I made sure offline solo skirmish vs AI was planned for the final version before backing this one. That and modding will keep me occupied for quite a while I think.

I don't even know how some people here can even rationalize this.

Pay extra to test the game for them? What a joke. Should be the other way around. At worst you should pay final retail prices. Realistically you should get a discount for early adoption and providing feedback to help them improve the game.

2500 rubles... ahahah...

Ok I'm lost :

They target the gamers enthusiastic for their project : ok.
They propose an alpha access and a beta later on : ok
They charge way more for the alpha and beta : hummm .... okeeeeeyyyyyyiiiiiieeee ..... if you're enthusiastic, some things are priceless i s'ppose.
But wait, it's an alpha so they expect feedback ...... so they expect people to give them faith in their project, to give them a lot of money, to give them time and to work for them ........ are they founding a new religion ?????????

Hiya. If you adopted early, you got the game for $15.
If you want to buy it at this moment, you can only get these special editions: https://store.uberent.com/Store/PreOrder?titleId=4
The cheapest of those is $40. If I remember correctly, they talked about how there's going to be a cheaper regular-edition when it gets released.

Here's how people rationalize it:
You are paying for access to alpha/beta builds on top of getting the final game. You're not going to become a game tester that's going to sit in their office for 8 hours a day making reports, you just get access to the game before it's done. Some people want that for various reasons, including having fun.
You're saying that if people want the final game when it gets released but also want to play it right now as it is, they should get a discount because they're getting more and don't want to wait until the game is released.

70 quids?! Wow...
Let's assume this game turns out to be a flop.
Guess who - according to developers - will be blamed for this?
Yup, you're right:

....FILTHY PIRATES!!!

What? The price was retarded? No no no no! It's all, you know, PIRATES!

You could get it for 10 quid earlier. The release price of the regular edition is probably going to be around 20 quid. Right now you can get it for 25 and a half quid.
I get the feeling you haven't read much about this game, and I blame pirates for it.

And that's perfectly okay! I'm one of the KS backers who payed more than $90 btw.

The important part is that Planetary Annihilation is being developed. Uber is a small Indie developer studio, around 20 people. We, the Kickstarter backers, want to enable them to make a true spiritual successor to Total Annihilation on a modern engine with features you won't find in other RTS games. They don't have the funds large publishers have and modern publishers will not risk an RTS that is not Starcraft or C&C. So the fans chipped in.

I felt that was worth the money I spent. So did thousands of other backers. We wanted the game to be as good as they can possibly make it and I'm glad it reached several of the stretch goals on Kickstarter! I'm really looking forward to the orchestral soundtrack for example.
If you feel $90 is too much you can get it for $60 in September or $40 in December on release. I'm sure it will be on sale at some point if you think $40 is still too much.

Uber put the game on Steam because a large number of backers requested it.. Steam requires you to give instant access to the game if you want to be in Early Access. Early Access was the only way to get the game on Steam during alpha. So they priced it at $90 for the alpha because they wanted it to be fair for the Kickstarter backers. Sometimes you can do the right thing and still end up between a rock and a hard place I guess. Oh well...

....so why you dont play some Total Annihilation while they are still coding it and then buy it at regular price when its released?

"in the old day" you couldnt play alphas even if you wanted to. now you have chance to pay for the chance, if you want and maybe get some extra goodies for the support. ...but its not obligatory you know?

I bought this at kickstarter for fifty and couldnt care less for alpha. or even beta. actually i could have gotten it for 20usd in KS, but i thought that it was just and proper to support my favorite RTS series by atleast that much.

We all know how Kickstarter works: someone puts up their pitch, people donate what they want. Clearly, at the time, there were people willing to donate $90 for alpha-stage access.

Now, let's say you're one of those people. If the developer HAD chosen to charge less than that $90 for alpha-stage access once it went live on Steam, would you feel like they ripped you off? Of course you would.

I was under the impression people kickstarter because they wanted to see the game idea become a reality. If it's just about goodies and early access, you gave money for the wrong reasons. I don't think people donate $90 to PBS to get a $10 reward.

Steam is a store at the end of the day, not a hub for uber to fund the project some more. They already soared past their goal. Either the game is in trouble financially (for which I imagine valve will bury them ten times over if the game doesn't get released) or they'll have pocketed enough money before the game goes live to not give a damn about retail sales.

I can't believe how many people are unable to grasp the logic behind this. It's really not very complicated.

- Kickstarter gives people the chance to financially support the development of games which might otherwise not be made at all because publishers consider them unprofitable. Kickstarter backers are not looking for the cheapest way to get a game. Many backers knowingly pay more than they need to in order to make sure that the game receives sufficient funds to be made.

- Still, most backers don't just want to just give away free money. In exchange for their support, Kickstarter backers often expect certain exclusive perks that are otherwise unavailable. These include things like early access to the (unfinished) game, behind-the-scenes footage, developer diaries etc.

- If the developers simply gave away the exclusive Kickstarter perks (such as alpha/beta access) to Steam customers before the game has even reached alpha status, that would be a major "Fuck You" to all the backers who made the development of the game possible in the first place. This would be very unwise. The only fair options are:
a) don't sell early access to anyone outside of Kickstarter
b) sell early access for the same price they charged on Kickstarter.

- Early alpha and beta access to the game is a right, not an obligation. You simply get to play the unfinished game way earlier than most people. If you find a bug, you can send a report if you wish. You can also send feedback to improve the game if you feel like it. This is very different from the situation where people get paid to be testers. Professional software testing is a difficult and demanding job which is entirely unlike being a Kickstarter backer with early access.

- Planetary Annihilation will only be very expensive during the alpha and beta period. On release, the game will be normally priced, just like any other game. If you feel that the early access price is too high (and that is perfectly reasonable), you can simply buy the game after release, just like any other game.

That means every player/backer should be angry all the time. If you back a game, it will nearly always be cheaper on steam in a very short while. If you buy any DLC on steam, it will nearly always be cheaper in some GOTY or Gold release at the end of the year. In short the bigger fan you are, the more you often end up paying.

I personally saw the price tag and thought they were mad. Sure, I've backed my share of games on kickstarter. But usually for prices that did not make fun of me.

There is no guarantee for Uber that players like me will check in a second or third time to see if they got their head screwed back on. I could not care less about who they offend of their backers, why on earth should anyone browsing a game on steam care about backers from kickstarter? If you care so much about Uber let them actually reach out and touch new gamers, not scare them away with insane prices.

Using the steam alpha feature as a kickstarter extension is very shady plain and simple.

Steam is for end-users. They expect end user pricing no matter what stage the game is at.

Do you always get what you expect?