This week saw the release of a paid expansion for the unfinished title Planetary Annihilation by Uber Entertainment. This is not a DLC, this is a so called “expandalone” that completely replaces PA on the steam store. There are several reasons this release is completely against the spirit in which the original game was sold, we were promised free expansions for the game, continued development, and it never, ever, crossed my mind that they would do something as ridiculous as this.
It’s clear to anyone with any sense that the intention was to essentially erase the bad reviews that PA had recieved on steam and to try and pretend that the content on offer is worth paying for the same game twice. They are offering a 66% discount to steam users, which they seem to consider a very generous offer rather than the insult it is to those of us who payed extortionate prices for Early Access in order to support a game we had faith (misplaced or not) in.
As a long time fan of the RTS genre and in particular Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander (a far superior game that I was in the FREE beta test for (remember those?)) I’m thoroughly disappointed in the game itself and the behavior of the developers.
I’m not asking for something for nothing, I payed far more than I ever usually would for a game that couldn’t be considered worth it by a long shot, and to have new content tantalisingly held behind a pay wall with “Screw you Early Access Backers!” scrawled across it is just insulting.
I’ve left my negative feedback with Uber, and signed the probably completely ignored petition, but this is more a lesson for myself than anything, no matter the pedigree of the developers behind a game, or the nostalgia and love for a genre I have, Early Access/Kickstarter are just a bad idea from the start, and I doubt it’ll take many more badly handled releases like this before we all give up on the concept.
mucephorous 