Give all Founders Alpha access

I think I would support the idea of all Founders getting alpha access, but I don't think that Stardock is lacking professionalism by doing this. Perhaps they were trying to separate the two programs slightly too aggressively, or they might have been aiming the lower program to people who want to support the game but won't bother playing the alpha.

But, since the poiint of the alpha is to improve the game and since Founders are supposed to be the most supportive fans, I think everyone would benefit. As 'elite' founders we get a whole lot more with the life-time subscription to GalCiv3 (and other stuff) so let all founders contribute to the building of the game.

I have read the whole OP and as a general comment I'll say...

If you blindly pay for something that may or may not be done, long before it may be actually done, you are supposed to assume risks. So those who paid less don't get to play the game as soon as those who paid more? Boo-hoo!  I'm still waiting for Star Command PC (no problems ere about it either). I may see Pillars of Eternity's release long before I get beta access for SC PC.

I would not complain if Stardock were to give alpha access to any Founder (or anyone else, Founder or not). But no. You go cheap (nothing wrong with that), you get the usual preorder stuff with beta access and having to pay it long bfore the beta actually happens. You go nuts and (blindly) pay insane money, you get that luring alpha access (and the far MORE important) extra free content. Stardock has the right to decide their offers and, while feedback is always welcome, they can do as they want with it. They don't have to give any offer or offer any alpha/beta access if they don't want. They may not want a bazillions alpha users and actually be more selective. Once upon a time, there were no preorder, no alpha/beta access...

Free alphas and betas? In (F2P) MMOs, if you are lucky (and fanwork hard), you can get in alphas. Betas can be more complicated sometimes due to marketing. In non MMOs? For free? I don't remember any. Early Access is paid and before developers massively started abusing it, I seriously don't remember that. I'm quite sure that Grim Dawn gave alpha access as prepurchase bonus to people who paid long before their Kickstarter. Paid. As did Xenonauts. Minecraft? Paid too. And even then, it's a matter of what kind of prepurchase bonuses the devs want to give because they could have chosen not to allow alpha access (they did for their own totally true indie reasons).

The only thing that devs actually owe the players (besides giving the players what their bought package says) is to make the best game that can be done. If they do a crap job with the game, that we were given alpha access will be irrelevant for our money spent.

I'm guessing someone hasn't seen Steam's "early access" section, which is pretty much nothing BUT buying a game and getting access to the alpha/beta.

If you do anything with your credit card other than pay the full balance immediately, you're doing it very, very wrong. Leaving a balance on a credit card is just setting money on fire.

Tridus, paying interest on your debt is very important for your credit score, look up credit utilization ratio on investopedia, not to be off topic

Continue the discussion, I wrote this post pretty late after some pre-Christmas beers so don't look for a perfect argument, extrapolate.

Thanks gentlemen. I've followed the industry for a very long time, but if business practices have changed and these types of deals are routine then you could say Stardock have evolved depending on your viewpoint. So have Blizzard-Activision, but I'm not sure most fans would agree they make the same games as they used to.

Let's detour for a bit, and look into not so distant past. What is the difference between us, pre-ordering cancel games now, in alpha stage, and us, pre-ording games years ago, when we had no demo, no firsth hand experience, maybe only preview from magazine? What is the difference? We still "wander into unknown" and trust unknown people with our money. The only difference is stage at which we give them our money, and, if studio small enough, additional funds could be quite welcomed. 

Plus, because there is more of us, we can lend a hand and help them with testing - Nival released their Prime World: Defenders as "beta", although they admitted they considered game to be "fully polished", but decided to play it safe. Amount of bugs we found during that stage, was enormous. X-Rebirth is game where developer opted for different move, and look what happened, boards are filled with anrgy birds gamers, who can't tests new features, because they simply don't work. It's not surprising for me, all Egosoft's games were buggy at start, but there are new people, they are not accustomed to that.

Kickstarter, Steam Greenlight, or selling stuff through developers' site are basically no different from each other. The only question is who gets the money, and what they can show us - in some cases they "sell" only ideas, in some, they have some basic prototype, or even more advanced content. I mean, my experience with Endless Space/Dungeons was positive - despite early stages, games were better polished and more stable than some of so called "AAA" products (* cough* bethesda, battlefield 4, simcityblock *cough*), Gnomoria works fine too, to give some example. And, if I'm not mistaken, Prison Architect generated quite the income, despite being alpha. Or, maybe because - where else you could see naked eating people, running to shower, that is lit on fire.

So, by my humble opinion, in any case, we still walking into unknown, and trust our instincts when we pre-ordering, and even demo is not savior here - remember Aliens scandal, imagine demo comprised only of good elements of the game, with rest being meh filler. For same reasons previews are thrown overboard for me, I do read them, but only after I bought and played game, this way previews are far more hilarious.

As for different stages of access for GC3, I think it's not of financial side, rather than workflow - processing data coming from fewer "outsiders" working with game in early stages should be easier, and their dedication could help overcome certain issues, inevitable in this stage.

It is common now. It's only a good idea for fans and people who have money to potentially waste though, because if it turns out badly you can't get that money back. I don't normally do it, but made an exception in this case. For lots of people it's a poor idea, and that's fine. When the game gets released, there will be reviews, lets play videos, and all the other things used to decide if it's worth buying or not. All they're really doing is giving people a chance to get in early with a bit of a discount for the founders package.

For the elite package... that's a gamble. If it turns out that I like the game and would buy the DLCs anyway, I'm probably going to come out ahead. If not? I just wasted a bunch of money. Most people shouldn't buy that package, I'd say. But it's there for people who want it (like me).

As I mentioned, you see a lot of this on Steam. There's tons of early access games that you buy before they're done and get in early. Most of the time it's probably a bad idea, but if it's a game you know you're going to like than you can sometimes get a deal by doing it.

I don't know if it's a good industry practice or not, but it's become fairly common. To the point that Age of Wonders 3 kind of looks odd for *not* offering anything of the sort.

You might want to check more into that one there... http://money.msn.com/credit-rating/7-nasty-credit-myths-that-will-not-die-weston.aspx

To the OP...

I don't know what you are getting at with the original post. It seems like you are rambling. I'm trying to understand what you are saying...

They are not charging full retail price for the game before it is released. They are not even charging you for the game, they are asking if you would like to help Fund the game with added perks of getting it when the game is done. But a 20 percent discount is a 20 percent discount, how you financially pay for it is not the problem of Stardock.

What are you saying here? Are you trying to make a statement, but instead ask a poorly phrased question?

My impression from you is that the Founder's vault seems a little underwhelming and you would like to see more unique things for Founders alone. I'd say that the Founder's vault is more of a portfolio of things and how they are progressing. You invest in a business you want to see what you're money is being spent on and that is the Founder's Vault. The content was never meant to be unique for Founder's alone, but a preview of what the final product will turn out to be.

Not sure what you mean here.

If I understand this you are happy with the fact that Stardock produces a game that is not a mindless drone. I can agree with that. But it is jumbled together with a lot of other thoughts....

This last bit confuses me the most. I don't know exactly what your point is here.

I can conclude that I do not agree that access to the alpha is necessary for the founder class. The beta stage of development is more "fun" than the alpha stage. The alpha stage can/will produce a very buggy game that has fun factor of 0. If one were to complain or criticize what is offered and negotiate for a intermediate offer, then that should be done before the purchase, not after.

Business practices are in line with world standards. They have offered a product and demonstrated what you will receive and when you receive it. I think I would like a more concise and clear implication of what you are getting at with this post, because I'm interested in the meat of what you are getting at here.

I don't understand.  I know exactly what I paid for in Beta Access.  I am happy with what I am getting.  Nothing unethical happened, or even dissatisfying.  Why are you trying to convince me I am somehow now missing something?  

 I have no desire to input at the Alpha level.  I will have fun looking at Beta level.  I will do some minimum input.  If you want the fun of Alpha access, you are going to need to pay for that level of fun.  If you are trying to tout it as part of some overall improvement of feedback for GC3.  I am not agreeing.  I have no problem in believing in the devs and their ability to listen to both Alpha and Beta feedback and come up with a good game.

I would love to have the all DLC/expansions feature more than the Alpha, but the digital wallet says otherwise at the moment.  And the family knows exactly what I would name a star.  But, I spent too much buying the DnD part of the family custom dice.  Priorities and decisions.  We each have our own.

First off criticism of this is NOT warranted here, Stardock has been very upfront with the packages available if you don't like what the basic founder program has to offer than you shouldn't have purchased it.  If you wanted Alpha access and all future DLC's and Expansions then you should have purchased the founder's elite package.  You can't blame the company because you are cheap...

Not really, most games now are for sale way ahead of time, and not gauranteed Beta or Alpha access... look at EA/Maxis release of SimCity this was not discounted gave you two or three options with select DLC's only or all that were available at release, didn't offer an all forever option, and you still weren't gauranteed Beta access, and no Alpha for the common preorder was offered.  In fact to get Beta access you had to fight to try to find an offer at a third party website.  Now I did not agree with this but this shows you it could be worse than what Stardock is offering.

They have given you a discount based on their targeted release price, all that is subject to change, which also is not unusual all company's have the right to modify pricing at their choosing, not yours.  As far as no guarantee, Stardock didn't announce the game until they were well into development, as you can see from screenshots and from previous posts from Stardock on where they are.  Needless to say the game will be released, however, if you don't believe that then don't preorder, that's your choice.

So you can see the content as early as possible, that's it, again if that doesn't interest you than that's not a benefit for you at all, so don't buy it.

They have met their ethical responsibility, they have clearly laid out what is in each program if you don't want the more expensive option then don't complain, that was your choice, Stardock gave you an option, you don't go to a dinner and order a hamburger and expect a 4 course steak meal, so why do you expect that when ordering a game?

You know your options Spring is not too late that's what you chose, if you want Alpha release then pony up the extra cash and then you'll even get any future DLC's and expansions, is that too hard for you to see.... ?

First off Stardock's business practice is in line with the Industry and is not ripping off the consumer,  as far as this qoute you are correct no one forced you to buy it and again it was your choice to choose the lower option. 

Either way stop complaining you have nothing to complain about except for wanting more then what you paid for...

Someone with the standard Founder's purchase can upgrade to the Founder's Elite (and get access). Just contact Stardock sales.

That said, I would say most people wouldn't want access to an alpha OR a beta.  And out of those that do, only the most dedicated GalCiv players would want access to the alpha. I would say most people who got the standard package knew exactly what they were doing and why.

Stardock could not have been more clear:

1. Do nothing - great, we'll see you on Final Release

2. Don't fancy the hassles of an Alpha, but want a peek/be able to help test? Take the Beta release package.

3. You're well into this, addicted by the Game, itching to help, take the Alpha package.

Stardock could not have been clearer or more fair........ geeeez, there's still 12-18 months before release, and a whole lot of blood, swet  and tears yet to be shed on the developer room floor. Don't like the options .... that's cool, go do something more taxing to the brain like watching paint dry.

Meanwhile, let 'em get on with the job ..........................