I'm sceptical about pre ordering + few questions

Zitat von chrigulix

There is no multi-billion dollar company behind indie games and they need to eat, pay rent, and want to live a decent life.

Hmm. My chef dont pays me for work I havent already done. First I need to do my job and then I get payed - when I did my job right. If I fail too often I loose my job. Pretty hard? Pretty normal I would say. But here all is different. Those poor guys! Damn, I have a family too and nothing to give as a prestent But now I'am the bad guy? I need to work too to live a decent life but I dont get payed befor I did that. So what is wrong with this behavior?

Dont get me wrong, ofc you have to differentiate. I preordered TpF too because I really like UG and they are worth it. But there are many many ppl out there that just "consume" everything on the marked. The last 3 games from that developer/puplisher were crap? Wayne! Sh*t up and take my money! Sry, but exactly that is adressed by the critics. This unreflected consuming that ruins the whole industry. They produce crap and earn millions - OF COURS they wont change that when they can drive limousins and live an a villa. The consumer just gives the wrong signs and complains afterwards -.-

As you already said, your Boss pays you if you work for him. You know what you have to do in order to get a predefined amount of money at the end of the month. If you work for a big company you can be relatively sure, that your salary will be stable and your risk of losing everything is almost zero as long as you just keep working in an acceptable manner. And that my friend is the difference in this case because the guys behind UG take a risk by developing a game. They work upfront and can't be sure how much they will earn after the release. Also, they don't see any money beforehand and therefore I made this statement. Pre-ordering can be very helpful for the company to cover salaries of their Programmers, who by the way just work for their Boss like you do.

People who just want the finished product shouldn't pre-order, I agree. But I disagree on your killing the gaming industry point. Who pre-orders a game, 5% maybe 10% of the customers? Will they be happy customers, if they don't get, what they payed for? No, absolutely not and they will write bad reviews or even demand refunds (see No Man's Sky). For a small company this has devastating consequences and on the long run even EA and co. might get problems.

Thatswhy there are publishers. Its like another way of a credit at a bank as I understand it

That depends on the contract, but I doubt that Gambitious has the financial capacity to make large contributions, since they themselves are more of a startup company.

Zitat von BR84

Nope, the boss pays nothing - the customer pays!

And this was actually my point, if you continue reading my text. The part cited by you summarized DarkMo's view.

Also I don't get the logic behind your tricky situations nor the fishiness of pre-ordering.

Zitat von chrigulix

@Blowfly
The whole beta discussion also strongly depends on the perspective. When is a game finished? Is it when requested features are implemented or only when all bugs are fixed?
.....
all game developers by implying that they produce games just for the financial profits and that they prey on their "stupid" customers. There is no multi-billion dollar company behind indie games and they need to eat, pay rent, and want to live a decent life.

A game is finished if all promised or announced ( not requested !) features/properties are working without problems. Requested features are totally irrelevant because users always request anything and you never would finish a game.
But finally a game is a product like anything else. A product normally has warranted properties and these properties have to work - nothing else I expect.
And a customer is not a social aid organisation to help suffering game developers to allow them to live a decent life. They (or there publisher and the investors behind the publisher) have the money (or they don't have the money) to develop a game. There is no need for compassion with the poor little indie developer. They already got the money (and a time frame) to develop the game and it's the risk of the inverstors (!) to believe in the product, that it gets ready in the given time spawn, and make profit with this product - and not the risk of the customers !
This is business like anything else and the purpose is to sell this product with financial profit. You don't by a game out of pity - what is this for an argument ??
Preorder only is marketing hype and unfortunately there are brainwashed customers who blunder into the trap. You show support for a game with buying the finished product (if you like the product) when it's released. Preorder is throwing your money away for a pig in a poke. You never would preorder a product you really don't know in real world.
If you really want help someone there are countless social projects in the world where you could donate money.

You only seem to think in absolutes and you can't think outside of this tiny little capitalist world. I curse that asshole Bill Gates for it, to make the software industry a nightmare. There are developers who really care about their products and not only the profits. As I said, if you are a customer, who is just interested in the finished product, pre-ordering is not the right choice for you. But there are reasons to pre-order, although you disagree on that in a very condescending way, I dare say. The world is more than black an white man, not everyone pre-ordering is brainwashed or stupid... I don't pity the developers, but I kind of pity you.

In the past I invested in Train Fever through Gambitious just because I wanted to see a modern game in this genre. Now I'm pre-ordering because I see it as a form of support for them. If everybody thought like you, we would be stuck with EA and Ubisoft. How is that a better world in your opinion?

If I buy the game after official release and pay the full price (without your pre-order discount), who supports them more ?
It is completely absurd your thinking that only pre-order customers support them and after-release-buying customer doesn't support them. I pay them more money than you, so I support them more then you
And it's complete nonsense to claim without your pre-order there would be only EA and UBI. A good game doesn't need your pre-order, it sells because of good quality and regardless of big company or tiny developer, and not because you are such a generous guy.
The danger of pre-order is to make the producers deep and rich without delivering a finished product. And Train Fever wasn't a finished product, lot of bugs and performance problems yet aren't fixed until today.
Transport Fever looks nice but it looks as Train Fever should be from the very beginning (without the other transport options as airplanes and ships, those weren't announced) - assumed it works as we could see in the latest game trailer. Btw, I don't see any sensational new features in the game, e.g. a flexible track allocation in railway stations, time tables, speed limits or anything else to make the track and train management more interesting.
So far it looks like a more polished Train Fever. Anyway, better a working evolution than a non-working revolution
So with this history in mind it is even more incomprehensible to repeat two times the same pre-order mistake. As experience showed from the past, more probable is again we have to wait after release a few weeks or more (a few patches) until it works as we want. But I am open for a nice surprise
And what else should be interested a customer than in a finished product ? For a half-ready product I have no use, even if the developer is very sympathic.

And I am sorry that I was born in a capitalist world but this is the way how it works with games at the moment. There is a lot I don't like in our system of capitalism but this would fill another thread.
But at the moment I have to deal with it, and it works like this, my money against your product. And not, take my money and then we'll see what I get (or don't get). And in any case I wouldn't act like this with such an unimportant product like a computer game.

Train Fever was crowd-funded. So, without people taking a risk and giving UG money for not much more than a promise, Train Fever and thus Transport Fever wouldn't even exist.

As I said, I pre-ordered, because I save money, and I trust UG. Other people have other perfectly legitimate reasons.

Zitat von Blowfly

and it works like this, my money against your product.

And that is completely fine by me... if you don't want to preorder, then don't, why should anyone care?

The thing which really annoys me is this:

Zitat von Blowfly

Preorder only is marketing hype and unfortunately there are brainwashed customers who blunder into the trap.

Yes, you are the enlightened one, everyone else is stupid and brainwashed...

While I consider TF a finished product with some rough edges in terms of performance and while I also will pre-order the game to save some money as my financial situation is quite unfavorable at the moment, I do agree with some of you that pre-ordering just doesn't make any sense for the customer. If they give a noticeable discount (like with TPF) or give away a free game with it, I can understand. Otherwise it's just throwing money their way without knowing what you'll get too often (I would call TPF with it's insight videos an exception in that regard). You might be able to pre-load some games but you won't get to play them before the first reviews are out.

All the information about the product either comes directly from the publisher, is just speculation or is controlled by the publisher. I hope I don't have to tell you, that being honest about the lack of fun, optimization, content, etc. is not a good marketing strategy and therefor non-existent.

The result of it is that you can easily make money and get away with putting out crap like No Man's Sky.

I know I wrote some optimistic sentences about the modern time of gaming in the German thread about Steam but this is something I would love to abolish along with pre-order DLC, day-1-DLC, microtransactions and other generally greedy practices I can't remember right now, if I ever had the power to change gaming. I don't see anything positive in that. If some company tells me it's a "great experience" or some buzzword bullshit, I want to punch the person responsible for it right in it's face.

People fall too easily for this. Look at mobile "gaming" for example. It's nothing but draining someone's wallet hidden behind a game-template copied by everyone. And that scene is flourishing apparently. And take a look how many players still support Ubisoft after their marketing director openly stated something along the lines of "we want to make the customer spend $200 per game" without feeling any shame, you don't have to wonder when the setting of the movie Idiocracy becomes reality within our lifetime.

Zitat von TheRed

Yes, you are the enlightened one, everyone else is stupid and brainwashed...

Wrong - the majority of possible customers and me are the enlightened ones, but a smaller percentage of customers unfortunately not.
Life in this world works like this.
In every aspect of our life there are enlightened people and others who plunder in traps again and again.
If you only see the field of politics or religion. Or shopping in general.
I think everybody of you already had the experience after shopping "why on earth I bought this useless shit " - me too
To make experiences like this you have to make mistakes, no problem with that, to everybody it happens, it's part of our life and you learn from your mistakes. You see the mistake you made, do some self reflection and for next time you are enlightened not to repeat the same error. The problem starts when you repeat again and again the same stupid error - then you don't belong to the enlightened ones
Easy, isn't it ?

Zitat von Blowfly

If I buy the game after official release and pay the full price (without your pre-order discount), who supports them more ?

Even a capitalist should know that there is one other variable driving the markets and that is time. Early investments help to gain some financial security.

Zitat von Blowfly

And I am sorry that I was born in a capitalist world but this is the way how it works with games at the moment.

You should definitively once try the free software / open source part of the software world, might enlighten you a bit.

Regarding the other variable - time. Yes I agree. But I am the customer, not the investor. I am not responsable to help the publisher and developer to gain financial security before they deliver the product, specially if I don't have the security to get a finished product with all announced properties. And with all bad experiences in mind from the past....no, it doesn't make any sense.

And no problem with open source software. Why I shoud have if something is offered for free ? I am using free software since long time ago, so no need to enlighten me

As I thought, you like open source software just because it is free of charge; and I guess I don't have to ask you, if you ever backed an open source project (by money or personal effort). That doesn't make you an enlightened person, it makes you cheap. So, it's the money that drives you in your life...

Okay, so I'm fairly certain I can sum this thread up easily:
Preordering Call of Duty 27 is dumb and reckless, preordering Transport Fever is a way to save money.

On a more serious note: I somehow have a feeling we won't be able to settle this discussion and slowly it's starting to move to a more personal level.
Therefore: please, by all means, keep up the discussion, if you wish, but refrain from slipping into off-topic posts that have nothing to do with preordering and, most importantly: please stop jabbing at eachother on a personal level. That is not something we tolerate here.
Thank you.

@chrigulix
ok, this is getting ridiculous, you make allegations about me you never can't proof and I am not willing to discuss because it has nothing to do with the pre-order issue.
Your stupid arguments are not getting any better if you try to offend me, so forget it.
I use open source as I want and I don't discuss this with you - I even don't care what you think about.
You can play your role as the noble knight if it makes you happy but pls play it alone or at least not with me, anyway I don't believe in your role.
I am out of this discussion.

Sorry for that, I thought you could take a punch, since you had no problem to call other people stupid. But I take it back, I shouldn't have gone that far, since I don't know you personally.

SORRY!