more than anything else.

Actually, Uber, as well as many companies, can sell or even give away as contest rewards the alpha versions of games for players to play and give feedback on, YET they still keep 1-2 paid testers as well.

The people who feel "rewarded" by playing alpha for "fun" are stress-testing the game, doing testing of things on a mass scale and across many different hardware/software setups. The paid testers do more systematic testing of the game, seeing exact details on what breaks the game, why it breaks it, and possible solutions, as well as ways to duplicate the problem occuring so it can be retested and confirmed as fixed.

I really haven't seen anything about this project that makes me suspect greed on Uber's part. If anything I think the shock of just how balls-out we went in support of the project is only just wearing off. Having done a Kickstarter project that made stupid amounts of money over and above what we expected to make, it's a gratifying feeling but kind of overwhelming, too - "Oh f--k, now I have to deliver that". I hope that when PA is finally done you guys can all go out and get serious, deep massages. You're going to need it.

It's also pretty clear that there's a direct relationship between money we spend and how pretty the finished game is going to look. I'm okay with that. I was enthused about the kind of game and environments that we saw in the trailer and so far the test renders have blown it out of the water. I consider my $50 pledge money absolutely well spent and if I had more to give I'd be giving it.