It is not all of the sudden. Read this forum how many ideas sprung here and what people expect. All those ideas would be enough for next 5 DLCs except those 3 announced (which are more like those not met streach goals from FIG - so everybody knew about them from the beginning, btw 
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And the best thing about Epic deal is that what you described didn’t happen. It is still very much the same project which was backed, and Snapshot is fully in creative control. Epic got rights to selling the game, not making the game. Were Snapshot be bought as a company or offer share of revenue with publisher, PP would be more in danger of being influenced. Epic bought it and believes it can sell it. That’s all. The only downside is that it won’t be available on other platforms for a year.
Nah, I remember even during campaign the desire was expressed to support PP with DLCs post launch. I am pretty sure Paradox games were cited as an example - a game which can grow through years. Considering that the fig campaign didn’t reach any stretchgoals I imagine there is plenty of stuff developers wanted to put into the game. We already had a confirmation that at least some of the DLCs will be just that. We knew for a while about Floating Base DLCs once the stretchgoal was reached via post campaign crowdfunding.
I don’t think Sshot mentioned anything suggesting that they already work on post-release content but they must know what they want to do next, and they might put some groundwork for that when building the core game. When someone of the team will be done with the base game (like art team) then yes, most likely they will move on to DLCs.
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I didn’t even bother with Steam until 2008 which was for the OG XCOM games that I couldn’t get to work on my PC anymore (had original discs for TFTD, Apocalypse, and Interceptor, along with the Windows CE disc for UD, TFTD, and Apocalypse). They were region locked from Japan (where I was living at the time) and I had to use a proxy to buy them.
The main problem I had with Steam wasn’t even really with Steam from what I remember. It wasn’t Steam forcing itself on to companies, but that they were CHOOSING to go Steam-only. Likewise there was this huge DRM push, something that Steam made easy and the devs were again CHOOSING to utilize it. Given that the OG games could be launched from the DOSBox .exe clearly it wasn’t Steam forcing this.
Now maybe it had more issues prior to '08, I wouldn’t know. But from what I remember Steam merely offered options and it was the Devs of various games that forced such things onto us.
Likewise I couldn’t give two flips about PP being sold on EGS. My complaint has always been the removal of choice by SS and feeling like they pulled a bait-and-switch with this (something my parents actually sued a car dealership over when I was a kid. So I can say this isn’t as bad as that, but it is on a FAR larger scale given the number of people affected).
Likewise I’ve been empathetic about it and understand why they would do it. That doesn’t make it ok with me, but I understand.
My big problem with Steam is that Devs found it “easy” and thus quit supporting their games in a manner that I would prefer. Steam is nice for updates when a company goes under (prior to GoG have fun updating the Might & Magic games once 3DO went under for example as you had to hunt down the patch online, assuming you even knew you needed to update), but I wish we had a better way to register our game libraries. It’s one of the reasons I rarely use GoG Galaxy, almost all of my games are on Steam and I can add my GoG games to it, but I can’t add the majority of my Steam library to GoG because of the DRM that devs add to most Steam games.
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That’s called feature creep and it’s a plague in games dev, even more for crowdfunded ones. Usually, you don’t start expanding your scope if you haven’t delivered on the basic stuff and don’t use it as an excuse to postpone or renegotiate stuff.
As for the ideas floated on this forum, we know that we mostly entertain each other and that it’s one of the areas where snapshot shouldn’t try to satisfy players by listening to every single idea. The game isn’t developed by committee and they should follow their ideas.
It’s actually been said quite explicitly here on numerous occasion. most “ideas” presented are simply not feasible for multiple reasons.
Metro Exodus was and still is on Steam. Those with preorder actually received the game on their desired platform. Whether it will be available in the future again, time will tell.
Same goes for Phoenix Point - we are told that it is going to be available, but no one knows whether that promise will be honoured, much like the previous one. If Snapshot games like what they see from the sales they receive on the Epic store, they might decide to stay there and get the better cut of the sales.
You can not 100% attest that any Epic exclusive game will be made available on other stores once the period expires. It is up to the publisher/developer to make a call whether it works for them or not.
The point I am trying to make is that they are trying to bite more than they can handle and that is why they were probably looking for extra funding. Which as pointed out again, is feature-creep and it is a good thing to know when to stop.
Oh, and I have heard the title Spiritual Successor way too many times - Xenonauts, Xcom the remake, the UFO series and other games all used a variation of that title to sell their game(s). Some were great, some weren’t. That does not make them a must buy. Hell, it took about an year and half before the expansion to Xcom 2 came out, and that was with a secured budget and successful first game behind it.
It is just common sense first to release the game and then to see whether it will be viable to create more content for it or not. Good recent examples of indie studios doing just that are the guys behind Tower of Time, Phantom Doctrine and Frostpunk.
If a backer requests a refund, they will be excluded from the game and the backer build. As it stands, it makes much more sense to request a refund and then buy the game later on Steam or GOG on a discount with all the DLCs. Especially if you have pledged on some of the higher tiers.
Have you seen how other Kickstarter/ FIG campaigns actually developed overtime ?
The devs usually will promise a lot of things that are not even planned just to get you on board and to make you up your pledge. I remember Pillars of Eternity 1 and their Deed Dungeon stretch goal. They did not believe that it can get to 15 levels and once the game came out, it showed. The first few levels where very fleshed out, and once you went deeper it was pretty barebones.
The Stronghold was also a stretch goal that was reached and while it was well-developed and had some additional quests revolving around it, it did not bring anything special to the game. It was just Obsidian using and old mechanic from a few of their old games.
A game should grow if you have the player base for it. If you are making DLC for a few hundred or thousand people, I am not sure that will help them stay afloat. Seeing that people are not too keen to install that launcher in the first place, we will have to wait and see whether there will be enough players and sales to justify all this planned content.
To me the problem with stretch goals is this. They “should” be goals that when hit let the company hire more help to actually program that content. Instead it sounds like companies are using these goals as bait without taking the proper steps to meet them. As PP is my first (and my last for the foreseeable future) game to back/kickstart I don’t know if this is standard, but that’s how you make it sound.
Here is me hoping that Phoenix Point will end up as great as Pillars of Eternity games. But yes, I agree that stretch goals can be a dangerous thing. Strange example for your argument though as White March and 3 DLC for Deadfire were all rather excellent. I even liked the Stronghold for PoE1 after the updates! I am loosing hope to see revamp ship combat in Deadfire, but well… it’s unintrusive. Still, PoE are a poor example as those a story driven games. Both titles has been greatly enhanced by free post launch support but its model doesn’t allow for it to be efficently expanded. On top of that, Phoenix Point, by it association to XCOM, might have more mainstream appeal.
Phoenix Point is a game which could benefit from updates as it is a game driven by its mechanic. Every strategy game I can thing of benefited from updates. I prefer larger expansions in style of Firaxis, but Paradox style works as well, aside of being quite overpriced IMO. There also games which succeded with early access - like Prison Architect. With PP adding mechanics, enemies, mutations, weapons, mission types, new mechanics for strategy maps - there is a lot you can do.
Of course, there is little point to add new content to the game if no one plays it/buys it. If it won’t sell on Epic (and I wouldn’t jump to conclusions - if people will want to play it, they will buy it) it might sell once it comes to steam after a year of polish and new content. It it is good and people still don’t buy it, then give it via humble bundle and try to sell DLC once see it’s good. I will let Snapshot worry about it. If game is good, I will be one of the customers interested in DLCs, if it continues past the initial year.
At the original post, YES, YES AND YES!! 
There is so much in your post I am reading and laughing at!
The rage when steam was new was almost as extreme as this forum in the last week.
- WHAT!! I MUST have a connection to play a game WTF!!
- I just purchased the game on disc and now wait an entire day to download it from steam!
- Steam is getting rid of real jobs at bricks and mortar shops!
- Steam will be the end of game shops!
- I don’t want the updates, why are you forcing them on me!
Steam is NOW the best platform… but it didn’t start that way. When it started it was seen as a total PITA. It that forced anyone who went and brought the box copy, to install an installer, they didn’t want, and stay connected, and download things, they didn’t want to… Sounds familiar 
The new alternatives are shit in comparison, but they haven’t had the 10 years to refine what they offer, and dominate the entire scene. Probably the only way they can survive against steam and GOG is to buy out exclusives… as much as we all hate it (and them).
Yes but this wasn’t Steam’s doing, it was the devs. For example I bought the CE XCOM EU game with an actual disc. That meant I was able to install the game from the disc and then only do a minor update from Steam; this was huge as I was deployed to Afghanistan at the time and my internet was super shoddy.
I’m not saying that Steam didn’t have issues, just that the issues people had with Steam were actually caused by devs or the Publishers looking to either cut costs and/or force DRM down our throats. Steam itself didn’t force any of that on the consumer nor did it force the devs/publishers to only use Steam as the delivery method.
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Steam provided an easy solution to jam DRM and ‘always connected’ down the end users throats. It was an easy great option for devs to take so of course they loved it.
Defiantly wasn’t the best for those that travelled or had terrible connections at the time.
On the upside steam is better now and so are most connections. GOG is actually my preference with out all the DRM BS. Everyone keeps posting the lists of things that Steam offers over others… The only thing I ever use is the install and play part! 
The problem is that Valve got too good at marketing their horrible business practices. They asked us to sell our soul and we did it with a smile on our face. Valve created a monopoly and then then did some of the shadiest business practices in gaming like normalizing things that we now blame on EA, and people still see them as the benevolent king of PC gaming when the truth is far from that. They simply knew how to sell it to us.
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Like…what? My Steam library is less than 100 games and all of my Valve games were gifted to me (some of which I’ve never played) so I honestly don’t know what Steam has “forced” onto us as opposed to offering it with Devs/Publishers choosing to use it.
Edit: This was a reply to Madxav, not sure why the forum didn’t properly link it.
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They got to their position by offering developers for free things that usually are very expensive like free dedicated servers, DRM, anti-cheat, ease of distribution, etc, in exchange of locking their games down to their store, a reasonable thing because how any other way would they implement Steamworks into the games? This grew their position in the market to the point every developer had no other choice than selling their games on Steam because that was the one place almost every gamer would go to for buying PC games, gamers would even demand them to have their games there. They even got so cocky that they quietly changed the terms of use to developers who put their games on Steam to demand all developers to sell their DLC and microtransactions directly through Steam instead of their own stores and removed all EA games to show they were not joking.
Valve never “forced” a monopoly, but they manipulated the market to create their monopoly.
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I think you misunderstand the original dynamic of Steam, Aknazer.
While I didn’t understand it then, I do now. Steam came about in the early Noughties because far too many people were buying game discs from bricks & mortar stores and then either passing them around their friends or simply copying and pirating them. Valve was having similar issues and came up with an online solution which meant that players had to play the game through a ‘safe’ portal, which protected its IP and prevented them from pirating it.
Valve then created Steam and offered that solution to any computer game designer. Most leaped at the chance - I mean who doesn’t want to protect their creative hard work from scrotty little oiks who think they have the right to play/read/watch it for free? The situation was so bad, that it was actually more worth the devs while to give a large chunk of their revenue to Steam than it was to try to go it alone.
Now, as far as I understand it (and I have to say I’m speaking from relative ignorance on this point), Steam has achieved such a state of market dominance that it can push down the amount it gives back to devs. This has opened the door to new portals like Epic, who are offering devs a bigger cut and high paying exclusivity deals to step away from Steam - or at least to go with Epic as well.
It was the devs who were choosing to go with Steam back in the day, and it’s still the devs who are choosing to go with Epic now.
Back in the day, I was young and naive and didn’t understand it. Now I do. It’s not about money-grabbing, it’s about keeping yourself afloat in a notoriously fickle market, where the margins for all but the biggest companies are wafer thin and you’re often not even as good as your latest game.
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I can only speak for the board games industry, which I know better than computer games, but stretch goals are designed to give a Kickstarter momentum and keep fuelling the hype train throughout the whole campaign.
A good campaign will have playtested, costed and factored these in beforehand, in the hope/expectation that they will be hit during the campaign (in other words, they were always part of the game design, but not such an integral part that the game would break if you didn’t have them).
Any stretch goals that aren’t met are either added in at the end as a ‘gift for all your great support’ (if the company can afford them), or become planned expansions if the game takes off - the boardgame version of DLC.
So Snapshot will likely have calculated that if they reached a certain funding level, they could just about afford to build the floating base and add it to the backer rewards as free DLC. As it is, they didn’t hit that level, but I’m willing to bet that the floating base has always been a part of the plan, and the Epic deal now allows them to build it comfortably, along with the other DLC they’ve got planned.
It’s not ‘mission creep’ as some people disparagingly call it, it was always part of the plan, but they couldn’t raise enough money to fund it until they made this Epic deal.
I ought to add that I’m only guessing here. Sadly, I don’t have a hotline to Julian Gollop, much as I’d like to ;0)
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You are paid to handle criticism, discontent, questions, etc. Just like you are paid to handle praise, happiness and what have you. The abuse might have been unwarranted, it might not, i couldn’t say without going through all those threads, and i’d rather not. There is a reason i stayed out of them to begin with 
Exactly. Complaints and criticisms are part of the role and expected. Though they still don’t have to be abusive or threats.
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They shouldn’t be, no, i’ll happily agree with that
But again, Steam didn’t force itself onto people. There’s even been plenty of games that have released on Steam and GoG. The big things with Steam that drew in devs was DRM, removal of CDs, and effectively killing off the used games market. All of which help the bottom line of the devs. But the devs weren’t forced to use these features, they CHOSE to do so, which is why I’ve never understood the anger at Steam. Just as how people are angry with Snapshot for what they chose to do here, people should have been angry at the devs for choosing to use such systems when it wasn’t needed (needed being relative, but an SP game doesn’t need the same type of things as MP).