Should something be done about Steam PR? Suggestions

Steam was just in no way, shape or form ready for a $90 price-tag. Uber's reasoning will not be considered by the vast majority there. No amount of logic and reasoning will. Steam users are simply too used to getting their games cheap, especially Indy games, and further the idea that you pay less for alpha instead of more(opposed to kickstarter's model), is still firmly entrenched.

So what can be done to mitigate the ongoing pr disaster?

Possible suggestions:

Get Steam to agree to list all packages on their store (if this is impossible, please at least pin a link in the forum)

Simply scrap early access until Beta, $60 is expensive but at least there is precedent (company of heroes 2).

And finally

Charge flat beta rate for all of early access and figure out some other way to compensate previous alpha backers (perhaps credit for the eventual premium mods or expacs).

For the record I am an alpha backer myself, and honestly I prefer the game's public image survive rather than the extra cash I spent on Kickstarter.

Thoughts?

I think we should let them cry about it. There is no such thing as bad publicity and it helps to weed out the idiots.

There is nothing stopping people from pre ordering the finished game for only $40 and nothing forcing people to buy the alpha for $90.

As much as I agree with you, logic doesn't work. It doesn't matter that we are in the right, or that people could just wait and buy the game cheaper. There is a witch-hunt going on right now. Somehow steam users have perceived this price as both an insult to them(I dunno why) and an implied threat that if this game succeeds very expensive pricing models will somehow become the new norm(that in particular I see them using as a rallying call). If the majority of the user-base on steam adopts a negative attitude towards PA, then we all suffer for it.

I know insular communities like this tend to react defensively to external threats like this, but in the best interest of this game's future, I'm prepared to set aside my pride and even knowing that we are essentially in the right, compromise. I hope Uber sees it the same way.

If left the way it is, the flow of negativity will not stop and I worry about what residual effects that will have when the game enters beta and then is released.

Replacing the $90 Steam alpha access with a $40 pre order might help but I worry that doing so would kill all the free publicity. However the extra sales that this would probably generate might make up for this.

The term "no bad publicity" is tremendously overrated. We don't need this kind of publicity, we don't want it. It's not good for the game. Maybe getting a crap-ton of negative attention when you are an unknown is good for getting your name out there, but PA had good publicity and this is just tarnishing it.

I also don't think Uber should charge less than $60 for early access. Charging $40 means they somehow have to compensate previous backers alot more, and the steam pre-release can still be marketed and sold as a "deluxe" early-access edition with goodies and bonuses to justify the extra expense.

No it really isn't.

All of this "bad" publicity will magically change to to "good" publicity as the beta starts and once the game is released for $40-$50. The people who post on Steam forums or the PA forums are a tiny segment of the wider group and are not a representative sample of the community as a whole.

The early access on Steam is already being marketed as a special edition with bonus extras because that is what it is. It says so on the Steam page.

Check Steam a week or 2 weeks from now. If the furore is still at the same pace, there is an issue. If it's all quietened down to just those people who have actually paid for the early access, then I don't think anything further needs to be done.

A lot of this will be people seeing "ZOMG $90!" on reddit or kotaku or Rock Paper Shotgun and deciding it'll be fun to jump on the indignation bandwagon. Internet righteousness rarely lasts more than 3 days, by that point 90%+ will have lost interest and only a few people with a real axe to grind will be left.

I would be willing to bet my spare retail key (which is already promised to a friend) that 95% of the people posting on Steam have not purchased PA yet, and just want to point that out to people "because $90 is too much for an alpha". You can only say that so many times before you get bored and move on

I think the amount of bad PR this is causing is huge.
Uber doesn't need to sell alpha for 90$ i believe. Even tho because I think there will not so many people buying it.

I suggest to:

1. entirely close alpha sell
2. make alpha and beta price the same as the final price

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJtMNSZ5ZfY

Please watch what another had posted and take offense!

Then go here.

http://store.steampowered.com/

And look at the top sellers.

I feel it's better to say that bad PR is free PR.

The PR needs to come from Steam Early Access, which is designed for this but is relatively new.




"Pricing of individual games may change over time
Some developers will start by offering a discount for buying early while others will charge a premium, depending on their goals and the level of commitment and feedback they desire from Early Access customers."

From Steam Early Access FAQ

I feel there needs to be clear that the $90 price tag is just one of the pricing tiers. Unfortunately there isn't a way to offer each edition of the game through steam, but perhaps through the store page description and images it could be made clearer (maybe even links to different editions on the ubernet store).

Thankfully every game news website understands the price is set to $90 because it's an early access game and that the retail version will be cheaper, it's just that there's a bunch of people crying over this because they don't understand it. However, they possibly don't understand it because the situation hasn't been made clear enough to them, I know there's a big blue 'early access' description on the store page but it doesn't seem to be cutting it.

Wonder if there's a way to get (read: force) steam to allow this (even if it takes a while)

I would say:
"Due to high demand and limited supply of digital copies we raise the price by 42$. For the first 42 buyers we throw a set of wlan cables "digital edition" into the mix. "

that would probably longer than time left until release, at which point the discussion, at least for this game, is over anyhow.

It would matter if vocal communities mattered in the slightest. PA is top selling at #3 right now, and look at any boycott group on steam and you'll see how most of them are playing the very game they're supposed to be boycotting.

Not to mention that all of the articles I've seen online that cover this 'controversy' have supported Uber's Decision.

I don't see the Bad PR to be honest, what I see are Bad Reactions.

Mike

Idiots on the internet love to find something to hate and shout about.

to be fair, it'd probably be #1 if the $40 preorder was allowed to be listed

Let's remember to keep this in mind, echoing my plea in the Steam Stickied Topic.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/233250/discussions/0/864970587226651407/#c864970667981432404.

Where are we going to find a game that scales up as real-life technology advances?

EDIT: whoops, wrong post of mine. fix'd.

I think it is bad PR

I've talked to some of my friends (who hate Uber for their choice of pricing it that way) and they're waiting eagerly for Metacritic to re-enable voting so that they can bash the game.

Just because people stopped posting on the steam forum (probably because every 2nd thread gets auto-locked by a mod) doesn't mean that people "forget" their anger.
Only the release in December will show how much Uber has damaged their own reputation.