On Commander Exclusivity

Hey, guys! We wanted to chat a bit about the Commander exclusivity and some of the opinions that we've seen.

The Armalisk Commander, for example, is a retailer-specific Commander for the immediate future (read: it's a timed-exclusive). There's a lot of reasons why you do this kind of thing, one of which is that retailers really like unique content. It's an incentive to carry the game.

Adam's going to hop in here in a second to talk about the biz reasons in a bit more depth, but I wanted to say at the least: as a player of Planetary Annihilation just like all of you, I want game stores to carry the game. It means more people will be exposed to it and potentially play it. I want the game to be successful, in other words, and having it in retail helps.

The Commanders you got during Kickstarter (like the Progenitor) won't be sold in the Armory, btw. I hope that clears this part of the topic up, too.

I'm really happy that you're able publicly clarify this!

I'm personally don't really care, but many other players do so I suppose it's right thing to not keep such important info secret.

We're getting a lot of people questioning the unlockable commanders on the Steam forum and I think you should post something similar over there.

I think the various exclusives are a good idea- my progenitor commander is often a talking point in new games "how did you get that commander" so people are interested.

If they're timed exclusives even better as it will allow people to unlock them down the road as I know quite a few people like the idea of 'collecting' them all

I really like having my special commanders too! (Alpha, Delta, and Progenitor.) It's fun having people be surprised by it!

Good stuff to know.
Also

Well, there's one commander I'll just have to buy when it's available!

The commanders we gave to all kickstarters are meant as something unique and special for those who helped us get the game off the ground. So those will remain unique, however backing the game did not mean that you get all commanders for all time for free.

For the deal with Nordic, we had a particular timeline in mind when we set up that deal, and we took longer than that. Meanwhile, we continued to do big sales and updates to the game, which had the risk of lowering the value of the deal for them. So we suggested they do a retail release of the early access game. To make that a more desirable product, we gave them a windowed exclusive to the TOTALLY AWESOME Armalisk Commander. Windowed exclusives are very common in the industry, and it allows them a guaranteed time to be the only way to get something while still reserving the right for us to sell it later.

Additionally, we knew some people were going to be reluctant to wait for the cool commanders that come in the retail box, so we asked them to put separate codes in the box for the commanders and the game. So if somebody can't wait, they can buy the retail box, cash in on the commanders, and then sell or gift the game code to somebody they would like to play with.

I still think a nice spreadsheet put out and updated by Uber that lists all the possible commanders and who gets them would be a very good thing because at this stage there hasn't been a lot of solid info on who gets what especially when things like retail boxes and whatnot get involved. All we have so far is this, but being done by a community member we are limited in what we know based on what we've been already told plus it'll be an ongoing thing to update as well.

Mike

I don't get why people are confused or upset about exclusive commanders.

Other AAA games have exclusive content all the time. Game altering content.

Commanders are purely cosmetic.

It's not that big of a deal to the players. But is a big deal for Uber from a business perspective.

I'm a huge fan of the Progenitor Commander. It's my favorite looks wise, and it's only available to Kickstarter backers. I'd be really pissed if suddenly Uber sold it for a few bucks because it's supposed to be a reward for backing the game. Something that only backers have.

What about the super cool green Armalisk? Is that gonna be in game at some point?

Is there any update on the commanders promised from the Steam Fall and Winter sales? It has been so long that I don't remember the details, but I think they said everyone in the game before those sales would be getting the commanders too. Are those in the game yet?

@metabolical will Calyx also be a timed exclusive or will he remain restricted to those who bought the collector's edition?

What, like Alpha and Delta? D:

I think the art book.

Delta is not in the CE. @wpmarshall

Aww.. Seriously? That sucks.

*Cries once more about the 200$ he wasted on just the commanders*

No, Marshall's just misinformed if I understand this correctly. Keep in mind that Delta is also a backer reward.