30$+ Price tag = No thanks

[Lord_thorr]

To me that's just greed and cheap tries to excuse it. If you want a great community and feedback you do like all games do for ages, you do close alpha/beta and choose the most devoted people through a QA form etc. You don't overprice your game, thinking that the people with the most money are the best fan. That's just spitting on people who follow IV since a very long time who gave them advertising, at their level, and supported IV for several game. They don't care about that they just want $30, that's terrible marketing reasoning and is nothing more than a wallet check, in no way is it a quality/devotion check.

[Illanair]

To me that's just greed and cheap tries to excuse it. If you want a great community and feedback you do like all games do for ages, you do close alpha/beta and choose the most devoted people through a QA form etc. You don't overprice your game, thinking that the people with the most money are the best fan. That's just spitting on people who follow IV since a very long time who gave them advertising, at their level, and supported IV for several game. They don't care about that they just want $30, that's terrible marketing reasoning and is nothing more than a wallet check, in no way is it a quality/devotion check.

Opinion - not fact.

[UKBenz]

I chose the $50 package which worked out about £30 for me, quite steep for Alpha access some may say but to me it's helping fund the future development of a game I've been watching for ages. With that in mind it's something different and the genre I enjoy playing so it's a win win situation for me.

[Rkiver]

$50 for the name in game, all the previous games (that I already have) artbook etc.
It's supporting IV. I for one have been doing so since Uplink, and this suits me just fine.

Sure it's not for everyone, but to each to their own.

[steviebuk]

I'm not overly fond of the paid beta/alpha business model, but it is far more forgivable from a studio that will a: actually fix problems found with the software and b: isn't a billion dollar multinational publisher/studio with thousands of employees. If you want to complain about paid betas, take your butt over to the EA forums.

What the hell has that to do with anything I said?

$30 isn't out of line to me.

But if the retail price is less when the game launches, I'll be annoyed, since then it would literally be paying more for the privilege of Alpha testing, and I think that would be unreasonable.

Which it very likely will be.

This is why I want IV to explain the model a bit better, because right now it's unreasonable.

I thought maybe unreasonable but then found out you get the game on release. So essentially it's just like all the main stream games. Like SWTOR that I pre-ordered and Guild Wars 2 that I pre-ordered. But both I was allowed into BETA before release. Seems like the same model here.

[xander]

$50 for the name in game, all the previous games (that I already have) artbook etc.
It's supporting IV. I for one have been doing so since Uplink, and this suits me just fine.

Sure it's not for everyone, but to each to their own.

Ditto, with the following modification:

s/Uplink/Darwinia/g

xander

[Onslow]

Well clearly the sales model has worked for them from looking at that article, but I do think there's a perception (right or wrong) that indie games should be cheaper because of lower development costs. Bastion and Limbo launched at half the price of Prison Architect and other people have already mentioned Minecraft as an example of this.

I would have loved to put some money in to support the project but as I'm currently unemployed I can't afford the $30. Instead I've had to resort to pirating the game and I will have to wait to buy it when I have the money, as I have done with the previous IV games.

[Masochist]

Low price points in indy games has always been a way to get a product out and really get it going without gobs and gobs of cash spent on advertising. With a more well established company like IV such a tactic is not needed and not necessarily best for them. I see no issue with the price point being higher. Less affordable to some people? Naturally. But isn't that life?

I do know that if someone REALLY wants to they can save the money to get the game. I managed to and I make less than $9k a year.

[xander]

Instead I've had to resort to pirating the game and I will have to wait to buy it when I have the money, as I have done with the previous IV games.

"Had" to resort to pirating? Go away. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play games that you can't afford. If you don't have $30, wait for the game to come out (it may be cheaper), or wait for the inevitable Humble Bundle or Steam sale.

xander

[City Builder]

I'm sorry, I'm supporting IV since early sketches of Darwinia and got most of their titles but that price tag for an Alpha funding is just unacceptable in my book. As much as i like IV and management games I'll have to simply pass and wish the game the best.

I'm right there with ya.

I feel that $30 for what this game currently is, as well as I imagine what it WILL be when finished just seems way too high. I fully support indie developers as much as I can afford and have many indie games in my library and most of them were bought in the $9.99 to $19.99 price range.

Going $30.00 is just too much, and I don't say that out of being cheap, my websites make me enough money to afford to blow it on games that I want every single month, but this... Just feels to me that somebody is getting taken advantage of, it's not the developers who are being taken advantage of this time around.

Never the less, I wish them well and hope that the game is able to support them in their future endeavors, I'll wait until this is in final release and see what features are fully in there and see what the final price tag is, if it's what I consider appropriate for the game then I'll gladly give them my money.

OF COURSE... Putting out a playable demo of the alpha might help to move those that are sitting on the fence into paying customers of P-A.

Oh, and this is my 1ST post since registering with them more than 5 years ago. I guess you might be able to tell that I felt it was something I needed to vent on. Those that know me from other sites know what a chatty kathy I am on forums.

[Onslow]

Instead I've had to resort to pirating the game and I will have to wait to buy it when I have the money, as I have done with the previous IV games.

"Had" to resort to pirating? Go away. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play games that you can't afford. If you don't have $30, wait for the game to come out (it may be cheaper), or wait for the inevitable Humble Bundle or Steam sale.

xander

I was refering to needing to pirate the game in order to play it, not as a general compulsion.

I do intend to wait until the price comes down or I can afford it, like you suggest. But in the meantime I don't feel like I'm robbing Introversion of a sale by torrenting it if I can't afford to buy it anyway.

[Hessen]

Compared to the other indie games on show at Eurogamer today, PA looks ridiculously miles ahead of the curve.

[xander]

I do intend to wait until the price comes down or I can afford it, like you suggest. But in the meantime I don't feel like I'm robbing Introversion of a sale by torrenting it if I can't afford to buy it anyway.

That is not waiting until you can afford it. That is pirating the game, full stop. Retroactively paying for something (assuming that you ever do pay for it) after you have obtained it illegally does not negate the original violation. Waiting until you can afford it would entail NOT PLAYING it until you could afford it. That's what "waiting" means.

xander

[mik3k]

Well, even though I think $30 is high, this is an alpha which should be a free demo (at least to loyal customers), I went ahead and bought (preordered) the game.

I think very highly of Introversion and own multiple copies of all their games. I think this could have been handled differently. I think it is a cop-out to say $30 keeps the great mass of undersireable gamers away. These gamers allowed you to continue making games all these years. They allowed you to work on a game for a couple of years that you ended up throwing in the garbage bin before starting Prison Architect.

But in the end, Introversion has the right to do this any way they want.

[xander]

Well, even though I think $30 is high, this is an alpha which should be a free demo (at least to loyal customers),

Why? Why should the alpha be free? I would not object to a free alpha, but I see no reason why it *should* be free, even to "loyal customers."

I think it is a cop-out to say $30 keeps the great mass of undersireable gamers away.

No one from IV has made that statement. I believe that the official party line is that it keeps IV in business until they finish the game.

xander