Planetary Annihilation Beta for $40! (Today only)

I think I understand your mindset. People who pre-ordered at $40 should feel good because somehow Uber having that money in the bank 6 months ago rather than today somehow helped them even though we'll never really know that or be able to experience that in any way.

Let's be clear. UberNet isn't a charity organization. They're a business. You don't give money to a business to feel good about yourself. You do it because they offer a good or service that you want. When they undercut you, you have a right to feel screwed and move on. Maybe you never give your money to that company again, maybe you give them another chance. Who can say.

You give money to charities to feel good about yourself. You see the people who need your help, you see them get the help they need, and you feel good about it. You benefit from that. That's a charity. It's different.

The problem isn't to do with the kickstarter, we can forget that part.

After the kickstarter ended Uber let people preorder the game. You could choose $90, $60 or $40 (for alpha, beta, and the finished game). Some people went for the $40. They could wait, but they would rather preorder and help the game out. Now they find out they could have waited and got a better deal before there preorder is fulfilled. Can you understand why they might be upset.

Now I am not saying Uber shouldn't have taken advantage of the deal, but to make it fair for the $40 preorders, they should bumb them up the the $60 packet.

It's ultimately meaningless because we could have just not donated, been cynical, and waited until after the game was released. We could have waited for this sale. It's meaningless because there was no benefit to pre-ordering at the $40 level.

How did we get no benefits? Because the benefit to pre-ordering is that you get a cheaper price or some DLC or something. In this case, we get none of that. A sale came up with more benefits that undercut us.

How does it actually hurt? It hurts because not only were there no benefits to pre-ordering, we have to wait an additional month to get access too. If we hadn't pre-ordered, we would have access now...

I know its hard for some of you to understand when you've been playing the game for several months already and it feels like the game is already out, but it matters.

I don't know that they can bump us up to that level though. It wouldn't be fair for the $60 backers really. Their beta period would be cut short. It might also be unfair to the $20 kickstarter folks too. Do they get bumped up as well? It's really a mess.

I've stated this several times before and I'll state it again. UberNet has already recognized that this is a problem and that they made an oversight. I don't expect them to do anything at all about this. Ultimately, yes, I can wait. I don't think Uber intended to undercut us. It's just a mistake. The people in this forum, however, don't seem to understand why this is an issue. That's a different problem.

You know what would be cool though. If instead of just bumping us up to the $60 level, why don't they take $1 or $5 out of our $40 pre-orders and give it to the charities? Or heck. Give me the opportunity to give $20 to upgrade my package and give the $20 to the charities. There must be something positive we can make out of this mixup.

It's not just the $40 pre-orders who have been undercut by this though - $60 pre-orders have been undercut as well. So if Uber were to 'compensate' $40 pre-orders by granting them access to the beta, what compensation should be offered to those who paid $60 to get into the beta when they could have only paid $40?

Ultimately, I do see where you're coming from, and if this were a different game studio, and a different game, I might agree with you.

As it is, I'm not that upset about being $40 short myself, because of the specifics of this situation. You're right that Uber isn't a charity, but I'll repeat my earlier point that this game has been developed on a shoestring budget compared to nearly any other RTS ever. We've seen in other threads that people get concerned that the game may be released unfinished due to time (and budget) constraints. Having more revenue flowing into Uber, particularly at this stage of the development process, in particular is very reassuring.

I just can't get myself to be too upset about this. It's a business decision, a smart one at that, which will help to make sure that the game we all get at the end of the day is complete, polished and the game that we want.

I recently upgraded my $40 pre-order to the $60 tier.

Way I see it, as long as I get a game worth the money I paid then I have no right to complain.

Sure, I could have avoided pre-ordering it to see if any deals appeared but that's just life. No point getting butthurt about it. The sooner you bought, the earlier Uber could use the money to improve the game.

Truth be told, by paying $60 for a beta key I got access before anyone using the Humble Store did.

The smartest guys are those who paid $15 (or $20) in the Kickstarter and waited patiently for release.

However, this deal will bring in revenue for the game which will, in turn, improve the final product that we've already paid for. So it's win/win.

The thing is that the $60 pre-orders have already got into the beta (and have for some time). The $40 humble bundle deal is the $60 pre-order option.

Its silly for the $60 pre-orders to be upset, the price of a game always goes down. But the situation with the $40 pre-order is unique. They are losing out for pre-ordering the game. Uber should feel bad for alienating the $40 pre-order group and I hope they do something about it.

^ This 100% Very well written.

Totally agreed.

Welp, according to the likes, my opinion is in the minority. I've defended Uber's decision as best I can - let's see what they have to say.

I do see the point in this opinion, and to a certain degree, you're right. I myself joined in the Steam early access £40 ($60) group, and haven't regretted it still. I'm also happy that more revenue flow in to Uber, because this way, in the end, we all win, by getting a better game. I completely missed the kickstarter, but I'm happy to be contributing in any way I can.

The only other thing I can say, is that I'd be a bit angry myself if I did pre-order the game at $40 ages ago, would still be waiting to gain access to it, and suddenly this went up, for the exact price I paid. So I do understand where those who are upset coming from. I myself would have put this deal down to $50 or $45 though, to avoid this.

I think the thing to remember is that, whilst the deal was for charity, UBER is still running a business, and has to work out the best way to increase awareness/consumer base/revenue. That said, they have to be careful that all of this isn't at the cost of goodwill, which can be a powerful thing to abuse. Cheer up, we still all get the game eventually, and BETA's are RUBBISH anyway

There isn't anything wrong with Uber making money and helping charity. All they need to do bump the current $40 pre-orders up to the $60 option and give them a beta key.

If they don't then they give the impression that they don't care once they have the money, and that its better not to pre-order games from Uber in the future.

That's probably a bit extreme. A one day mistake shouldn't be enough to force them to let all of us pre-order customers in now. Beta is for testing, and the people that paid for beta are more likely to report bugs and help out with development. Filling up the beta with people that aren't interested in supporting development doesn't sound productive to me.

Beta must be coming up on the half-way point pretty soon, and I think dropping the price to $50 for beta (Or a $10 upgrade) in the near future might be a good compromise. Uber could drop the price and make it easier for people to get into the game, while still making a little extra money.

Yes a full upgrade would be a bit much. I don't expect them to do that because it would undercut the $60 pre-order folks. Like you said, it was just a one day mistake. The charity event itself wasn't a mistake. Just overlooking the fact that some people would feel betrayed was a mistake. I think we can forgive them.

Either way. The lesson learned from this mix up still stands. Never pre-order several months in advance. Pre-order one day before release.

When you pre-ordered you decided to pay ahead of time because you wanted the game when officially released. You will still get the game when it is officially released. Therefore you are not being screwed as you suggested. You altered your expectations when you discovered that a better deal surfaced after you pre-ordered and realized that you could have taken advantage of it if you had waited. So indeed this may be a lesson that sometimes being patient can lead to a better deal. But again, you will get what you agreed to so you are not being screwed.

Wrong. My expectations, as with any pre-order or kickstarter, is that the prices on packages won't drop until after-release. That's one of the incentives to pre-order. You lock in a lower price. If companies start selling pre-orders and then drop their prices for those pre-orders again before the release date, people will stop pre-ordering very quickly.

Just imagine if you pre-order a game at $40, and a few months before release the company offers the pre-order at $40 again but includes some exclusive feature that you can't have. Would you really not be ticked off about that? It's a complete betrayal of trust with the pre-order system. Sure the company can do whatever they want, but they will tick off their customers if they decide to go ahead with that.

Star Citizen is an example of how to do pre-orders and pledges right. At any time during development you can trade in the pre-order bonuses for the price you paid, and you can use that to get any new features or items or offers that they add to their pre-order store later. People who pledged during the initial campaign get benefits that the new people don't get. Period. A new pledger today will never have access to the items that earlier backers get, at least not at the same or lower price.

That's how it's done.


EDIT: The one-day sale is over, and the price is bumped up to $50. Cool. No issues there for anybody. The $60 pre-orders are already more than halfway through their beta, the $40 people never wanted Beta at any price above $40 anyway, so everybody is happy. It still sucks that we missed out on the one-day sale at $40 because we locked in early, but that's just the way it is. Never pre-order. Lesson learned.

Mechwarrior Online taught me to never jump in too early fund a kickstarter or founders program again I will not

So was there any resolution on this? It's back up for $40 again, strangely... I don't seem to have any keys that I can use.

I like unicorns....