They did a kickstarter and the game is in early access. Does this mean that is will continue to go up in price? Isn't that the point of early access, to start off low and build up as the game is built.By this logic, the game will be about $120 by the time it is done.

I think this is exploitation of your fans, granted if you are dumb enough to get exploited, then they deserve the money.

U.S its 40 for the basic package without early access.

Yeah, that's crazy. It's up on Steam in Europe for 83 Euro. What is up with that?

If you just take a look at the Kickstarter you can see that they were offering the full game for $20 (which is a "Kickstarter price" but the finished game shouldn't be much more expensive). That's a lot lower than $90. I got it for $15 because I got in early.

They're not doing the Minecraft model of "buy the beta cheap now and you'll always get the newest versions, even when the price goes up!" This is completely different.

They're kinda going about it in an odd way, they're not trying to exploit their fans so much as they're trying to make those who kickstarted feel as though they got their money worth. They're actually planning to drop the price of the game with each iteration ($90 Alpha and onwards, $60 Beta and onwards, and finally $40 on release, or at least close enough to get the idea across).

It's a really, really weird of doing things, and I would argue it might not have been the smartest move, but most people that are freaking out about are doing so out of ignorance.

The early access price is at the same level it cost to gain early access via the kickstarter. They did it this way to not 'cheat' those who backed the kickstarter at the $90+ level. If you actually read what they've said this is explained. The price will get cheaper most likely as time goes forward, and won't be $90 at launch.

It's the same price as Alpha access on their Kickstarter. The game should be "out" in December for $20.

Huh, well I guess the smartest move is just to wait. I think its rather silly to pay $90 for something broken and featureless, then wait a year and have something complete and working for almost half the price.

Also at this point its early enough that the game isn't feature complete yet so being able to give back ideas and have thr developers listen to them is part of the package here. This is for people who want in early and want to be able to help shape the direction the game takes.

It's explained on the product page. The price will drop down.

Our pricing for this stage of early access was determined by our Kickstarter. The stages of our early access for ALL users, which was determined during our Kickstarter, is:

June through August: $90 for early alpha access, during the time where we're still locking down features and making tweaks to the flow of the game. This access is permanent access - you will be able to play through alpha, beta and on through retail. (Galactic Edition Equivalent with all addons)

September through November: $60 for beta access. The game will be much more complete at this time, but with a lot of balance work still to do and more optimizations to get it working on as many systems as possible. Same as above, this is beta and turns into a retail version on launch. (Warfare edition equivalent with all addons)

Retail: December 2013 (Combat edition equivalent)

This is the pricing determined over a year ago. Our Kickstarter set these levels, and while we understand people may not like it, it's the decision we had to make.

But that is the schedule if you want to wait until the price drops to a level you're more comfortable with.

Thanks,

Garat / Marc Scattergood

Producer, Uber Entertainment

Weren't people applauding the "set your own price" model? So, there you have it.

Look at you, half expecting people to actually read! :P

But yeah, that's the gist of it.
Nothing fishy or scummy or weird about it, really.

What's really strange is that Metacritic allows reviews and scores of an Alpha to go as reviews for the Final Product

Give us yer moneys !!

If it works for them... Can't really argue. They set a price and people buy in or not

Give us yer moneys !!

If it works for them... Can't really argue. They set a price and people buy in or not

Sure I am looking forward for this game but I will wait with buying it because of the price.

I think it is a good idea. I believe the idea is if you have to pay that much for early access you are really into the game and will provide constructive feedback to improve the game. It also weeds out the people who would not understand that the product is an alpha and not the final product. Since the alpha is a small group of people and the development team can handle the problems and issues that will arise from that small group.

This staged price drop approach will allow the developer focus on the most important issues and not be overwhelmed by the user base or frivolous problems by an uninformed gamer.

I don't really have a problem with them setting the price this way, but I also won't be buying the game until it's done. Over the years, I've found that I'm not a good beta tester. That said, I am really looking forward to this. I liked the first Supreme Commander a lot, and I like what I've seen of Planetary Annihilation's style. I could use a new large scale RTS.

@rustysanderke: Oh, well I guess that makes sense.

As people stated above, it has it's reasons (which are reiterated on the product page itself), and I honestly think you're better off buying it in the uber store because of all the extra stuff you'll get with it, none of which comes with the steam early access package as far as I know. Had things like exclusive commanders, etc. not come with the package, I don't know if I would have gotten a package with test phase access. It IS expensive (although I had an early backer discount when I upgraded to alpha access) there's no denying that, but having said that, Uber is running a really tight show when it comes to testing. We're seeing daily, if not more frequent builds and improvements to the client, and people are allowed to document the whole thing via youtube or whatever they want. Games against human opponents were functioning more or less out of the box, so it's not your stereotypical totally borked alpha either.

Yeah as what other folks have said.

It makes alot of sense. This is super alpha, if your big enough of a fan and want this to work. Your gonna dump $90.

These people are going to be super into it and play it like mad, play testing this hard! A game like this needs hard play testing and a vocal feedback. For $90 your going to give feed back.

The guy that buys in at $15 he isnt guaranteed to give feedback, hell he isnt guaranteed to play it for more than 15mins he might says it terrible at Alpha when at Beta or finished he would love it.

So I think this is smart do it in reverse.

And what happens if other developers decide to start charging over 70 euros for early access? Are we really willing to have a future where all the games cost this much?

Because this wont be the only early access game priced this high if this particular model proves to be a succesful one.

@nardak said:

Then don't pay for those either. This is just an extension of the offer made during the Kickstarter. You don't have to pay that much, and they won't be expecting many people to do so.

They'd probably love to drop the price on this (because they'd almost certainly make more money at a lower price point), but they can't do so without giving up their integrity and disrespecting their early backers. They're actually going out of their way to do the right thing here.

Doing this only makes sense if you only want dedicated players to help you with the game (Prison Architect and Planetary Annihilation style).

Making it expensive isn't to make more money. It's to raise the bar for entry.

A kickstarter project and a steam early access shouldnt have anything to do with each other. The people who pledged cash made those pledges knowing that the game might not even come out. They are fans who are willing to fund a project in order that it hopefully gets made.

People on steam on the other hand want to get value for their cash. We pay the early access price because we are interested about the game and want to try it out.

Paying 82 euros for early access is a tad overpriced as there might be a high chance that we arent even interested about the released version of the game. I dont really care what the kickstarters gave the game. Some backers have given certain games over 10000 dollars. Should we also honor them and pay the same amount for early access?

Then don't buy the game early if you think there are a high chance that you won't like the game. Setting such a high price is great way to get people like you to not buy the game early and instead get people who really wants to help out testing and giving feedback on the game.

If they start selling a version on Steam with the $10k pledge tier rewards then sure.

How do you not see the mountain of shit they would (rightly) get if they offered alpha access for $90 during the Kickstarter and then turned around and sold alpha access for $30 or whatever on Steam? If you want alpha access, pay what the Kickstarters paid. If you don't want to, that's perfectly ok too.

I'm starting to suspect that Steam Early Access might be a misnomer, because most, if not all of the games on it seem to be in the testing phase. It's not just 'hey, you get to play this game early by paying a bit extra'. True, not all of them cost this much, but that is a consequence of the pricing structure they set up during their pledge period. You can't go around selling a package to your early backers, the people that made this game possible, and then give them the finger by putting largely the same offer on Steam for much less.

What should really be discussed is the commodification of the testing phase as such; why are we paying money to test a product? This is especially pertinent to PA as it is offered on Steam, as it does not come with the goodies Uberstore buyers get.

This is the price which people payed for early access on kickstarter, which as someone who supported the kickstarter(but not the 90$ tier) the correct choice as a developer to do. If they had charged any less then that would have been them spitting in the eye of those who supported their kickstarter to get early access.

The Early Access initiative exists for the sole purpose of selling games that are in the testing phase. Whether that's something that makes sense for consumers is another question, I suppose, but it's certainly not subverting the purpose of Early Access. From the FAQ:

What is Early Access?

Get immediate access to games that are being developed with the community's involvement. These are games that evolve as you play them, as you give feedback, and as the developers update and add content.

I know that, you know that, most of us here know it, but judging by the general response to some games in the programme, I doubt it's getting across in general. Regardless, the current pricepoint of the Alpha is because of something they can't, or at least aren't willing to go back on. Doing so would be more damaging to their PR than the pricepoint on steam at this point.

It's very rough on the edges but the few things that are accessible are actually well-made. You can play up to 4 players on a randomly-generated planet; pretty cool for an alpha!

I wouldn't mind if the early-access price was cheaper* however I do mind when someone says that early-backing is another thing and the price should be lower. Guess what... without the early-backers there wouldn't have been a Planetary Annihilation so give them some credits and be patient. Besides... it's just an alpha and its only purpose is bug reporting (not trying the game to make judgement).

* I backed up the project because of the passion of the team and the insane idea they had... On Friday, I tried out of curiosity; in the end I am not a RTS guy but this game has a looooot of potential.