D:OS Original Sin on Early Access

Divinity: Original Sin

Voqar

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Divinity Original Sin hit Steam Early Access - with 24 hours of the posting here where the dev was discussing early access.

Kinda cool...except for the $40 price tag, which according to threads on steam is the release price for the game.

I guess I don't fully understand how community funding (kickstarter) works or how indie pricing works. I would expect that a game funded by the community wouldn't be quite so expensive. Seems a bit...greedy? It's also a bit pricey for an indie title regardless.

This is something that's a bit off with Kickstarter backed games in general. In a classic situation a publisher puts up money, dev makes game, publisher gets money back (more complicated than that but there's an expectation of return on investment). If the game is community funded, the backers don't get money back, they just get a copy of the game. So if the dev sells a bunch of units no top of handing out copies to backers, that would seem to be pure profit, since the KS funding just paid the dev salaries for the development cycle. You want to see devs of good games succeed and be enabled to continue development or develop more...but at one point is this whole thing kind of shady?

I *was* excited for this game but at this point it seems kind of unclean. How does one get the community to fund your development then turn around and charge so much for an indie game?

Plus it's kind of odd that this site has always been all over original sin but hasn't posted anything about it being on steam even though it's a been a few days.

I'll be interested to see what others think of all of this.
 
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From what i have read of previews etc it is shaping up to be a fantastic game but 40$ does seem like alot for a fully crowd funded game.
Then again most larger crowd funded games seem to be around the 35-40$ mark and is more then likely worth it for their intended niche audience.
After all they not going for mass appeal with theese kinds of games and considering most of the audience may allready have bought the game via kick starter there is a limit to how many sales they can reasonably expect.
I prefer to think of it as supporting the future development of those kinds of games.
 
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Since when is Original Sin an indie title? I certainly don't consider Larian to be an indie developer.

Also, wasn't Original Sin in development prior to the crowdfunding campaign?
 
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Since when is Original Sin an indie title? I certainly don't consider Larian to be an indie developer.

Also, wasn't Original Sin in development prior to the crowdfunding campaign?

I think Original Sin was a 'kick-finish'.

And I agree on Larian - I put them in the classic 'small dev / self-publish' category ... but since that has pretty much died a few years back it became all majors and indies. Now we seem to have a middle ground again.
 
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The game is "unclean"? Right.

How that translates into "not fun" or not worth paying a reasonable price for, I don't know.

People wanted to back it - and they did, and they get the game.

Some people want to pay for early access and back it now that they know more about it - they can and they get the game.

Unclean?

Ehm, no.
 
I don't think that the price for the release version should depend on how the game has been funded.

Yes, the gamers fund crowd-funded games (at least partly), thereby take risks and should be rewarded. And that they are. By backing D:OS you could get the game for $25, that's 62,5% of the release price. Reward enough imho.
 
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In my opinion, you shouldn't be paying $40 for an "alpha" which is only a fraction of the whole game. I realize you get the full game on release also, but why in the hell should I pay full price to test the game for them??
 
Dev's are not non profit orginazations they are businesses whose purpose is to make money.

There seems to be a growing population of gamers who want everything for free or as close as possible too it. You hear the words milking, opportunism, exploitation and now "unclean".

Making games is a high risk industry and if you do it right and are successful it should be high reward. Not just making enough to scrap by and try to KS another game.

Should all games then reduce there price once they hit the break even point? That's rediculous. They should be able to make as much as they can and if they end up filthy rich off of making a good game then that's great not "unclean".

Anyway, I look at a game and it's price and if I feel its worth it I buy it. I don't worry how much they were funded in KS or EA or if 9 out of 10 people think they are milking me for there $5 dlc.

If I buy it, enjoy it and feel I got my money's worth why does the rest matter? Did I still get milked, oppertuned, exploited or uncleaned ?
 
In my opinion, you shouldn't be paying $40 for an "alpha" which is only a fraction of the whole game. I realize you get the full game on release also, but why in the hell should I pay full price to test the game for them??

Who is telling you to pay full price to test the game?
 
In my opinion, you shouldn't be paying $40 for an "alpha" which is only a fraction of the whole game. I realize you get the full game on release also, but why in the hell should I pay full price to test the game for them??

*sigh* your not you paying $40 for the game and then you have the CHIOCE to beta test. Or you can just wait and but it On release.

YOUR NOT FORCED TO BUY EARLY ACCESS.
 
*sigh* your not you paying $40 for the game and then you have the CHIOCE to beta test. Or you can just wait and but it On release.

YOUR NOT FORCED TO BUY EARLY ACCESS.

We're just forced to have self control!

Self control is much harder to have than a go of Divinity:OS, when it's one of your most eagerly awaited titles!

Voqar said:
*was* excited for this game but at this point it seems kind of unclean.

It needs a lot of work and probably shouldn't have been rushed into a soft launch, or "alpha" as they have it. But it still has all the potential to be a great game that it ever had. I definitely wasn't expecting it to feel quite as rough as it does.

I feel like with the state the game is in there's absolutely no need for community input cos if you're out of ideas at this point then what the hell are you doing making games. Put out the alpha when you've done everything you can think of then get some feedback. That's all the feedback I could give until they give me a full game to look at.

I've played 15 hours of it anyway and checked out the co-op without many issues. You can see progress has been made already.

I'd still recommend people wait for the full version and avoid the early access.
 
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Half-wondering if Larian shot themselves in the foot with all the Kickstarter promises and have come to realize they're in over their heads in terms of funding/scheduling. And so a new influx of capital would be needed...
 
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Unclean? Now I've heard it all. And no, it wasn't KS funded. Just the last bit to make it bigger and better. And 40 dollars for such a large game? Fair price if you ask me. And since it's on steam you can buy it on sale later if you like.
 
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*sigh* your not you paying $40 for the game and then you have the CHIOCE to beta test. Or you can just wait and but it On release.

YOUR NOT FORCED TO BUY EARLY ACCESS.

When the developer specifically asks, "Your feedback is very important to us, so we'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the balancing, what bugs you encountered, what you think could be improved and what adventures you experienced. The more you tell us, the better we can make Divinity:Original Sin. ", they are asking you to test the game. if someone wants to support them and buy it that's fine. but if they are wanting you to report bugs, etc. they should at least give the gamer some incentive to do so. Such as a lower price. IN MY OPINION. those same 3 words my other post started with.
 
Well Larian thinks Kickstarter beta pledgers and Steam early accessers should be in the same pot and if are buying early, both should pay the same. You don't like? Fine with me. Would also be fine if you did like it.

In the end it's too late to talk about that, the price is set. But this is not the last Larian game ever. So for the next game, suggest them to lower the price for beta testers.
 
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The most hilarious thing about this is how just a few years back there were TONS of gamers who were saying they would PAY extra to gain early access to a game, in other words - they would pay to do testing for the developers for the ability to get in earlier.
 
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When the developer specifically asks, "Your feedback is very important to us, so we'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the balancing, what bugs you encountered, what you think could be improved and what adventures you experienced. The more you tell us, the better we can make Divinity:Original Sin. ", they are asking you to test the game. if someone wants to support them and buy it that's fine. but if they are wanting you to report bugs, etc. they should at least give the gamer some incentive to do so. Such as a lower price. IN MY OPINION. those same 3 words my other post started with.

I know it was your opinion and your entitled to it. I just got a little riled up and yelled but i'm over it. Nothing personal.:)

I don't understand though why you feel your paying $40 to beta test? Your paying $40 for the game. With the option to beta test.

To me it's basically a pre-order but better because I can play it early if I wish.

Not sure why it matters that they say they want your feedback. Of course they want it but your not required to play it early and give it.

This is not WL2 where they are charging a premium for early access, in that scenario I would agree with you 100% that you are paying extra to beta test. That's why I didn't buy it.

You wouldn't pre-order a game and say dang I just paid $40 for nothing because you know you will get the game when it's released....

So why would you pay $40 for EA and say dang I just paid $40 to beta test even though you'll get the finish game on release.
 
The most hilarious thing about this is how just a few years back there were TONS of gamers who were saying they would PAY extra to gain early access to a game, in other words - they would pay to do testing for the developers for the ability to get in earlier.


Yep, I was one of those people.:)

Well maybe not specifically one of the people your talking about but I did say it.:D
 
RPS had an article sometime last week where a developer who said the current model is unsustainable and how he thought moving to a Minecraft/Garry's Mod/Kenshi type format would work best (cheap to more expensive as more features added). This gives early backers/beta testers a discount while giving the developer more money later. Kickstarter seems to be working the same way, early backers get a discount for funding the game, others pay up for final product (though somewhat undermined by eventual Steam sales).

Obviously, Planetary A/WL 2 don't fit model and an argument can be made for early access price between KS and final release price in some cases. I absolutely understand the unwillingness to gamble on KS but expecting to pay the same as people who are seems a bit off to me. Backers take the risk of getting no return on their investment while non-backers get to cash in on a product funded by others. And, the article also points out some obvious flaws with his idea but an interesting idea none the less.
 
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