Wasteland 2 - Brian Fargo Interview @ Eurogamer

Myrthos

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Eurogamer chatted with Brian Fargo on Wasteland 2, Crowdfunding and Fallout. This bit is about the Early Access of Wasteland 2.

While Fargo says Wasteland 2 sales haven't "been anything crazy", he seems happy with how things have gone so far. The real indicator of success, he says, will come from sales of the game once it leaves Early Access. "Not a lot of people typically sign up for Early Access for a single-player game, that I've seen, and for that price," he says. "Most people are content on waiting. Most of the comments are, we can't wait to see it when it finally comes out. There are a lot of Early Access games that are less, like $20. We're a very different dynamic."

That price. Wasteland 2 costs £34.99 from Steam Early Access, which is higher than many were expecting. It's one of the most expensive Early Access games, more than double the cost of DayZ, Rust or Starbound.

The price has drawn complaints and, surely, has put people off dipping their toe into the game's dusty expanse. Wasteland 2 is for many a tantalising prospect, but on Steam, where yet another sale always seems around the corner, asking top dollar is sometimes asking too much.

Fargo says his hands were tied. The $55 tier on Kickstarter was the minimum you had to spend to gain access to the game and so, as he explains, it would have been unfair to undermine the support of inXile's early backers by releasing Wasteland 2 on Steam cheaper. "Imagine me doing another Kickstarter after sending the signal that, by the way, if you support us early on, we're going to undercut you later," he says.

More information.
 
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It seems the only people who don't get the high price are those who don't know the exclusivity Kickstarters often promise and indeed, doing a low ball Early Access price would have made it less worth it to kickstart something from inXile in the future.

Another lesson they could draw is to in the future make the lowest Kickstarter game access tier significantly lower and on-par with Early Access pricing.
 
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Or just don't do early access for Kickstarter games, since they have already been bankrolled.

Of course, desperation for additional funding will make this impossible.
 
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I doubt they need to learn much because of a few irrational and disgruntled whiners.
 
inXile must be well into using up the Torment funds for Wasteland 2 by now. Then after W2 is finished the sales should cover for Torment development.
 
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