You should have gotten a key. I backed at $20 and got a key. Contact them.

Is kinda lame that they are putting it one sale. And weird considering the original justification for the high price was that they didn't want to undercut backers.


http://www.amazon.com/Planetary-Annihilation-Early-Access-Edition-Import/dp/B00K8PWIWK/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1403466534&sr=8-10&keywords=Planetary+Annihilation

This is so weird.

I am not opposed to pre orders (as I did sometimes) nor crowdfunding (as I spend a lot in it last years). I am ok with getting open or closed alphas and betas.

What does disturb me is the fact that earl accesses are included in the whole catalog sales. To my mind, sales are used to a 'second wave sale' after release. Yes, the whole concept of 'sales' is quite biased since digital market because excepting keys, there are no numbers here.
But now, selling early access games during sales and only have a tag, is somehow something what worries me for the future.
Here, those early accesses seem to be good alphas or betas but it's just the first wave of big early accesses (no mention for those desura used to do).

What are people buying here? The 'game' as it is? A preorder with beta access in waiting for the release? I know it's semantics but...

Somehow 'sales' on 'preorders' seems strange to me.

And what about the future quality standards if early accesses are considered as 'finished' games?
And what about competition in sales? Isn't enough struggle for the video game industry if we only consider released games to add struggle with early accesses?
In the short term, it could be appreciated, but in the long term?

Well, it's just myself worring, it seems accepted. Time will tell.

I think I am sitting on the fence, if I understood the facts :
1) I agree that the backers should be happy to have the game they wanted finished
2) But on the other hand the risk taken by the backers wasn't rewarded -> the whole backing system takes a hit (it's not the end of the crowd funding world, but it will certainly make more people not back projects anymore)

The game's in a playable state, on a way towards completion. That's the reward for the risk taken by the backers. The point and appeal of kickstarter is that things which would never have seen the light of the day gets created - if backers pledge money towards that goal and that goal is attained, everybody wins.

I know they started sending out keys on the 19th of november 2013 (I got the e-mail saying they would start sending them out), but I still haven't received one. I have checked the website, but there is no key there.

It might have something to do with me being on the "early bird" tier. It shouldn't matter, but they might have forgotten the first 5,000 backers...

My view on this is that you should at least have an automated system, linked to the Kickstarter e-mail. They have this for Wasteland, and that worked fine. Some others use the HumbleB website for sending out keys (Grim Dawn for example), and that also worked fine.

They probably do. Fact is: Automated systems break. It usually takes 2 minutes to write an e-mail and get the issue resolved.

These are the founding principles of backlogogy and crowdfundism, by me :)

There are the hardcore-backers and the casual-backers.
- The hardcore backers will back a specific thing no matter what : they want the thing to complete, they fell in love with the project, they will make a lot of feedback, this game will throw all their backlog into oblivion.
- The casual backers will back something like a pre-order : no feedback, some lurking on the project's forum, , they will follow the newsletter and they won't care if the thing got delayed. They don't whine, they don't bite.

I dare think the reasons behind casual backing is a mix of : "I would enjoy that game if it's ever released", "My backlog will soon be empty, this will be one of my game of next year", "backing it is a bargain and ups the odds of making it real", "frek the publishers". They reproduce in the lower backer tiers. I am one of those on every projects I backed.

With this "let's make a release price lower", I don't consider any backers should feel 'scammed' because on the contrary it will bring more money into this project due to the lower price tag.
BUT for their next project, they just send a clear message to casual backers "hey, if you are in for the deal, just sit this one out and wait for release because it will be cheaper".

In doing so they are diminishing the early income AND the early backloging (don't underestimate that, I personally don't buy games because I have crowdfunded things coming) in the casual backers population.
This is not good because any backer wants to have as many fellow backers as possible in his venture, and a project kickstarter wants to have as much money as early as possible.

[TL;DR] In my opinion, putting a lower price tag (than low backer tier) on a kickstarter release is shortsighted in my opinion, they are maximizing the revenues of this project at the expense of the next one. Question is : will it be worth it ?

And that's precisely what they should do. If one approaches a backing as a preorder, "My backlog will soon be empty, this will be one of my game of next year" or "frek the publishers", he should not back. Ever. And for the "I would enjoy that game if it's ever released" + "backing it is a bargain and ups the odds of making it real" crowd, setting a lower price point for a released version should not matter at all, now should it?

It's not a fault of Uber Entertainment that some people approach crowdfunding as something that it's not - and I dare to say that crowdfunding will become a much healthier environment when people who don't quite understand what it is just pack up and leave. Especially if they for some reason (and this I find by far the most puzzling) thought that the game is never going to go on sale in any form.

I only backed this for the $20 tier, but if I had more funds at the time, I would have put in for a higher tier just to make sure the stretch goals were reached. I don't think I would have felt cheated since the extras currently sold don't mean much to me.

I agree that the system would work best if everybody was on the same page, but isn't that fallacy nurtured through the "yay ! another tier unlocked !" and the lack of maximum funding ?

For instance, regarding maximum funding : when the "big and ambitious" kickstarter projects reached ludicrous tiers, a responsible thing to say would have been : "Ok, we will stop the funding at X millions, because after all it's the first time we do a crowdfunding thing and we will see how that pans out. For those willing to go the extra mile, we will open an online store soon and sell mugs/t-shirts/posters".

But nope, crowdfunded projects usually keep adding tiers without revoking the delivery date. In that case retrospectively, we can safely assume they applied the rule "two guys instead of one can deliver twice more in the same amount of time" (rule that should make anyone working in dev laugh) because they are presently 1 year out of schedule. Of course there may be another legitimate explanation, but still, the delivery date on kickstarter is July 2013 last time I checked. But that's not my point.

Building the standard hype around the kickstarter campaign, getting funded, and at the last (and late !) minute revealing a release price not reflecting what most backers expected (I am not talking about agreeing or not on the price, just expectations) depicts, in my opinion, people happy not having to deal with publishers (the guys that usually have a say in the selling price).
"We don't have publishers ! Frek what you think !" [/sarcasm_with_several_degrees]

I really wish their game brings satisfaction. I personally won't hold my breath for their next project because I think they didn't display a great sense of responsibilities (not that anyone should care :)

Having gone through all my pledges I've noticed that for Jagged Alliance Flashback I've gotten this "offer":

[i]"In Update 42 we promised we would look into making it possible for Jagged Alliance: Flashback Kickstarter backers, sitting in Tiers $25-$65, to upgrade to the Steam Early Access now. We are happy to say that we have come up with a solution.

We got you a 50% discount coupon that is redeemable through Steam, which means that you will be able to upgrade for roughly the same price as on Kickstarter $22,50/€19.99."[/i]

The price for the Steam sale is €33,99. As a backer I've paid €22 already, and they now offer me the chance of paying another €19,99 to get "early access". In total that's €8,2 more than if I hadn't backed the game...

And thats me at the lower tier. Those who've paid €57,7 will also have to pay another €19,99 to get the early access. That means a total that is more than twice as much as those who didn't support this through Kickstarter.

Some of the Kickstarter Projects are really exploitive.

There are quite a few positive experiences as well, to be fair, but some projects need to be named and shamed
You're right. Everything is fixed now.

My criticism of Kickstarter stands though. I've got approx 70 Pledges, and with 60 different ways of receiving the keys (10 games or so have used the HumbleB site) it's been way to much work to claim the keys.