TL;DR version. They are trying to convince us that price was set by kickstarter tier to be $90, but they charge less in some regions and more in other. They do not care about community, they only want as much money as possible.

Do not support them.

They are openly lying to us and banning you on steam forum if you have any criticism, constructive or not.

Pricing:
£67.99 = $106.77
82.99€ = $110.71
2499 pуб = $78.74
R$ 149.99 = $69.96

Description from store page:
"Our pricing for this stage of early access was determined by our Kickstarter. The stages of our early access for ALL users,
which was determined during our Kickstarter, is:
June through August: $90 for early alpha access."

Yet as you see prices above, that is lie. ALL users do not pay $90, not even close.
They claim "we take feedback seriously", but they obviously do not. Either feedback nor community.
If they had actually sound reasoning behind their pricing, they would not be so unresponsive about it.
But so far only "reason" for their pricing is lie: "It must be $90 for ALL users because kickstarter backers payed $90"
And then they go and chose completely different pricing.

inb4:
VAT: They do not say $90+VAT for early alpha access. And it is digital product, pricing should be set accordingly to what user is paying and not what developer is getting. More so in this case because their defence is that they chose price by what others payed during kickstarter, not by how much they got from them. That clearly sends message that they do not care about kickstarter pledges, they only want as much money as possible.

Regional pricing: Is optional and up for developer to decide, plenty of games on steam are priced fairly.
And they do not say: $90 or whatever we please for early alpha access. As the matter of fact, they go out of their way to let everyone know that price ALL users is suppose to be set to $90.

Setting the price for $90 was reasoned behind the argument that on kickstarter it was also $90, and that they cannot set it
lower.
2499 pуб = $78.74 R$ 149.99 = $69.96 - those are clearly lower than $90. Their argument about kickstarter setting the price falls short.

Their arrogant fanboys called me stupid, said I don't speak English but "idiot", called me mentally ill and still. I am the one that is banned for insulting other members of forum.

They have no respect for community. Either from kickstarter or steam.

I posted 2 threads about pricing. Asking developers directly about it, yet they did not bother to response in way other than
"You have been banned from all Planetary Annihilation discussions"
Pathetic, they clearly banned me for calling their bluff.

Before calling me hater:
Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander are my favourite RTS games of ALL time.
Planetary Annihilation was on top 5 list of my most anticipated games in 2013.
I do not argue about the price point. If charging more than double for early access is wise is another thing, and I am not trying to discuss that.
But I cannot support them when they lie and have no intentions to honour their own words: "early access for ALL users: $90 for early alpha access." and when they say all negative feedback from community is just stupid trolling that will go away in few days.

Feel free to post your honest opinions.
Perhaps if you think it is ok and why, when they said: "We will change $90 to ALL users" and than doing the usual € and £ rip-off, while giving discount to people in Russia and Brazil when they said it would be betraying of the kickstarters htat payed $90.

Also please go ahead and correct my English that is by words of Planetary Annihilation fanboy "idiot talk, made by face hitting the keyboard, due to me having a Parkinson's. xD
EDIT: Just to be clear, I am ignoring all the fanboy comment that will just try to troll.

1 decade ago*

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1 decade ago
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Yes, and as I already posted there:
"If you put the alpha on steam at a cheaper price, only shortly after releasing the actual alpha itself to the KS backers, you piss off a lot of people." - That exactly what happened! In several region due to steam regional pricing. Heck, for some time it was $38 for Russia. Even now the price is $70 for Brazil steam store. That is not friendly to biggest fans, that is not matching up to what KS backers gave. And if the price is so high due to kickstarter, why is it somewhere even higher?!
What do you say to that?
You can argue all day long, but these are facts.

1 decade ago
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I'd honestly just drop it at this point - the longer the thread gets the less people will bother to read what you originally wrote - and we've already seen that over 90% failed to read and/or comprehend what your actual complaint was about. This being a forum, after the first 510 comments are made and for every 510 comments tacked on thereafter, the odds of getting thru to anyone drop correspondingly - I just made this up BTW - meaning that before the end of the first page is reached, comprehension has already dropped close to zero.

1 decade ago
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A forum is a place for discussion. His original post focused on the regional pricing model; some people, including me, thought that other aspects of the issue were worth debating. That's the natural flow of a discussion.

Also, I really had enough (not from you or the OP) of the "they're free to offer X at price Y, you're free not to buy it" argument. It's absolutely true, but it's also an easy way to dismiss debate and criticism.

1 decade ago
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Nah - an internet forum is an excuse for a free-for-all these days, but it also reflects how the populace in general acts and explains why we can't seem to get anything done with politics - with the cop-out argument you just cited being one of the prime reasons holding back true discussion/change. Its all good though - no one cares, right :)

1 decade ago
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I'm glad you got my point. :)

1 decade ago
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Well I do not lose anything by making few replies. It does not hurt anyone, and to be honest my time is not so valuable to the point where it would be an inconvenience for me. Even those few people that actually take time or bother to understand what I am trying to say make it worth my time.

1 decade ago
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Too expensive.

1 decade ago
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And yet, damn fun for the small amount of features in the game so far

1 decade ago
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1 decade ago
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LOL! 5.23€ hours/ ??? no way i work for that! your numbers are wrong!!

1 decade ago
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1 decade ago
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Hungary -> people pays in €
Minimal wage: 1.93452€/hour
82.99€ is ~42.89 hours of work

1 decade ago
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i live in france, the minimum allowed by law is 9,43 €/hour (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMIC) here but it's when u have a really bad jobs, a normal job is around 12€ and a good one is way more

1 decade ago
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1 decade ago
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In Greece it is 3.06€/hour officialy. Unofficialy it can go even to 1.86€/hour. (Those are the lowest but most common salaries)

1 decade ago
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tl;dr: you need to take an Econ 101 class. Because this post is baaaad.

1 decade ago
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1 decade ago
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Minimum wage for Brazil is R$ 678 (~314 USD.)
During the year one works 5 months to pay taxes.

$90 is too damm high for a PC game.
And even R$ 149,99 or ~$70 as well.

1 decade ago
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1 decade ago
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I won't argue with your opinions, but I can't help arguing with the numbers. Taking your 1, 2 and 3 points, why is the 25% increase automatically, obviously justified for Europe? A 25% difference is not "pretty much the same". Regional prices are bullshit that we swallow (some enjoy it, some don't), but are you telling me the European economy is 25% richer than the USA one?

1 decade ago
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So,Planetary Annihilation or Blops2, hmmm... THEPIRATEBAY.

1 decade ago
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr!

1 decade ago
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op is a joke.

1 decade ago
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And so are you.

1 decade ago
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You're a joke, not TC. Didn't your parents teach you how to behave? I guess not.

1 decade ago
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I'm with you OP I will no longer buy a product from them no matter how good a game turns out.

1 decade ago
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+1.

1 decade ago
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+1

1 decade ago
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1.49€ for Total Annihilation + addons. Get this great game instead and everything will be fine.

1 decade ago
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Of course I already own that, alongside with Supreme Commander games. How else could they be my favourite RTS of all time :D

1 decade ago
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totalbiscuit makes some fair points regarding this. i have to agree, why would they need to put it on steam so fast in the first place when they asked for a certain amount of money and they got it, they got even more.

1 decade ago
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I heard they put it on Steam because the backers wanted the game on Steam. They just put it as Early Access and put the price relative to the Kickstarter price. And then the shitstorm started. :S

1 decade ago
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I like TB, but that doesn't mean he cant make mistakes. His whole point is based around the fact that the price is set to match what kickstarter backers payed for alpha acces, which was $90. But that point falls apart when you look on regional pricing and see it was as low as $38 for russia, and still is $70 for Brazil.
Argument that they cannot afford for $90 it is just people arguing bullcrap, the point of Planetary Annihilation aplha access pricing was never to set it so people can afford it but so it matches up to kickstarter.

1 decade ago
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$ 19.99 game = £ 14.99 game = € 18.99 game = руб 449.00 game = R$ 34.99 game (based on Torchlight 2 and very much the same with Antichamber)
so 90$ game = £ 67.5 game = € 85.5 game = руб 2025 game = R$ 157.5 game - more or less the same as it is with this game

Those are the real steam exchange rates, not the ones you posted. An i guess indie devs can't do shit about them.
so this early acces is 90$ or your regional equivalent

1 decade ago
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But this is special case. Prices is not suppose to be set by regional pricing or what people can afford or it would not be so high in the first place.

When developers say "Price must be THIS high and we cannot set it lower because our hands are tied by kickstarter" but than go and set it completely differently, than it is clearly obvious they don't care about any kickstarter, they just want more money.
Fact that they do not want to charge us $90, but to GET $90 from us proves it. Not to mention that they set the prices in other regions lower, directly contradicting their own words, clearly showing if people are not willing to pay so much, they will accept less, just to get money.

Indie devs can do shit about it?

Ehm... The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 10.99€ / $14.99
They just choose not to do shit about it. And even than, the other devs don't try to lie about their pricing.
They are not trying to convince us that they were forced to price as they did, that is huge difference.
Sadly people seem to be ok with someone lying to them on purpose.

1 decade ago
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what i dont understand what is really your problem that you want buy this game on a alpha but have not the money to pay that? I really dont understand you simple wait to the official release and you pay 20 dollars and the russias pay 16 dollars i mean thats really nothing new on steam that we have regional prices?

And when thats the only point is look at me :

1 Dollar = 0.80 CHF
1 Euro = 1.20 CHF
Game on steam 1Dollar = 1 Euro and we have to pay them in Euro so 1.20 CHF

So we pay for every Dollar 1.20 CHF thats a plus from 40% for every single game on steam that we have to pay

1 decade ago
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Actually it's 50% : 80 * 50% = 40

1 decade ago
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If you asked in the same tone as this post, I'd have banned you too (I'm not a game dev at all).

And you're doing it yourself, see the final edit.

Oh, and where exactly did they lie? Did they explicitly say, "Everyone, in whichever region, must pay USD 90" Frankly, how is this anything new? Currency exchange rate, shock horror, fluctuate. They change. Over time. And prices are often region-dependent.

But Mr-high-and-mighty, or rather just Mr-holier-than-thou goes to the PA forums on Steam and yells at the devs "YOU LYING BASTARDS!"

Sheesh...

FYI: I'm a Kickstarter Backer. At the 20 bucks tier (didn't have more, but that's really beside the point). And... I'm currently underwhelmed by the state it's in. Though it does have lots of potential.

I've always been a rabid fan of TA. Bought it back in the day after playing the demo for days on end. So yes, I'm a "fanboi". Of the style. Not of the current state of PA. Sheesh: they can't even allow "@" in the password in-game, but have no trouble accepting in on the web. Typing my password in-game is a right challenge (since they, last time I checked, didn't have a way to change the password).

1 decade ago
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1 decade ago
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+1000000000000000

1 decade ago
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Yeah, the game is in gamma phase now..$50

1 decade ago
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Closed 1 decade ago by BlueSharkCZE.