WTF is wrong with Wasteland 2 price tag? [Warning: Rage and hate]

Eumesmopo

Eumesmopo

Learned to love the bomb
I was very excited for Wasteland 2 launch because, like everyone else here, I'm a big fan of the Fallout classics. I really was so very expectant of it that I was willing to - for the first time in my life - pay full launch price for a video game. However, today I saw Wasteland 2 was finally available for preorder on Steam and the moment I looked at the price tag all my hype died on the spot... Full motherfucking retail price... 60 United States Dollars... Do you guys have any idea of how that translates to my regional price? It's a 100 Reais, a sixth of the national minimum monthly wage!

Screw that. 60USD for Wasteland 2? Really!? Is that a joke? If it is, then it is a very distasteful one. That game was made on unity for fuck's sake! And on top of it it has retro graphics and was wholly funded by kickstarter. Inxile makes a cheapass game and now has the nerve to come and charge the big bucks for it? Do they think we are retards or something? They didn't spend on the game 0.01% of what Rockstar spent on GTA 5 or even what Ubisoft spent on Assassins Creed 4 and they are trying to sell it for the same price! This isn't just offensive, it's downright traitorous. With this prohibitive pricing they are pretty much saying they don't want me to buy their game.
 
Wow, yeah why the hell is it 60 dollars?
It's a budget game with lots of crowdsourced assets charging 60 dollars for it is highway robbery. I hope it was just a steam mistake...
 
As the name of the company points out, Brian Fargo and his mates are 'In Exile' for a good number of years, be totally honest, the company is not in a very good financial shape and if it was not because the advent of Kickstarter, they lack the very capacity of producing any serious game nowadays.

The expectation of this game has been relatively high among the isometric-turn based-RPG fans, and Inxile knows it. They sure funded the production of this game by kickstarter but I think Brian Fargo also wishes to use Wasteland 2 to somehow put his company back on its feet, which requires him to make as much extra cash as possible.

Inxile is not like Bethesda, Rockstar or Ubisoft who are able to sell tens of millions of copies within the first week after launching a new game, which enable those big companies to reduce their price tag to a reasonable figure despite of their gigantic investment.
But on another hand, Inxile is also not like those small indie studios who clearly know they are indie and never expect too much profits.
Inxile is somewhere in between, it had a glorious past and some pride, but has fallen into its knees in recent decade due to its inability to adapt or compete.

So, you have to forgive their ambition or thirst of money tho.
 
Well the price is set to be almost on parity to what was set out in the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter. You can't have a backing tiers with $55 being the cheapest promising Beta and then go and sell it for less on Steam when the beta launches.

Feel free to not buy early access.
 
Starbound is on early access too and it's charging only 15 dollars a pop...

Fargo is seriously pushing it with this price tag, that could seriously kill any interest for the game.
 
Starbound has beta access as part of the base tier. That might be the superior option(or it might not) but it isn't the one inXile choose in March 2012. Directly supporting the development of games is still a new method of funding. There are going to be mistakes and miscalculations and slight adjustments to the process. But sticking to terms set out in the initial funding arrangement is not a mistake.
 
Well if they are expecting to make money from this early access release I think they will make less than if they charged 15 dollars for it, I don't think that many people are gonna fork out 60 dollars for a unity game that was already funded on Kickstarter.
 
Well it's second to only Starbound in the Steam top sellers. So people are buying it.
 
Well it seems the yare offering some digital gitsf for the 60 dollars...
But they should've made an alternative price for people that just want access to the beta and don't have that much budget right now.
 
And I am saying they should have an alternative price for people that just want the beta, this 60 price tage has the potential to drive people away from the project.
And reading the Steam forums it is already happening.
 
While we're griping, I wouldn't mind if they'd offer a "beta upgrade" for existinig non-slacker backers to purchase at the Ranger Center. I know it's my own fault for not reading (or over the course of the last two years, forgetting) the fine print, but it does sting a little to be $5 below the beta tier and be left out in the cold. Their Steam page makes out like they're eager for all the testers they can get, and it's not like they don't already have our money, or like we wouldn't be eager to give them just that little bit more for something that would actively benefit both parties.
 
If only you personally knew someone that could help you in that situation. That would be a big help.
 
I think bringing price concerns to Brother None would be a good idea, since he's both here and working at inXile now. He could be a good voice of the fans and they (inXile) will likely listen to it.

Money is such a sensitive area for many people and many reasons, I hope inXile opts for transparency on this and does a tweet or blog or Kickstarter Update explaining the Steam price.

Speaking of which, it bugs me that the standard AAA game price is now sixty dollars. When I was getting into gaming in the nineties, I seem to recall thirty being the common figure. It's particularly annoying because companies like Bethesda and BioWare and Blizzard will spend many years working on a game, still get it wrong, and then still demand sixty dollars for it. In the case of Diablo III, it was shit and they spent over a decade on it. Baffling.
 
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Kilus said:
It's the same as the $55 pledge here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

So really it's basically that and a $5 slacker backer fee.
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Absolutely correct, why on earth would you alienate you true fan base (the people who backed the game) over a few Johnny-come-latelys.

Walpknut said:
And I am saying they should have an alternative price for people that just want the beta, this 60 price tage has the potential to drive people away from the project.
And reading the Steam forums it is already happening.
Click to expand...

Breathe easy friend It's nothing to worry about, no steam user has ever gone through with the threat of a boycott. Its just the whining of self entitles gamers, who come launch day will pony up their money just like everyone else (who didn't back the kickstarter).
 
King_Rocket said:
It's just the whining of self entitles gamers, who come launch day will pony up their money just like everyone else (who didn't back the kickstarter).
Click to expand...
This is why "See you at launch" became a popular phrase before Diablo III was released :cool:
 
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