Serious question

I would but I don't really like people being lied to.[DOUBLEPOST=1408211192][/DOUBLEPOST]

That's kind of my point and the sentence should be changed to reflect that.

 

You could ask them in a PM, but the money still goes directly into development as far as it can... Think about it. The wages, development tools (such as image editors), costs of licenses... At some point it stops right?

Your point will be valid once they run out of money and go bankrupt before finishing Starbound, only then it will be proven.

 

My point is that starbound purchase money is being used for publishing outside of the development for starbound while on the preorder page it says that if you buy starbound your purchase will go directly to development, How does chucklefish not being bankrupt having anything to do with, or make my point invalid?

 

I understand your point, now try to understand mine. My point is that it's inevitable for a company to spend their money on other things once they have everything already covered on the game in terms of money, so it comes down to your own common sense to make a conclusion out of that. It's not all that hard to grasp really.. There's little reason for them to leave everything on the bank if they can use it to expand their company and solidify it to some extent so it won't fall as easily, like they've done now.

The bankrupt thing: Once they go bankrupt, it will show that they were in fact not prioritizing the game, thus not directly investing the money into it, thus lying on the store page. I'm saying this because it's pretty much impossible for them to go bankrupt at all with 2 million on the bank if they are just solely developing a game with pixel assets and procedurally generated content... Even then, their function as publisher actually generates revenue to finish the game and fund more future games.

What seems to bother you is that YOUR 15 dollars may or may not have been spent on the game. I guess that's a personal thing so I have nothing to say about that, but I on the other hand don't really see why it's a bad thing that they are expanding, at least they won't fall as easily now, which gives some guarantee that starbound will be finished one day. You could try to think about it that way.

 

I know its inevitable for them to spend their money on other things, I've even acknowledged it in one of my previous posts.

And no them going bankrupt doesn't have anything to do with what I'm talking about, I'm only refering to what they have on the preorder page in relevance to what the company is doing now.

Also my $15 was probably spent on the game seeing as how I preordered it in early 2013 so that's not what bothers me.

What actually bothers me is the fact that they still have "Your purchase will go directly towards the development of the game and help us to get it finished sooner." when their monetary goal has already been met and they are now using excess money to publish other titles, Its misleading.

If they removed that sentence I'd have no problem.

 

Alright, as I said earlier, you can just PM them about the problem you have with it, try to PM mollygos about it, chances are that they will take it seriously and change it to something more reasonable if many people have a problem with it.

 

Yea I'll pm them.

 

Defining "your purchase" is the problem here. If someone pre-orders the game via the pre-order page, pays 15, 20, 45 or more $$$, who defines where the money goes? Virtual money is a woolly concept. Does 100% of Dude A's purchase go to support Starbound development and none of Dude B's moneeh? Or do they both support 50%?
Also, that text is not mentioned at Steam store page. Can we define that only money got via Steam store goes to support other games, and all of the money got via pre-order is directed to purely Starbound?

The whole thing is a mess. They're just words. Come to think of it, many of the controversies regarding Starbound are about semantics.

 

Agree 100%, it really needs to be changed or updated. It's a bit late now though

As neat as it was having their own unique design(it IS a nice one, at least in my opinion), there's always the potential that you miss something like this and everyone goes crazy. That's why it would've been better if they had used kickstarter instead, it's designed by professionals whose job it is to think of every aspect of the fund.

To think though, all this drama created over the lack of a little blurb like this:
http://puu.sh/aVns3/41ad2825db.png
that's all it would've taken and there wouldn't be a problem.

To be fair, it is pretty obvious to anyone that's funded a crowdsourcing project that when they were talking stretch goals, the project was already funded and further purchases couldn't make things go any faster. That's kind of a requirement after all.

That said, this has nothing to do with publishing to my knowledge. I'm not an expert on publishing, but I'm pretty sure that's usually something you get paid to do, not that you pay other developers to let you do [DOUBLEPOST=1408226329][/DOUBLEPOST]

But did that cost them money out of pocket? That's the question here.

All the more reason why it should be changed, then. Think of it as an easy fix that would mean a lot to people who aren't you

Yeah-- some people just think they should tell us as much on the preorder page instead of leaving it in a state of saying "we need your money for Starbound". Are you against that?

Edit: oh, I didn't know this forum had a merge feature... thanks, I guess

 

I'm not really against or with anything, but looking at it from a company's point of view I find it logical why they would not change it, it gives profit the way it is now...

"Buying our game won't make us develop it faster" isn't exactly a good way to sell.

They could say something like "The money you paid for the game will both be invested in Chucklefish as a company and the development of Starbound", but even that will still give less profit than stating that Starbound will be directly funded with it, which is something nobody can really tell except for the company itself.

People outside of it, like you and me, can only make guesses and estimates of what's going on within by looking at what's happening on the outside. Such guesses and estimates often get massively exaggerated by people who can't think of something better to waste their spare time on or by people that suddenly care a lot about their 15 dollars and the 15 dollars from other people that may spend it on the game, and that's how you get "white knights" and oppositely; the situation at steam forums and 4chan regarding the game.

I'm going to stick in the middle though... Neither side is a pleasant place to be.

 

Eh. I'm personally more willing to believe that they simply haven't gotten around to changing it (since most people nowadays use Steam or Humble to buy), rather than that they're still saying that(even though it isn't true) to get more sales.

Anyway, enough of that. To the OP--

It's a pretty common marketing strategy to give a discount during beta, trial or preorder periods. For one thing, it's hard to argue that they should be able to charge full price for a product you can't receieve up-front, immediately, so the discount is meant as something of a compensation for that. Plus, in cases like this it sets an uncertain deadline, thus encouraging people to take advantage of the "limited-time offer" and buy now.

 

So all I've learned from the thread so far is, it will possibly be more expensive after early access and we've put stake or helped the company in the beginning so it was at a lower price point. I must say this a very confusing change, since it was never brought up at all in any form of communication other than an updated steam description, Tiy has multiple channels they use from communicating changes with the game or price point, This official site, the forums, Reddit, Twitter and steam. So no mention of why or anything except whats been said here if very confusing.

That being said lets talk about how a price change affects the game, if the games price was lowered this would upset a majority of players that have purchased at a higher price and the uproar for refunds would be louder than ever, and justified. If the price is increasing its a whole other catastrophe.

 

"Money that goes towards Game Development" actually goes to things like "Pay Roll" and "Bills". From payroll it goes to "Eating" and "Keeping My Lights On" and "Making Sure I am Not Naked and Homeless!". Money spent to publish another game gets returned to them via their share of the profit that game makes, which one expects to be MORE than they put in to publishing it. This is an active in/out flow of revenue that keeps a business alive.

All of those things directly help development 100%, because unpaid coders working in cardboard boxes and eating shoe leather does not a good game make!

There is no tangible "DEVELOPMENT" box that they feed dollar bills to via slot.

 

Which is odd compared to say, Wasteland 2, which is actually dropping in price when it's released. Still, I bought Starbound back during the Christmas Sale.

 

Wasteland 2 price is based on their kickstarter, where getting into the beta (or early access) was a higher tier (and so more expensive) than just getting the base game. They had to sell early access at the same price after the kickstarter to be fair to the kickstarter backers.

The same is true for Star Citizen.

 

Any chance on hearing from the Dev team as why this change took place ?

 

Let me buzz molly
@mollygos

Also I wonder if the price increase might be to make people happy, some people will be a little less angry about paying 15 for the game in EAcc if that means they actually got it for like 5 bucks less.

@Dbr0wn
Also I do think CF might need to change the wording on funds only going to SB. Even though i don't believe it is a lie in the malicious sense as in "let's tell them it goes to SB but use it elsewhere" more than it is an outdated sentence from the first release day. It would be nice to have one less thing to upset people. Really might need to just look over the store page and update it, it has been a point of contention because it has outdated info that is no longer true and is anyone not following the development on the forums has why the devs say one thing on the store and then do another.

 

Why is it such a controversy to raise the price after the game is finished? You took a risk and invested your time and money into a game that might not be finished, so you get it for cheaper. Sounds fair to me. Minecraft used the exact same tactic, and no one cared.

 

Well, a few people did, but I think that owed more to the fact that they felt that the 'finished' label was just slapped on for a price increase.