I tend to dislike personal attacks, and so I'm going to refrain from calling you a tool. But, really I should.

It makes HIB look like greedy sharks for putting out the HIB with Botanicula on the same day that it debut everywhere else. whether or not they themselves did anything wrong, they did participate in it and are partially responsible for the results.

Writing this off as being capitalism at work is pretty much why things in the US have and will continue to deteriorate. This isn't capitalism, this was either a case of Amita trying to be too clever or just outright botching the operation. No economics professor or business person is going to suggest that undermining the price of your product on day one and pissing off the distributors is going to lead to better profits in the future. I'm guessing in the long run that it will hurt them, even if people forgive and forget by tomorrow as tons of potential sales are lost to the HIB copies.

Yep, I do agree that someone pre-ordering should be receiving equal value. Amanita has somewhat stepped to the plate by offering the extras the bundle buyers are getting...of course, that doesn't include the Steam keys as an option. Should/would it?

My issue isn't people being confused about what the Hell Amanita is doing here, since it is a bit odd. My issue is Roman, yet again, massively over dramatizing things, and then going on to Amanita's forums and absolutely going off but acting like this makes him some conquering hero.

Sorry, but no. All the workers in the vineyard received an equal reward -- that's the point of the parable. But here, the workers who joined early got actually a worse reward than those who came later.

Childish, yes. But it's Roman5. Anyway, without this vocal displeasure do you think Amanita will compensate their pre-order customer with all these extras? Roman did his part, though the immature way.

You know... I don't like to use the term "entitlement" very much but WTF are you exactly trying to say ?
"You know - I* made a deal, then I found out I could've made a better deal, so... Yeah - give me free stuff, 'cause I deserve it." ?

*not necessarily you - someone

Yes but that's irrelevant because we're not ACTUALLY talking about any sort of soteriology. The parable would lose its second meaning but the situation it LITERALLY describes would still work the same way. Imagine that the guy payed the first workers $5 and the ones that merely worked for the last few hours of the day got $50. The former could still say "WTF, man ? bm" and the guy could still respond with "Hey - I've followed through with our deal every step of the way. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have agreed in the first place".

Note: you can always say "I don't agree with the Parable of the Workers in the Vinyard. The workers got shafted there as well". The justification, however, is exactly the same - if you made a deal, its fairness doesn't change based on deals others made. The SITUATION might change but that's a different story - if you buy a ton of sand on Monday and move to Sahara on Wednesday, you might find your sand less appealing and regret the decision but the choice has already been made. Arguing in hindsight doesn't change the rationality / fairness / attractiveness of the original deal IN THE SLIGHTEST.

No, I absolutely agree with your point. A deal is a deal, and I respect that. Your literal interpretation of the parable is correct, and applies here, I'm not debating that. But fancy parables aside, don't you see how on a purely human level, everyone who preordered the game might feel just a little bit cheated?

For customers, preorders make no economic sense 95% of the time. Particularly on the indie scene, they're essentially a show of appreciation and trust. And Amanita ignored that aspect of it completely. Of course people who preordered thought they were getting a good deal, which is why they preordered in the first place. But it is not unreasonable to expect that a preorder is a bit of a quid pro quo; you get some money sight unseen, but for that I want to receive special treatment or just feel good that I helped you. The notion of special treatment was thrown out of the window the moment the bundle launched, and the good feeling understandably suffered from it.

There's still this assumption of the indie scene being friendly. Gamers for gamers, something of a communal spirit there. When that is violated, of course people feel a negative emotional reaction. Even though technically speaking, there was nothing wrong with the whole thing.

Wow, now I've got TWO reasons for a grudge against Amanita design, the other one being that they recently participated in a new German indie festival - everyone who heard about it thought that this festival was about supporting upcoming developers, not those that already had a critical and commercial success. It's especially pissing me off as they do have deals with several publishers. Machinarium can be found at Polish retailers and before the release of Botanicula they had already signed a deal with Daedelic for its distribution in Germany (at least that's what my buddy told me). In my eyes that's *almost* beyond the boundaries of the indie scene, even if their games are self-funded. In either case they are the last indies who need more financial and commercial support via winning an indie festival.

I certainly do...

OK - now I get it. On a more personal / emotional level this makes a lot of sense. People feel "cheated" not like in a game of cards but more like by a girl they fancy ^^"...