Starbound preview at Insomnia Gaming Festival

Please, to say a update roadmap wastes time is the same way when i say daily news wastes time. Thats not a strong argumente. You could even say talk with the community is wasting time that gets not to devoloping. I agree, free time is somethin different. They should really take it on regular bases. Thats nothing that should be discussed (free time).

If they would decide to say, hey, roadmap takes to mutch time, we will shut it down, and say it the community, it would be fine for the peoples from what i read. It was more that we had a vacuum of information about this topic until now.

I got only one point of criticism. Next time, why not announce it when there is a event like that comming? I mean the Insomania Gaming Festival. I guess people wouldnt have been that...suprised or activ in that topic if it would have been simple announced with a short explanation how it will affect beta/release and so on.

Personaly, i think the point is mostly reached from the pre-order people that buys it because of the material that is allready known. There are other groups that will react when they see more videos, let´s play and so on before they buy. But i don´t think it makes a difference if they would now release more material or in 3 months.


And don´t get me wrong. Ofc. the devs do good work. Now you can attack me if you want!

 

Okay, I can understand how disappoinment can arise if an update isn't coming as expected, but we shouldn't try to get all hysterical either. Let's find a good balance.

 

Does it bother you that review websites (Kotaku, etc) get early access to triple-A games and post reviews early? Just curious if this is an indie game only thing or in general.

 

Oh great, now I'm some kind of Elitist bully now, right?
Y'know what, nevermind.
I have had enough with explaining myself. I DO NOT want to keep the game from people. I AM NOT AN ELITIST.
I, in no way shape or form want to keep the game from people.
If I came out that way, then sorry. The more profit they get, the happier we become. It's just that sometimes, you need to tone down the advertising.
Now, I'm going to sleep.
I expect a piece of criticism in the morning, okay?

 

Wrong quote? I was trying to advocate that the more people know about Starbound the better....

 

I think it's silly in general to be honest, but different levels for different situations.

EA's new FPS game getting handed to kotaku and gamespot or whatever for a preview and saying "Hey this game is coming out"? sure. Whatever.

The same game being given to people who do their whole thing on youtube or streams and just show gameplay (IE giving a copy to them so they can play and everyone can just watch them play) long enough before release that the video will be out there longer than a week before the game is out? Pretty dumb.

Indie companies doing the kotaku or whoever thing? They want the announcement to get the game out there to everyone, so be it. But far before release? Why?

Indie companies handing it to youtubers so we can watch them play the game before anyone else can? See this one right here is the one that red flags me the most. It literally feels like in this situation it's "Hey watch me play this game you can't". Very bleh.

In all situations whenever i get to a site after hearing about a game only to see it's not available in any way it really turns me off of it. Sometimes to the point that i don't follow it and sometimes even forget about it entirely and never buy it.

 

Tone of voice (text?) can be hard to parse on the internet. My post wasn't a personal attack. Just a simple disagreement. There's no anger on my side. I thought we were having a debate... :/

I based my response off of what you said. Relevent bits in bold. If that wasn't what you meant to communicate then I apologize for any slight given or perceived.

 

People who get the pre-order (2nd section) will be able to play the Beta when it comes out. For those in the 1st section, they might be able to play the Beta if it is released. I don't know how Starbound plans to sell the game while in the Beta stage. But I can only assume that those interested, may still be able to get a hold of the Beta during that time-frame.

Again with the 1st section, even if they do not get hold of the Beta version I wouldn't say they are necessarily "missing out". Yes, some people (including yourself) may feel like they might have wanted to have known about Starbound before-hand, to play the Beta. However, many who buy games also find that they are happy without it. They'll be mainly interested in what the game alone has to offer them.

 

Whoops, sorry for that!

 

Well they are stopping pre-orders when the beta comes out. My guess is that the beta will be out at that point, but because you can't get into it if you missed it, they will be trying to generate publicity for the full release.

 

That's not really what i meant. Lemme try again, maybe i worded it poorly.

Situation one: Everyone (youtubers, players, general public, big review companies, etc.) gets access to the game at the same time. No early access to exclusive few. The videos still get done, but now when people hear about it from this they can come to the site and play it, be it beta or release. Either one.

Situation two: Only certain people get access to the game before everyone else (including beta) and put out their videos. The people see these videos first hearing about the game from it and proceed over to playstarbound.com and want to play, but are only able to pre-order (or in some cases not even that) and no beta access or release yet. Brick wall.

I know the descriptions are biased but that's how i see it. You get what my question is though, Is one worse than the other? Or from a marketing standpoint is it the same?

 

Aha, yes this is much clearer than before. I also would agree situation two is worse as a scenario.
From a marketing standpoint, situation one would be better as everyone will get the game without anyone being excluded. By not pre-ordering those in situation 2 won't get the Beta so yes they might feel excluded and left out from those being able to explore..

However, they are already aware that the Beta is included from the pre-order? So I would compare it to someone who wants to fly to another country but has no ticket. You can't have one thing without the other. I hope this is a better response?

 

Agreed, but what would really keep me quiet is an explanation if they happen to miss the update date.

 

It does answer it, thanks. I also meant as a whole regarding games, not just Starbound. But yeah it's good to hear from someone who has an interest in marketing on the subject.

 

Not addressed to me, but I will state this: JUST KEEP DOING THAT.
I am currently waiting on no fewer than four games to update or launch including Starbound, and your team is BY FAR the most open and approachable.
That is the biggest reason why people are still pumped up and waiting for Starbound even after missing the last tentative dates.

It's a great deal better than what most developers offer; even among other indie developers (and I've followed bought primarily indie games for a few years now).

 

Are you sure that this is a marketing standpoint and not your own?
There is a reason why this "elitism" where everything is "exclusive" and "limited" and "early access" is pretty popular. It has to do with the human psyche. And sadly it only very rarely takes morale and equality into account.


As for the communication problem ... I don't really like today's public communication in general. Information tends to be scattered all over the interwebs as Tiy's post already indicates:

It's no wonder people miss out on something (e.g. in this case the tweet) when there's lots of channels with different information ... nobody would be willing to synchronize them all. And when said people then get the info from 3rd parties ... they might feel a little ignored, especially when it's somewhat relevant for them (in this case with the preview).


The Roadmap update ... oh well. There have been (perceived) a lot of posts on that topic without official statements. And when there is finally an answer and it's like:

when people have been waiting for a while ... people just can't be happy. I can see this being an occupational illness. The fear of making any kind of temporal estimate that leads to obligation that leads to disappointment that leads to a lot of tears. When Blizzard first introduced "soon™" it was kind of funny. Now it just feels like another promise is broken (as it's used to avoid promises in the first place). But I don't blame them. It tends to come with the job (as estimations in software development are hard) and probably spares the moderators some work .


As for the topic itself: I don't think it means anything to us in terms of estimation although this

sounds as sweet as it sounds elusive.

Don't get me wrong. I'm totally in love with the dev team. Daily updates ... just ... awesome .

 

Well, this information pleases me. I can now enjoy my summer and not miss anything

 

Let's ask ourselves: Did Minecraft grow because it gave early access to popular YouTubers?

Nope.

 

No.