John Comes - Planetary Annihilation: The Journey of a Kickstarter

Good read

https://gamedevdaily.io/planetary-annihilation-the-journey-of-a-kickstarter-75f831eb30ce#.dn96c4x3q

It would be nice to see an rts that truly surpasses supreme commander one of these days. Yes PA is next-gen, but the scope and depth to be found within its gameplay is fairly shallow in comparison to supcom, and many other rts's out there for that matter. Well, I'm still young so I got plenty of time left in my life to wait (hopefully). Lucky me.

@scathis, on the off chance you still venture to these forums, that was a nice write up.

It's interesting to hear from your side of things about everything that happened with PA / HR / Titans. I personally can see where you (Uber as a whole) was coming from, and I'm not really sure what more you could have done.

I for one sincerely hope the experience wasn't too distressing and would love to see a new RTS title from Uber in the future when things calm down. You'd have my support again- I pledged at Beta level and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made

Yeah, I also hope they are not done with PA.

I was not aware how much PA development was expanded and driven by unexpected funding (8x over!), instead of the budget being more fixed and driven by the project plan which something i'm more used to seeing in other spaces. I joined late beta. Wonder what Uber would say about how this approach has been better (or maybe worse) than the traditional model.

Unfortunately, some of the write up will be perceived as an official vindication of the opinions held by many disgruntled people (legit or not). It could have been worded differently, and some sensitive details left out, but i personally appreciated the honest reflection from someone obviously acting in good faith.

Interesting read!

While it was nice reading this again....I can hear them comeing.... the titans should be free madness..

*crawls back into secrete underground spaghetti bunker*

NO ONE IS ALLOWED IN UNLESS YOU GOT SNACKS!

I think it's the most important point is there:

@scathis you clearly have a good skill of storytelling. Thanks for this one.

SXX!!!!

@scathis worked on BFME? One of my favourite strategy games!

None of what I read was surprising, perhaps barring the actual costs of developing the game. I always forget how much money is put in that we, the consumers, don't see. Lotta pressure on the developers to get that money together.

A good piece from a developer I like hearing from. Great stuff.

and i estimated like 2 to 3 times for the basegame .. i suppose it´s 4 times with Titans ...
so 8 to 9 Million? ... like ... .. FML do you Need a budget if you want to go for that scope ..


and we don´t even have factions nor a storyscripted campaign

ohai <3

This was a really interesting article to read. A roller-coaster is exactly how I would describe PA's path from conception through to completion. I'm really looking forward to the documentary when that gets released, because there have been moments throughout development that I am dying to hear more about from the perspective of the guys at Uber.

I feel privileged to have been involved as I have in Planetary Annihilation. The chance to interact and work with some of the minds that have brought me many of my favourite games throughout childhood and beyond is something I could only have dreamed of a few years ago.

I've said a few times that I intend to sit down and write at length about my own experiences of PA's development from the perspective of an ardent fan and from someone extremely heavily involved with the community throughout the development process. I intend to make good on that in 2016; it's been far too large a part of my life not to have it recorded in some meaningful way, and I hope that that perspective may prove interesting both to the guys at Uber (past and present) and potentially to other game developers considering Kickstarters of their own.

SupCom budget was $11.5 million and this was more than 10 years ago.
So no surprise that PA's budget is around $8-9 million.

Lol. Why would Titans take 1/4 of the development time? They probably spent more time developing custom commanders which was a complete waste of money. Titans was a cash cow, a ploy to make current players pay more money to keep playing.

You mean like every sequel ever made? I mean on this logic, it's wrong for a film studio to expect paying for sequels. It'd be wrong for a car manufacturer to charge for a new model when 'i paid for the last model'.

Also given yet more layoffs at uber I have a feeling titans isn't the cash cow you think it is. Laying good people off is not a decision any developer will take lightly.

I'm sure custom commanders took more time, but that was a kickstarter promise, so not a waste of time.

Good or bad this is standard practice in game development except for huge companies that always have plenty of projects or enough money to keep paying to employees that not currently work on any project. Though people that decide to work for small companies aware that once project completed there will be layoffs.

There is a time and a place for trolling, @perfectdark.

Sadly, you have yet to learn this art.

Yeah please let's not go into those arguments again, I think we all know who has what stance on all this already.