Phoenix Point Catch-All

Pages

Just a catch-all for future use. Currently, no information about the game can be discussed, except the fact that the Pre-Alpha is available to certain purchasers.

Robear wrote:

Just a catch-all for future use. Currently, no information about the game can be discussed, except the fact that the Pre-Alpha is available to certain purchasers.

For those that don’t know, it’s basicslly XCOM: Enemy Unknown with the biggest hook being enemies adapt to what weapons and abilities you’re using, more permanent and customizable soldiers, and a faction system featuring different tech depending on your faction of choice. It looks REALLY good.

I’ll post links and YouTube videos when I get to my PC later.

Thanks for the heads up, looks awesome!

Thanks Vector!

As promised!

Here's the official website.

Also, I knew there was some connection to original XCOM. Julian Gallop, XCOM creator, is the CEO of Snapshot Games and the lead designer on Phoenix Point. So there's legitimate lineage.

Here's Gallop walking through 8 minutes of gameplay.

And a 36 minute backer build from 6 days ago.

It's due out in June 2019 and I'm extremely excited. If the price doesn't change, the base game is only $30.

Very interesting.

Early Access is $50 and currently shows off the tactical battle side of the game.

Robear wrote:

Early Access is $50 and currently shows off the tactical battle side of the game.

I wasn't sure if that meant you get access right now or at a later date.


PCGamer has a very good and long article/discussion about the game from May.

If this is even half as good as the recent X-Com games, it will be good enough for me to get.

Right now. I mean, you worry for about 10 minutes until your download page updates, then you are fine.

Even if it's Epic storefront only it wouldn't bother me unless Epic decides to never discount their games. I've picked up free Slime Rancher from Epic for the boy and that's awesome. Free is good!

Yeeks.

Using Fig crowdfunding promising Steam & GOG keys on release, only to flip to Epic months before launch.

That's a move I guess.

Not a fan of developers and publishers doing that. I get that the market has changed but as a consumer, it’s frustrating.

Well, it's good for the dev since they'll presumably get a better deal on sale distribution percentages. And at the end of the day that's what we want, right? Because the publishers are in the middle taking the profits, and sure they fund infrastructure, but as gamers we should want game development to be sustainable and rewarding. Perhaps further discussed in the financial viability thread.

My Epic account got banned for a bogus Paragon cheating rap, so not thrilling news to me. I can probably create a new one at this point using a secondary email account, but I'd rather not do business with Epic at all.

They are offering a refund for those who feel they aren't getting what they wanted, which is nice.

I smiled a bit as I read the news from Julian, because even I understood that this would NOT be a popular move.

I for one am happy to steam to get the cold shoulder from serious developers as much as possible. Maybe it'll shock them to actually take an interest in cleaning up their garbage-strewn store and being a little more pro-active in making improvements / better offers for developers.

They back peddled quite hard after the (entirely predictable) backlash on the Subreddit and their Discord server.

They are going to give everyone an Epic key as per the exclusivity deal, but they are also going to give everyone who still wants it a steam/GoG key as well (including all the free DLC) once the exclusivity period is over.

Yeah, I think they are treating the backers (including me) better than many would have. I mean, you get what you paid for, after the period; you get access to the Epic version (as I understand it); and you get a free year’s worth of DLC. Or a refund. I mean, what was left on the table?

Robear wrote:

Yeah, I think they are treating the backers (including me) better than many would have. I mean, you get what you paid for, after the period; you get access to the Epic version (as I understand it); and you get a free year’s worth of DLC. Or a refund. I mean, what was left on the table? :-)

The certainly could have handled the initial announcement a whole lot better, but in terms of making sure backers get what they want - they’re fine.

I gave them an interest free loan for 2 years. They changed the terms of OUR agreement.

I don't want anything to do with the epic store and especially Tencent.

Epic's bribe money is more important than when they came to me asking to help fund them getting off the ground.

Refund requested and I actively wish bad things on the studio AND Epic.

I'm never going to pre order or back another game. I can't believe the guy responsible for me getting into PC gaming at all is leaving me feeling actively betrayed like this.

Demeaner wrote:

I gave them an interest free loan for 2 years. They changed the terms of OUR agreement.

I don't want anything to do with the epic store and especially Tencent.

Epic's bribe money is more important than when they came to me asking to help fund them getting off the ground.

Refund requested and I actively wish bad things on the studio AND Epic.

I'm never going to pre order or back another game. I can't believe the guy responsible for me getting into PC gaming at all is leaving me feeling actively betrayed like this.

You didn't give them an interest free loan. Sorry I get a little annoyed when I read that, but Crowd-sourcing is many things - a loan isn't one of them. When you loan someone money you (may) expect a return on that investment, which is a legally binding financial arrangement between the two parties.

Crowd Sourcing isn't that at all. It's basically someone saying "If you are willing to give us some money, we'll do our best to make a product for you". You need to think of it in terms of a lootbox - you are sending someone money and you might get something out of it at the other end. The law is quite explicit about it in both the US and Europe, and it does not recognise "crowd-sourcing for reward" (which is what everyone backing on Fig did for this game) as a legal financial arrangement between you and SnapShot games. You are gambling that they'll get enough interested other people to gamble with their cash, that what they asked for is enough and at the end of the process you'll get something out of it - the game. Those are pretty much the only terms you are entering into when you backed Phoenix Point.

Now all that said I'm totally with you on how badly they've handled the whole situation. However bad they "thought" it might be, I really don't think it would have required that much more imagination from a PR perspective to realise how bad it actually was/is. I'm amazed the community manager manged to get away with calling one of their customers a "Toxic c*ck waffle" as well (although I think there might well have been some justification) - I do think that they should have done something about that as well.

However, from a financial perspective they've entered into a deal that at the least secures the game for release, their jobs and livelihoods (and Julian has as big a responsibility to his staff as he does the backers) plus some additional content moving forward. I can absolutely see the business reasons for accepting Epic's money and I have a fair degree of sympathy there.

In the end, I'm getting the game - for Crowd sourcing, that's a definite bonus. I was much angrier at first when it appeared that the game would only appear on Epic for sure (because where's the choice in that?) but I was much calmer again once they backtracked and promised additional steam/GoG keys once the exclusivity deal is up, on top of getting an Epic key at launch.

All in all, this could have been a hell of lot worse.

I do understand the financial point of it. I employ 8 people full time. Having the financial security to proceed forward is great for any small business.

Everyone has a price.

The thing is, I don't care if what they did is legal, I care about what is right.

Manufactured scarcity is never good for the customer.

They also wouldn't have offered those extra steam keys after a year if the blowback hadn't been as severe.

I didn't view my contribution as a loan until they pulled this BS.

I have backed several games that didn't pan out. Those resulted in disappointment, but I knew the risk when I plopped down my money. This feels totally different.

This is a wholesale change of what they promised. The when is inconsequential. I backed them to get a steam key, but now I am a second class citizen because I refuse to use and support EGS.

The second Epic believes they can get away with screwing over these same devs, they will. It is the nature of huge corporations.

Sorbicol wrote:

All in all, this could have been a hell of lot worse.

Well it went a long way to poisoning the well for any future Fig/Kickstarter support on my end, so I'd say that's pretty bad.

Strikes me as really selfish of Snapshot Games to set this precedent, in a "screw you, I got mine" kinda way.

A dev launches a crowd campaign promising specific platform options. Takes the money and develops the game. Only to turn around at the finish line and change the terms of the deal.

Why in holy hell would I ever back another project when the rules have been changed so dramatically?

Feels like Snapshot Games have ruined future crowdfunding for a lot of developers.

Many crowdfunding stories have gone horribly bad from not delivering anything to delivering something very different than what was promised.. Vita versions dropped.. or Linux/Mac versions dropped etc. This isn't any different than any of those stories and in fact is considerably better.. You are still actually getting a game (How close the actual game is to what was promised I have no idea so I could be wrong here) just on a different distribution channel. Platform is the same (PC Windows) so its not a platform change just a digital distribution change.

Anyone who has a PC connected to the internet complaining about Privacy or China gets nothing but massive eye-rolls from me.

As well they went out of their way to refund anyone not comfortable with the change from Steam/GOG to EGS so other than a few dollars in interest no monetary loss. I'm happy to send some $$ via paypal to any GWJ'er that needs those few dollars back.

I think it's the principle of the thing regarding "exclusives" rather than money. Especially considering some of the sentiments I'm seeing here are that this is WORSE than the game never releasing. I respect folks standing by their principles, even though I don't feel as strongly about the issue.

I didn't dig too much into this when they announced the change. On their forums it looks like this post is new:

A question asked a lot is about the Epic Game Launcher DRM system. DRM on Epic is decided by the game’s developer.

We have opted not to use DRM for Phoenix Point.

The Epic Games Launcher is required to download and install Phoenix Point, along with providing updates. However, you do not need to run the Epic Games Launcher to run Phoenix Point.

By default, the desktop shortcut that the Epic Launcher creates starts the game via the launcher. However, you can navigate to the installation directory for Phoenix Point (where ever you specified during the installation) and launch the game directly from the executable (and even make a shortcut to that on your desktop).

It is also possible to uninstall the Epic Games Launcher from your system and still play Phoenix Point. To do this, you will need to move your Phoenix Point folder to a new location after installation (as uninstalling the Epic Games Launcher tries to tidy up all installed files/folders).

If you do not move the Phoenix Point folder first, it will get uninstalled with the Epic Games Launcher.

After reading through the announcement and stuff, it really seems like when they realized they had to delay the game so it wasn't a buggy mess, they also had to find a way to secure more funding. Giving people who backed a free year of DLC, Steam keys later and now taking DRM off the table (which you can't do with Steam) they're trying to make the best of an unpopular, difficult decision. Having run a company and been up against the "will we make payroll this week" wall plenty of times, my bias is the business perspective and making sure my staff can buy groceries, so grain of salt and all that.

I have a hard time believing that this self-published indie game is rolling in money and simply greedy for more. If your view is "I don't care, this is unfriendly to consumers who trusted them to deliver what they promised," I can't really argue the point. It is.

TheGameguru wrote:

Anyone who has a PC connected to the internet complaining about Privacy or China gets nothing but massive eye-rolls from me.

My misgivings about Tencent's stake in Epic have nothing to do with privacy.

Middcore wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Anyone who has a PC connected to the internet complaining about Privacy or China gets nothing but massive eye-rolls from me.

My misgivings about Tencent's stake in Epic have nothing to do with privacy.

That's fine.. you are certainly free to vote with your wallet and support companies as you see fit. Your particular misgivings with Tencent are your own. I looked at their M&A diagram once so you've certainly have your work cut out trying to avoid them.

Certis wrote:

Especially considering some of the sentiments I'm seeing here are that this is WORSE than the game never releasing.

This.

The entire response reeks of unearned entitlement. Crowdfunding a game entitles you to precisely zip. Nada. You’re tossing money into a metaphorical fountain and wishing for a game. You should have the expectation that you’re not going to get what you’re initially told you are, whether that’s release dates, content, quality, or even the basic existence of the finished product.

Aaron D wrote:

Well it went a long way to poisoning the well for any future Fig/Kickstarter support on my end, so I'd say that's pretty bad.

This is a GOOD outcome. Your expectations for your crowdfunding returns were in need of a re-calibration.

Demeaner wrote:

The thing is, I don't care if what they did is legal, I care about what is right.

And if they’d said ‘it was take this deal or we’d have run out of money before the game would have been finished” or “you wouldn’t have got the game you helped fund” would that be ‘right’?

Applying morals in a business sense tends very much to be in the eye of the beholder. I get your point (I really do) but if you calm down and go through it logically, once the offered had been made I really don’t see how they could have decided anything else. It’s the one solution that gives everybody what they want. Might not be quite they they expected it, but they are getting it. If they want it.

I don't think I can add anything else to this discussion.

I do understand them needing money.

I also understand that they broke an agreement between me and them because it was more profitable for them.

I game on PC because its infinitely less of a walled garden than consoles. How long til these "timed exclusives" are no longer timed? That is the natural progression.

I am turning from actively hating the Dev Studio AND Epic to being disappointed in the Devs and RAGINGLY FURIOUS at Epic for buying timed exclusivity.

Steam needs competition, yes. But this? This isn't competition, this is refusing to let competition happen.
Epic can't compete feature wise with Steam, so they just pay devs off. They should do their 88/12 split and let that be the actual thing to cause exclusivity.

I think that is the thing that bothers me. If the developers wanted to be exclusive because of the 88/12 thing, that I understand and could even get behind. The icky part is being paid off to make that decision because it obviously isn't enough to do it on its own.

Pages