this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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Satisfactory
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So they should just stop development on a game that's still considered early access and leave it in an unfinished state and start working on something else that they can charge more for and just stop working on it once inflation catches up no matter the state it's in? That's what you're saying devs should do?
EA, Activision, Ubisoft don't do it this way, instead they charge you for all extra content separately.
Maybe that's what the Satisfactory team should do, release the game as is as being complete, not change the price and then release paid DLC that would otherwise have been updates so in the end people need to pay more to get the full game... Damn, we're back to square one but now people who already paid for the game also need to pay for updates...
Nope, they decided to accept purchases for a game that isn’t finished, and in doing so promised that one day it would be. If they stop now they’ll just be scammers.
They should do what Larian did. Release the game in EA, develop the game with those new purchases helping to keep things going, then release it when it’s complete. No artificially changing the price, no bs.
And in what world has what we’ve gotten from free Satisfactory updates constituted would-be paid dlc? Or are you just using hypotheticals that aren’t relevant?
I mean, they get to decide when it's finished, if it's stable and there's enough content that people are playing hundreds of hours then they can say that that's the basic experience and if people want more they need to pay for it, in the end it's even worse than just not having paid DLC and increasing the price as the game gets more content and life becomes more expensive.
Not as if there was anything new to doing that, Minecraft cost about 5$ for the people who bought it as soon as it was made available, now you don't even get the mobile version for that price.
Again, there’s literally no reason for you to believe that this price increase somehow means you’ll never have to pay for dlc. Have you never heard of Factorio?
And for the record, like with your Minecraft example, I’m not against devs charging less for Early Access versions, alphas, betas, etc, and charging more for the finished product when it fully launches. That’s a very common practice, in fact it’s the standard.
That’s very different than deciding to increase the price arbitrarily in the middle of developing an early access title that’s been in development for 5 years, and isn’t releasing officially yet.
"I'm not against what Minecraft did, I'm just against what Minecraft did."
Get your story straight buddy.
Google strawman.
Look, I don’t mean to be a dick but unless your reading comprehension is abysmal you’re purposefully misunderstanding my point.
Like I said,
I’m okay with how Minecraft did things. Same with titles like BG3, Hades, Shovel Knight, and countless others. This is different, and if you can’t understand that after I laid it out twice for you then it’s clear you’re not arguing in good faith.
That's exactly what Minecraft did...
Free then 5 then 10 then 15 and so on, all price hikes that happened while the game was still in development and had not reached 1.0. it was one of the first mainstream example of an early access game!
You just don't want to recognize that Satisfactory today is different from what it was when it was first made available, just like Alpha and beta Minecraft weren't the same.
But hey, I guess I'm the one that's not arguing in good faith by pointing out that the situation is pretty much exactly the same and that the alternative is worse for all current owners.
Again, if you keep doing the same office job as before, do you refuse to ask for a pay increase and prefer to become poorer over time just because your job hasn't changed?
No you’re right, Minecraft did do that. At least they didn’t hide behind inflation though, they simply increased the price as content was added.
Regardless, office pay has next to nothing to do with this. The consumer doesn’t directly pay the worker’s salary. The worker makes the product, the consumer buys the product, end of transaction.
Pay is handled by the studio. If the devs want a pay increase, which is more than deserved, then the studio needs to find the funds for that. If they don’t have the funds then they need to create more product. Simple as. Artificially boosting the price of existing products isn’t the answer.
Again, it’d be like if CDPR decided Cyberpunk was suddenly worth $90 after the 2.0 update. That’d be silly.
So contrary to any other industry, game development studios don't have the right to increase their price on products that are already on the market to follow inflation and to have the funds to increase their employee's wages, that's what you're saying?
It's funny because your next paragraph makes it seem like it's the exact same thing happening for games, there's a third party in-between the consumer and the employee doing the work in both cases.
Other industries follow the same standard. Buying a movie on Amazon that released in ‘95 doesn’t cost 100’s more dollars today than it did back then due to inflation. Like I said, digital goods aren’t affected in the same way that physical goods are.
They actually are affected the same way tough, hosting cost, labor cost, the programs used for development, the computers used for development, all of these things cost more and more, just because some people in the industry don't act on it doesn't mean that the same thing doesn't happen...
Oh wait, what's that? They actually do act on it by selling paid DLC for extra content and people are too dumb to realize that it's exactly the same thing as increasing the price of the complete game while continuing to provide updates? Dang...
Also, look at paid subscription services, are prices staying the same forever or they're increasing? Because I'm looking at Netflix and they haven't released a new program, they've just added more content and the price is going up! Plex's lifetime price nearly doubled in 2014, they didn't release a new program, it was the same thing just getting updated.
You're just mad because the Satisfactory team is being honest about why they're increasing the price and it makes you angry because it doesn't fit your vision of how the world should work but everyone else is doing the same thing just without mentioning inflation and that's fine to you.
Hosting costs and labor costs aren't equivalent to the costs of building a game from the ground up.
And no, dlc isn’t the equivalent of bug fixes and updates lol. Factorio is a great example of that - they increased the price arbitrarily and plan on releasing a paid dlc.
Paid subscription services increase because constant work has to consistently be put into them at a regular rate. There is no end point. It’s not as if a subscription server is “finished” and then only requires small updates and bug fixes - it’s a constant thing that requires endless man power and resources to keep afloat.
There’s a massive different between Netflix and Oblivion lol.
And in what world is everyone doing the same? The literal only other game to increase the price of a game over half a decade old has been Factorio. Literally nobody else, not even the scummiest publishers in the space, have done this.
Regardless, as I’ve said, it’d be more than fine if the price was increased due to an official launch, or even if they just felt that they’d added enough content to justify it. But hiding behind inflation is scummy imo, and makes me regret supporting them in the first place.
So like an early access game that requires constant work to fix bugs and add content?
Even you said that Minecraft did the same (and I'm sure I can find plenty of early access games that did the same).
As I said you're just mad that they're being honest, you're angry that inflation is a bitch and you would prefer that some sectors pretend it isn't, that makes you unable to analyze the situation objectively so you keep contradicting yourself. But I'm the one arguing in bad faith somehow.
I'm done here, goodbye!
No, not like that. Maintaining a massive service like Netflix isn’t comparable to updating and bug fixing an indie project.
I’m specifically referring to using inflation as a cover. I’ve said multiple times that it’s fine for these projects to increase the price if they feel they’ve added enough content to warrant it. That’s what Minecraft did.
That used inflation as an excuse to increase an existing game’s price? Go for it.
Either way, the fact that only two indie games in the entire industry are the only two to do this sort of proves my point. Sooo why would I be angry? Hell, I already own Satisfactory lol. But oh well, good luck to ya.