You’ll always be beautiful to me, Armando.
And you laugh like a child, but you’re always a founder to meeeeeee…
Received a couple days ago:
Congratulations!
You have been selected as a candidate to join the Star Control Founder’s Program. We have listened to our followers’ feedback and are now offering two purchasing options. We are really excited to share this game with fans and enthusiasts of the series!
When you purchase into one of the Founder’s programs today, you will get access to the items listed directly below. Please note that all dates are estimates only and are subject to change.Star Control Founder’s Edition - $39.99
Purchase the Founder’s Edition now!
• Access to the Star Control Founder’s Vault
• Access to the Star Control Private forum
• Star Control Early Access [Fall 2016]
• Star Control release [2017]Star Control Lifetime Founder’s Edition - $99.99
Purchase the Lifetime Edition now!
• Access to the Star Control Founder’s Vault
• Access to the Star Control Private forum
• Star Control prototype builds and tools [Winter 2016]
• Star Control Alpha builds [Spring 2016]
• Star Control Early Access [Fall 2016]
• Star Control release [2017]
• Star Control: Season Pass (All future DLC)
• Star Control: Lifetime pass (All expansions)
• Name a planet in the Star Control universe
• Custom Founder DLC: Special Skinned ship partsThank you for participating in our survey and being involved in our Founder’s Program. We are thrilled to offer you this exclusive opportunity!
If you are a Star Control Lifetime Founder then be sure to submit your planet names. We’ve opened up the submissions today and they’ll be open until next month. :)
Don’t suppose you guys need another Founder, do you? :-P
We will soon. ;)
Oh good, I meant to buy in and didn’t get a chance to.
I’m holdin’ you to that, ID! Been bugging you guys for months about getting into this sucker.
I mean, no one will want to use my wackadoodle crazy ideas, because I’m a big StarCon3 fanboy and also because I’m generally a crazy dude, but I just want to share :-D
Eh, Stardock is still basically trading Star Control nostalgia to get people to test the game for them. Testing that should probably be paid positions, not the other way around. It’s a bit skeevy in that it’s preying on people in the same way F2P games prey on the psychology of it’s players to pay more money than they should spend. It’s not quite as bad as Star Citizen levels of chicanery. We can look the other way, but I don’t think it’s fair to say, “Well you don’t have to buy in”.
But eh, I’m also against pre-orders and paid EA in general.
I have been a founder on many of Stardock’s endeavors and not once did I feel it was skeevy. I also have always felt that I have gotten my money’s worth with all the DLC that they historically add.
… how is that not a fair thing to say?
That’s a petty accusation without any evidence.
I’ve been involved on the development side of projects that offered early access test for an additional fee, but none of them used the community to replace professional testers. It was basically an opportunity for us check for unexpected compatibility issues, collect some extra revenue from those with deeper pockets, to let folks get a taste of things a bit early, and collect some handy feedback/ideas to make the end result better. You don’t get to be a professional studio by outsourcing your testing to volunteers/customers.
One outstanding exception to the above is Kerbal Space Program. Until very recently Squad relied exclusively on two tiers of community testers with only a testing coordinator on staff (and even that coordinator had to act in a volunteer role for years). Although the game is great fun, it was a buggy mess and the studio put outrageous time demands on those in the testing program. The turnover was tremendous and the result was that the quality of the testing was abysmal.
Simply offering early access shouldn’t be used as an attack vector of “you’re replacing testers with customers!!!111one.”
The feedback one is extremely important and one of the things that Stardock (and others) have touted about Early Access. Getting feedback from a wide range of people is invaluable and can’t be replaced by internal QA staff.
I generally don’t do a lot of early access, but I certainly don’t want others telling me I shouldn’t or can’t because companies shouldn’t charge for testing. It’s up to me whether I think it offers anything I’m comfortable paying for. Some people enoy being part of the early process and if they are willing to put up money to do so then that is up to them.
It’s preying on psychology no different than trying to get ‘whales’ to spend large amounts of money on F2P games, or a casino trying to get people with gambling problems to spend more money gambling. Or Star Citizen =) Especially on a game that hasn’t released a single gameplay trailer. What exactly are you buying into? The Star Control name and the Star Dock name?
Re @meeper: If the feedback is so valuable, why are you charging people to give it? Other than “because we can get away with it”. The people may not really have deeper pockets, just poor impulse control. (I’m sure a good deal of them do have the money to burn, but not all of them)
It’s not the same. Charging people money so they can play more competitively or conveniently is not the same as letting people buy into a game’s early access. The whole economy is based on businesses charging people money for products or services they are willing to pay for. As long as the business is honest in representing what you’re getting they aren’t doing anything wrong in my book.
As far as people not having the money…
I have poor impulse control. I buy more games than I should. I have trouble resisting chocolate and baked goods. Should businesses not sell these things because I don’t handle it as well as I should? Of course not.
[quote=“robc04, post:216, topic:73054, full:true”]As far as people not having the money…
I have poor impulse control. I buy more games than I should. I have trouble resisting chocolate and baked goods. Should businesses not sell these things because I don’t handle it as well as I should? Of course not.
[/quote]
I think that at least is up for debate. We have a lot of controls on gambling, for instance, and mobile devs have gotten their wrists slapped for marketing to kids, for instance. A lot of Western societies do see value in limiting certain kinds of “dangerous” sales to certain “vulnerable” groups. No reason the definitions of those two couldn’t adapt to modern examples.
Whether or not selling access to the Star Control Founders beta is on the level of hooking gambling junkies with free booze will they’ve spent their life savings is up for debate, of course. . .
On that note, any way that I can spend $100 I literally don’t have to sign up yet??? :-D
I agree with you Armando. I wasn’t talking about the obvious - taking advantage of kids, and I’m sure there is deceptive predatory behavior some companies are guilty that needs to be controlled. I don’t play any FTP games or really follow the news about it, so I don’t dispute there are things that should be controlled. Allowing people to pay to get into early access is such a huge step away from those scenarios in my mind that equating these things doesn’t even compute to me.
The industry needs to stop with the whole Collector’s Edition thing, too, because people may be unduly tempted by cloth maps and figurines. It’s so predatory it makes me sick!
I personally need to be protected against Stardock games. Your guys’ insensitivity to that is really hurtful.