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Steam Winter sale?


Laxe

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  • 3 weeks later...

If you don't mind I'd like to talk about that matter.

I have the game in my Steam Wishlist 6 months now (the day after it was added on Steam) and on the past sales it was the only game in my wishlist (out of ~90) that had no discount at all which was really odd since I don't recall any other game have such a marketing approach on Steam. What usually happens is that games either get a small discount (i.e 10-20%) for pre-purchases or if they don't there are some in-game bonuses added. So since you've chosen none of those, the only reason for someone to pre-purchase your game is the early access.

Regarding the being disrespectful to people that already bought it, although I see a slight point there, you have to admit that any sale on a product might be considered equally disrespectful. What makes a sale less disrespectful? The amount of time between initial availability of purchase and the actual sale. My opinion is that 6 months is an adequate amount of time for a game to have a sale without it being considered disrespectful. After all, everyone expects games to get a sale on sales even a slight one.

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Xenonauts has been available for purchase for a considerably longer time than the period of time it's been on Steam. This forum has suffered and sweated through the Desura Age, it's been through a Kickstarter, heck, Chris started out by selling directly from the GH website. There are far more people than you might first think who have paid $20 or more (Kickstarter) for a copy of the game, and speaking as one of those people, I would be severely irked if it was offered for sale before the game was released.

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This forum has suffered and sweated through the Desura Age, it's been through a Kickstarter, heck, Chris started out by selling directly from the GH website.

Well, that explains all the dirty looks from suffering, sweaty people as I was frolicking. I totally agree though, it should be discounted only after a decent amount of time after it's release.

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Well I didn't expect people in this forum to embrace my opinion since most of you have already bought the game.

@StellarRat like I said new games tend to have a discount for pre-purchases even if they don't suck.

What I think is that people should have a motivation to pre-purchase a game. Is there a demo anyone can download to try the game or should he just pre-order just for the love he has on XCOM games?

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Well I didn't expect people in this forum to embrace my opinion since most of you have already bought the game.

@StellarRat like I said new games tend to have a discount for pre-purchases even if they don't suck.

What I think is that people should have a motivation to pre-purchase a game. Is there a demo anyone can download to try the game or should he just pre-order just for the love he has on XCOM games?

I think $20 for Xenonauts is a steal already.
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Seconded that I think $20 is a good deal for the game, even in it's current state.

There's an old demo from the Kickstarter campaign you could probably find online somewhere, but it's horribly outdated and would only represent the game in a general sense at this point. I haven't seen any official plans for a new demo mentioned.

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Well I didn't expect people in this forum to embrace my opinion since most of you have already bought the game.

@StellarRat like I said new games tend to have a discount for pre-purchases even if they don't suck.

What I think is that people should have a motivation to pre-purchase a game. Is there a demo anyone can download to try the game or should he just pre-order just for the love he has on XCOM games?

Technically speaking, it is on sale relative to the price post-release; currently $20, moving to $25 once officially released.

A demo could be argued for once the game is pretty much complete (ie a release date that hasn't just been pulled out of someone's ass to placate overly needy folks), but it wouldn't be worth the effort at this point.

That said, after casually following the development for over a year, I only picked the game up a week or so ago. There should be enough impressions/LPs floating around on the net that you can make a judgement on the purchase; this isn't exactly a particularly crowded genre niche.

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In my opinion a game that is 16.99€ on Steam...

...even when it is not finished yet

...that is so much fun already

...despite the bugs

...with the fantastic community here

...the immersion into the game

...the fun of gaming

...the nostalgic feeling of the original (ok this may not apply to those who do not know the original)

...did I mention fun?

is worth the money!!!!

The XCOM game from Fireaxis was nice too. BUT it was much more expensive, had terrible game-stopping bugs (I guess I had all of them) that ceased gaming for month in between, and that I will not start again for some time. I did started it a second time after a couple of major patches, various DLC release (which i didn't buy) and stopped it after some hours, because it was not as interesting anymore.

I have Xenonauts started three times now and I am still interested. That is worth of money in my eyes!

This constant interest in a game is , for me at least, the major aspect to buy a game. Not some reduced price, or tons of new content (DLC) when the main game is not fixed yet. (Hello Civ5, do you hear me?)

Sorry to get so enthusiastic about it...

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Retail price might be 25$ but I doubt if it gets more expensive on steam.

Anyway, I had a lust for a good XCOM game and I wanted to try this approach. But I find 17 euros a bit too much for an indie game, which I can't be sure that would fit my taste on XCOM. Since I have no incentive on getting a pre-purchase on it, I'll wait for some reviews when it comes out...

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Retail price might be 25$ but I doubt if it gets more expensive on steam.

Anyway, I had a lust for a good XCOM game and I wanted to try this approach. But I find 17 euros a bit too much for an indie game, which I can't be sure that would fit my taste on XCOM. Since I have no incentive on getting a pre-purchase on it, I'll wait for some reviews when it comes out...

The term "indie" in this sense isn't particularly useful; compare it to what's actually out there in terms of the genre niche. Firaxis' recent reboot that'd be nearly three times the price if you grab the original+expansion? It certainly *looks* more expensive, but from what I've seen of the gameplay (admittedly, rather little), I'd be surprised if the gameplay's on the same level as Xenonauts is currently. That's especially true if you factor in the fact that this game's incomplete and AI issues and the like should be ironed out. The reboot also seems to lack a critical component of the original, where your ability to effectively fight the aliens depends more on technology parity than high level units. "Level ups" just run completely counter to that.

That's not to say I'm completely happy with some fundamental design decisions in Xenonauts (Actions taking a percentage of TUs as opposed to flat amounts; flat values make experienced soldiers a lot more valuable), but it's going in the direction of getting a lot of things right.

There are always older XCOM variants, but I'm guessing you've already gone through what's available, as it isn't a particularly active niche. Also guessing that you've already done some playthroughs of the original with XCOMUtil and played with some of those changes (Love the requirement of unconscious aliens for alien tech progress).

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Yes Ashery, I've played original XCOM with the Util. I've also spent many hours on Firaxis' version of XCOM which I enjoyed, especially with the DLCs that came out which made it more "complete". I've also played the whole UFO trilogy (by ALTAR Interactive) which I also enjoyed. I've put some time on Extraterrestrials too but I didn't get to finish it. I've yet to try Xenonauts though and that's bugging me.

I'm not willing to pay 20$ though without knowing if I will like the game or not. I appreciate the effort of bringing a polished original xcom edition by the devs, but I don't know them, I can't be sure of their work. I've spent money on pre-orders but only when I was sure of the dev team from previous experience. That's why a demo is needed, or at least another incentive to pre-order the game...

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There's nothing wrong with waiting until the game comes out and has been reviewed before making a decision, tragikos. Some people will spend $20 without too many worries, other people will only do it on games they *know* are good...but we get enough of the former that we don't feel the need to risk alienating parts of the existing community by discounting before release.

We'll start discounting the game after it is formally released, and we'll probably put out a demo some point after release too.

EDIT - and yes, the game will go up to $25 on release for at least a couple of months before all the sales discounting starts.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I suppose one way of doing it would be to raise the price on steam to $25, then offer a 20% pre-order discount.

That might psychologically work to attract some buyers on the fence. :) Same offer, different presentation.

Though would you want to do that? I mean there are already lots of people whining on every EA game on Steam. Wouldn't incentivising those kinds of people (read luring their tiny little brains) to preorder just end up with stupid rants on the steam forum?

PS: doesn't Steam want some kind of countdown until the discount is over?

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