KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[cruelio]

Gotta love it when the codex gets scammed by old washup one hit wonder carnies. Though I am admittedly sad Julian made his scam too obvious by selling out too early unlike e.g Brian Fargo.

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Alienman]

The AMA is going to be great!

 

[True Ukrainian]

2 million dollars is chump change in the word of game development. Since most vidya sales come from the first few months of the game's release, Epic probably figures that they can extract most of the game's financial value during the exclusivity period regardless of the Steam / GOG holdouts.

 

[Latelistener]

The AMA is going to be great!

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

What happened with this game that it made everyone angry? genuinely curious

-some people got angry a few months ago because their new artist is shit - armor and monster designs suddenly started looking like "power rangers" whereas early in development the game had more of a "fallout vibe" regarding armor.

-some people lost faith because the game s progress is very slow

-some people lost faith because the game was also announced to release on XBOX instead of being pc centric

-many people are pissed off because its now suddenly an EPIC store exclusive since today

wow fuck them, especially for 1) and 4)

the sudden new art design smelled bad to me. There was never a good explanation IMO and it made me suspicious they had already sold out but had not told the full story yet..and slowly more and more shit is revealed. As far as the fig, perhaps they are sharing the Epic payout with the fig investors? otherwise I do think they could be on shaky legal ground. They might be even if they did share, for all I know.

 

[thesheeep]

Why do people hate the epic store at the moment? Apart from the "trading the accidental monopoly of Steam for an intentional and forced one by Chinese controlled Epic."?

Let's go into all details.

• Backed by chinese company Tencent, who themselves are backed by those wonderful libertarians in the Chinese government.
• Forced exclusivity deals that benefit only the publisher.
• Added tax is paid by the consumer meaning more expensive games
• No User Reviews
• A "curated" marketplace where only approved games get in. You reckon any game that associates with the tolerant and well meaning people on this forum are going to be let in by the Tranny Brigade? Or the Chinese Government?
• It's more fucking DRM we don't need.
• Epic's security is always getting hacked. Constant leak of CC details.
• They want a closed market the Chinese can control.

Oof... Some of this has some truth to it, but on the whole, that's quite the tinfoil hattery.
Let's tackle it, eh:

• Backed by chinese company Tencent, who themselves are backed by those wonderful libertarians in the Chinese government.

• A "curated" marketplace where only approved games get in. You reckon any game that associates with the tolerant and well meaning people on this forum are going to be let in by the Tranny Brigade? Or the Chinese Government?

• They want a closed market the Chinese can control.

In all likelyhood, things will go precisely as they do with Steam (they are currently working on this, with Tencent even iirc). There will be two separate stores. At least two separate pools of games, but IMO more than likely two different pieces of software, too.
Chinese market will get the censored one, everyone else the non-censored one.
Honestly, this is unlikely to affect you at all if you do not live in China - other than for games that decide to self-censor worldwide in order to not have to maintain separate versions of their games, but that's not dependent on store.

• Forced exclusivity deals that benefit only the publisher.

Again, I don't think it is fair to blame Epic for exclusive deals. There is no other way to break Valve's quasi monopoly.
What sucks are deals like these, though, where a product formerly promised to Steam/GOG suddenly becomes Epic exclusive. That's disgusting, but the general idea of exclusivity is I think necesarry. Take Satisfactory, afaik they were Epic exclusive to begin with, so nobody was betrayed like in this case.
After all, some competition will force Valve to finally wake up and improve their client at least. And lower their ridiculous 30% share. Hopefully.

• Added tax is paid by the consumer meaning more expensive games

Not sure what you mean with that.
I've been paying taxes on all games I bought so far,no matter where.

• No User Reviews

Only correct for the moment. User reviews are opt-in. Or, well, they will be. The store is far from finished (if Epic is serious, they will have to get to Steam's features, at least).
Epic doesn't decide that, the dev/publisher does.

And honestly, I can see the merit.
Imagine, for example, the dev said something that brought the SJW brigade up against them and invites review bombing (which is independent from the game, or SHOULD be). If that happened to me, I'd be happy to be able to disable reviews for a few weeks until the storm blows over and then re-enable them.

If a game never allows reviews to begin with, then that falls in the same category as exclusivity deals - no faith in their own product. Should tell you as the consumer everything you need to know, really...

• A "curated" marketplace where only approved games get in. You reckon any game that associates with the tolerant and well meaning people on this forum are going to be let in by the Tranny Brigade?

GOG is curated, too...
There's pros and cons with curated stores. I'm not really convinced Steam's policy is the best. It kinda leads to a similar situation as Android store, etc. where the whole thing is flooded with crap.

• It's more fucking DRM we don't need.

• Epic's security is always getting hacked. Constant leak of CC details.

Hey, at least it's not Games For Windows Live

 

[Black]

Had to put this thread on my WATCHLIST because of delicious drama.
Video games are such garbage.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What a bum dig.

 

[HansDampf]

This arrangement implies a lack of confidence in their product. I wonder what the agreed upon number of sold copies is.

Translation: they aren't very confident in their game.

I don't blame them.

shows how much confidence they have in their product.

This is my takeaway as well. Zero confidence! Like they were backed into a corner, and Epic is offering them a cheap way out. They're going to need the bribe money, because this game is going to tank, and their reputation is gone.
I still can't believe this.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well this certainly makes me think twice for any future KS or Fig backing I would be doing. Actually I am already thinking twice because of all the bad products, now I guess I will be thinking three times :D

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

How will this work with the deal they already made with MS for game pass? Not really exclusive if you can play it on Win 10 too?

Also, this is pretty much the only interesting thing about this affair now. They whored themselves out to MS and with the game being developed for PC I guess MS wanted to see it on their store so how this exclusive thing is gonna work? Unless exclusive = we got money to not put it on steam lol.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Alienman]

How will this work with the deal they already made with MS for game pass? Not really exclusive if you can play it on Win 10 too?

Also, this is pretty much the only interesting thing about this affair now. They whored themselves out to MS and with the game being developed for PC I guess MS wanted to see it on their store so how this exclusive thing is gonna work? Unless exclusive = we got money to not put it on steam lol.

Is this deal still in place though? Haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, except here... by me, and now you
It almost seems forgotten.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Ah, you might be right. I somehow assumed that all the kid-friendly asset switching was made with MS money.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From FAQ:

What about the Xbox One version?

Phoenix Point will still be available on Xbox One on the same day as the PC/Mac release.

 

[Jimmious]

So in the end, we gonna get the game a year later in Steam? Probably patched up and with less bugs? With the current trend of releasing games filled with bugs this might actually be good
OPTIMISM

 

[Alienman]

From FAQ:

What about the Xbox One version?

Phoenix Point will still be available on Xbox One on the same day as the PC/Mac release.

Okay, but it was also game pass thing I believe, for Windows 10 and Xbox. Now, I'm not 100% sure though.

 

[hello friend]

Lack of confidence makes sense in context of Chaos Reborn's sales. Didn't Gollop say they were expecting to make more money off it? He's already been burned once. Still a shitty move, but he's responsible for his employees before his audience. If the Epic deal was good enough, not taking it would be a mistake. Still a shitty move.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

So in the end, we gonna get the game a year later in Steam? Probably patched up and with less bugs? With the current trend of releasing games filled with bugs this might actually be good
OPTIMISM

I guess it's a good deal for all the people who will manage to maintain interest in this game for so long. I would post the full list, but it would take too much time.

Ah, shit, I'll do it:

 

[PanteraNera]

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

I guess the what is referring to why I still think the game will not turn out to be completely shit, so let me elaborate on that:

There is a long list of changes (some might say broken promises) that generated a lot of negativity against the game.

• Changes to visuals, from Thing-like Aliens to something more "friendly", human factions changed from post-apocalyptic to generic scifi
• Gamepad support / GUI designed around Gamepads
• Microsoft deal
• announcement that Phoenix Point is no longer a Horror SciFi Game, instead a SciFi Game with some horror elements
• no Linux version
• postponing the release date twice
• Epic deal

Sure one can speculated that if they change things like that (often contradicting what they original planed/said on Fig) that they might change the gameplay as well. But most of these are business decisions and nothing like "The game will now be RTS" or "a FPS".

The only thing they changed gameplay wise is, that they use a Full TU system instead of the Hybrid they talked about around Fig, which should be a big plus for anyone loving X-Com.
To me Backer Build 3 showed a lot of potential, heck I really enjoyed that build playing it at least 40 hours, the 4X elements really are fun and something neither X-Com nor XCOM have. I like the strategic gameflow a lot.

That being said, I really look forward to Backer Build 4, to see what direction they are heading to.

And that is why I really think it is a shame, what if they make a really good game in the end, but no one buys/plays it because of "enter any of the above changes".

Sure there is also the chance that they completely fuck up everything and I can blame no one for thinking that way.


Also guys remember Julian Gollop (CEO) is not the sole head of Snapshot Games, look for David Kaye (President):

Co-founder of Snapshot Games.
Marketing and business development.
Working on Phoenix Point.

If I was upset about certain changes, I would blame him instead of Julian.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

I guess the what is referring to why I still think the game will not turn out to be completely shit, so let me elaborate on that:

There is a long list of changes (some might say broken promises) that generated a lot of negativity against the game.

• Changes to visuals, from Thing-like Aliens to something more "friendly", human factions changed from post-apocalyptic to generic scifi
• Gamepad support / GUI designed around Gamepads
• Microsoft deal
• announcement that Phoenix Point is no longer a Horror SciFi Game, instead a SciFi Game with some horror elements
• no Linux version
• postponing the release date twice
• Epic deal

Sure one can speculated that if they change things like that (often contradicting what they original planed/said on Fig) that they might change the gameplay as well. But most of these are business decisions and nothing like "The game will now be RTS" or "a FPS".

The only thing they changed gameplay wise is, that they use a Full TU system instead of the Hybrid they talked about around Fig, which should be a big plus for anyone loving X-Com.
To me Backer Build 3 showed a lot of potential, heck I really enjoyed that build playing it at least 40 hours, the 4X elements really are fun and something neither X-Com nor XCOM have. I like the strategic gameflow a lot.

That being said, I really look forward to Backer Build 4, to see what direction they are heading to.

And that is why I really think it is a shame, what if they make a really good game in the end, but no one buys/plays it because of "enter any of the above changes".

Sure there is also the chance that they completely fuck up everything and I can blame no one for thinking that way.


Also guys remember Julian Gollop (CEO) is not the sole head of Snapshot Games, look for David Kaye (President):

Co-founder of Snapshot Games.
Marketing and business development.
Working on Phoenix Point.

If I was upset about certain changes, I would blame him instead of Julian.

It was that change to Unreal engine from Unity which caused me to go koala on your post.
Though I think that is valid concern since other Unity games that have promised comparable environmental destruction (End State, Phantom Brigade) are still in development with very little shown to public.

 

[Bastion]

When people care more about the launcher than the game. And shitheads are so triggered that they're okay with pirating the game. Get over yourself. Don't want, don't buy, but pirating because you cannot play it on Uncle Gaben's launcher is dumb.

I'd like to see you in Epic's shoes. What'd you do? You'd end up just like GOG with only 1% of gamers buying there, cuz no steam, no buy.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'd like to see you in Epic's shoes.

The ultimate argument. Truly eye-opening stuff.

 

[Grotesque]

look at all the butthurt maggots that now come out like angleworms from earth after a heavy rain.
god forbid they would've asked for a refund because all of the other broken promises Gollop shoved in time.
this shit pales in comparison.

the writing was there on the wall that this kind of bait'n switch would happen.
now get your fuckin money back and get the fuck out and find another "legendary developer" whose cock to suck with your passivity.

nothing breaks a dolt's apathy than his denied GOG fetish.