Please save your money and buy the game after release

[Moon]

TL;DR: Overkill is using the Hotline Miami fanbase to literally fuel their game. To avoid this, refund your preorders and wait until after the game is released to buy it.

Preordering games is a bad enough practice already (as it's usually used as an excuse to release an unfinished game), but in this case, it's genuinely hurting another developer and game of theirs.

What am I talking about? Payday 2. If you aren't already aware, Payday 2 is a game that has been crossed over with Hotline Miami before. Unfortunately, today it was revealed that Hotline Miami 2 preorders are directly tied into their latest event, the Hype Train.

Why is this bad? Because of what the Hype Train involves.

The Hype Train is an event with ten rewards unlocked through Hype Fuel. Hype fuel is generated by the community. How so? Well, there are two new DLC packs available for *preorder*, believe it or not.

One is a 4.99$ pack that includes;
A minigun and 3 modifications for it.
A rocket launcher that seems to be either an AT4 or SMAW.
An Escape Van skin. Vague.
An OVERKILL mask. Vague.
10 new achievements. I'm not sure why we would want to BUY achievements, just to have to unlock them. Seems like a strange thing to place.
And buying this adds 3 gallons of hype fuel.
To some, it might seem steep, but for the purposes of remaining objective, we'll let it slide. However, you might be surprised at the other pack.

The other one is a 19.99$ pack that includes;
4 masks.
"Secret" content.
Gives 14 gallons of hype fuel.

Yes. Just four masks and "secret", confirmed completely cosmetic content. Let's not forget, you're preordering this. This content is available on the 12th of March. And it doesn't seem to be mentioned if said content will be revealed on the 12th. What is their excuse?

"This pack is for anyone who wants a way to support OVERKILL in developing the free Hype Train content for the community. The pack allows heisters to use four unique versions of the original PAYDAY masks. At some point in the future, a secret reward will be unlocked for all owners of the pack as well."

Some point in the future. Yeah, no.

Recently, Overkill posted an announcement on their official game's steam group answering some questions. There are two that seem very fishy.

Q: Why are you asking for donations?
A: We're not, and there is not a single word anywhere regarding donations. As always with our community, we ask for your support. Whether it's an e-mail where you tell us how much you appreciate us, a message where you give us feedback, or a purchase of a DLC we have made, we wouldn't be where we are without you. We need your continued support to continue making sure we stay independent. With the Hype Train event, we offer two different DLC that offer different type of in-game content. That is it.

The problem is that Overkill is, in fact, asking for donations. Let's think about this; two of the Hype Train rewards are:
10 heisters flown to Los Angeles. There's a little note there. What does it say? You have to be 21 years old or over. And that only US residents may participate.
The problem with that is that the US actually doesn't make up the majority of the community, and this seems rather biased and exclusive.
The other reward is Paydaycon Los Angeles. A convention. Hosting a tournament of the game, with a total prize pool of 250,000$.
First of all, that raises insane red flags. This whole event now sounds like a Kickstarter campaign to fund this convention.
Secondly, Payday 2 is a heavily RNG-based PvE game. A tournament just doesn't sound right, when RNG often dictates success or failure.

The other question is:
Q: Why do you need more money?
A: With the success of PAYDAY, we've managed to come into a unique position as an independent developer. We decide what we want to do without anyone else interfering. With that, our ambitions grow. We want to give you more. We want to give you a better experience. We want to give you cooler trailers with amazing actors. We want to give you more heists, weapons, masks, features and so on. With more ambition, there is more cost. As always, we do paid content when we need to and do free content when we can.

This doesn't answer the question at all.
First of all, Overkill is not independent and has never been independent. Their first game in the Payday series, The Heist, was published by Sony Online Entertainment, the same publisher behind PlanetSide 2, H1Z1, and EverQuest. Payday 2 was published by 505 Games. The same publisher known for publishing a lot of shovelware for the Wii and DS, as well as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, How to Survive, Defense Grid 2, and the universally critically panned Takedown: Red Sabre, Rekoil and Ashes Cricket 2013.

Secondly, Overkill is doing more than fine financially, as shown by research from a forum user by the name of "Mutant1988", who I may be quoting quite a bit, forewarning. Starbreeze, Overkill's parent company, has a profit, after all expenses, that amount to 14 million dollars, or 118 million swedish kronor. I'm thankful that he did the research for us, because I'm not good with that kind of math.

"Some of you seem to operate on the assumption that Overkill in it's pricing of content does not have any kind of profit margin. That they take a loss from working on the game. This is simply not true. They made back ALL they spent with a profit margin of 53.09%. That is to say that what they spent was 100% and what they got back was 153,09%.

They are NOT starving artists in need of charity.

And before you point to all the free things they give us, let me remind you that expense should already be covered in this sheet. The price to produce content does not rise unless they outsource work or have their employees put in overtime."

The Hype Train event requires hundreds of thousands, up to a couple million dollars spent through buying Payday related content and, now, Hotline Miami 2 content. If the Hype Train isn't damning enough to make you consider pulling back your preorder until release, let me tell you what else Overkill has done:

-Tried to hire unpaid translators through Steam without offering proper payment. Translation is a difficult job.
-Announced the Walking Dead game through a countdown that was referenced, advertised as and intended to be a special occasion for Payday's birthday.
-Announced the John Wick character as the final "secret" reward for Crimefest, a somewhat less egregious event intended to inflate the steam community group numbers through bot accounts.
-Failed to update the console edition of Payday 2 for months if not over a year, and refuses to communicate with the console players. A developer has tweeted in the past shaming people that want the game updated, saying things like "That's life" and "If a game I really really love isn't working on consoles, I'd switch to another platform and f*cking play it there."
-Released a clearly unfinished buggy product that made back all of it's budget through preorders, allowing them to do this. Plenty of content that was promised before released is still missing (such as the ability to customize your safehouse), as well as content promised from Crimefest, such as a new enemy. The Stealth system is also unfinished by Overkill's admission, and hasn't properly been further developed since the Death Wish update many months ago.
-The co-founder of Starbreeze, Overkill's parent company, went on the game's forums drunken and insulted his playerbase for constructively criticizing a botched game mechanic.
-Promised there would be no microtransactions, yet constantly releases $4.99 each weapon packs, advertised ingame.
-505 Games forces/forced the developers to buy their own copies of the DLC they primarily created themselves.
-Developers are paid for every DLC they develop by 505 Games. The sales are a bonus to Overkill, and as a result, they have very little incentive to develop content beyond mediocre.
-Overkill has now completely abandoned X360 and PS3 with the full announcement of the X1 and PS4 edition of the game. Considering Overkill's awful console reputation now, and the fact that console players have been waiting for far too long, this should be a nail in their coffin. Not to mention, if they had so much trouble, why didn't they hire a third party or two with more knowledge of the consoles to port the game for them, like normal people do? Considering their over 14+ million in cash.

As a result, I heavily recommend you get a refund for your preorder of Hotline Miami 2, and wait until after the game is released and after Payday 2's Hype Train event is over. Steam is usually finicky with refunds, but they usually do refund you for preorders. This is NOT a boycott of Hotline Miami 2 nor Dennaton or Payday 2; this is a boycott of the Hype Train and a message to Dennaton and Overkill that we don't appreciate being used and treated this way.

I am not TELLING or FORCING you to do this, as some of you seem to think. I'm just making a friendly suggestion, and providing some evidence and facts to help you make your decision. If this doesn't change your mind, I have no problem with you, have nothing against you, and I hope you enjoy HM2. I, and others, would just appreciate if you took the time to read this, understand where I'm coming from, and make a decision based on that. If you do decide to cancel your preorder, thank you for trying to help a fellow company come back to reality.

Supporting Overkill like this, intentionally or not, is hurting them and their game by giving them even more of an ego, way too much money, and enabling them to continue with their bad business practices and lazy development. If you want to support Dennaton, please consider revoking your preorder and buying the game after this is over, so that they get more money and Overkill can't piggyback off of this game's success. The only one losing here is Overkill.

Links:

http://www.overkillsoftware.com/thehypetrain/ - official link to the Hype Train page

https://twitter.com/PergerBoy/status/508312119901945856/
https://twitter.com/PergerBoy/status/508312647914500097/ - anti console tweets

http://steamcommunity.com/app/218620/discussions/8/627456359635084683/#p9 - developer in a drunken stupor

"Asked if Overkill Software anticipated putting microtransactions in the game, Goldfarb bluntly stated, "No. No. God, I hope not. Never. No."" - David Goldfarb to Gamestop on microtransactions

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?s=e549f0b3782011ffa30551790bf544b7&p=34451580&postcount=1 - Almir on microtransactions

https://archive.moe/vg/thread/86159606/#86168379 - Developer on DLC and developers having to buy their own DLC

https://steamcommunity.com/app/218620/discussions/8/612823460270751413/?insideModal=1 - excellent thread explaining the Hype Train far better than I ever could

[Jej]

Too bad I actually bought the game the second it came out.
Ooooh well...

[uma]

The music is worth it.

[Winial]

I'm not good at English so maybe I misunderstand some point but, is this really about Hotline maiami 2? All I can see is about Overkill.

[HypeTrain°]

i bought the game right now. meh. prob worth it

[Moon]

Originally posted by Winial:

I'm not good at English so maybe I misunderstand some point but, is this really about Hotline maiami 2? All I can see is about Overkill.

This is about both. Hotline Miami preorder sales are directly affecting Payday 2's current development and Overkill as well.

[Moon]

Originally posted by JejmanGTA:

Too bad I actually bought the game the second it came out.
Ooooh well...

Is there a time limit before you can refund a preorder or something that I'm not aware of?

[Moon]

Originally posted by Scry:

I'd rather just support Jonathan and Dennis in advance and get my copy out of the way.

TL;DR this thread is OP whining that not all Payday DLC is free.

Nice misrepresentation and flamebait. I couldn't give a toss whether or not I have to buy a DLC. What I am "whining" about is having what is supposed to be labeled as "free" content locked behind a MASSIVE hundreds of thousands of dollars paywall.

Not to mention using the sales of another game to the advantage of that paywall.

[CursedToast]

Originally posted by Moonswirl:

Originally posted by Scry:

I'd rather just support Jonathan and Dennis in advance and get my copy out of the way.

TL;DR this thread is OP whining that not all Payday DLC is free.

Nice misrepresentation and flamebait. I couldn't give a toss whether or not I have to buy a DLC. What I am "whining" about is having what is supposed to be labeled as "free" content locked behind a MASSIVE hundreds of thousands of dollars paywall.

Who cares? It's incentive and some people think it's fun. Overkill is a business, not a charity. From a business sense, what they're doing is very smart. There's much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ companies to go after in this industry.

[Jej]

Originally posted by Moonswirl:

Originally posted by JejmanGTA:

Too bad I actually bought the game the second it came out.
Ooooh well...

Is there a time limit before you can refund a preorder or something that I'm not aware of?

There is. However, people basically get the right to get ONE refund and ONE only.

And there's no way in hell I'm using it. I'm happy with my purchase.

[Moon]

Originally posted by Scry:

Originally posted by Moonswirl:

Nice misrepresentation and flamebait. I couldn't give a toss whether or not I have to buy a DLC. What I am "whining" about is having what is supposed to be labeled as "free" content locked behind a MASSIVE hundreds of thousands of dollars paywall.

Who cares? It's incentive and some people think it's fun. Overkill is a business, not a charity.

"Overkill is a business, not a charity."

From the description of the Completely Overkill Pack:

"This pack is for anyone who wants a way to support OVERKILL in developing the free Hype Train content for the community. The pack allows heisters to use four unique versions of the original PAYDAY masks. At some point in the future, a secret reward will be unlocked for all owners of the pack as well."

Emphasis on "support". "Not a charity"?

[Moon]

Originally posted by Scry:

There's much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ companies to go after in this industry.

"There are people that do worse, therefore they're the only ones that matter"

[CursedToast]

You know businesses need money to operate and create content? People are paid to create this said content and you're supporting their business operation in exchange for content.

That's called a good in exchange for your business.

You're seriously implying they're asking for charity? In exchange for content?

Originally posted by Moonswirl:

Originally posted by Scry:

There's much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ companies to go after in this industry.

"There are people that do worse, therefore they're the only ones that matter"

"They're a business that wants money in exchange for content. ♥♥♥♥ them!!!"

[Winial]

I keep try to understand what are you saying. But it looks like you say 'Do not preorder this game for another game.' . I don't know about Payday or Overkill. And maybe many people are same.

[Vampire Detective]

"We want to give you more."

Yeah... as long as we give them more money, of course.

That has got to be the most disingenuous statement I have read in a long time.

[CursedToast]

Originally posted by Winial:

I keep try to understand what are you saying. But it looks like you say 'Do not preorder this game for another game.' . I don't know about Payday or Overkill. And maybe many people are same.

Yeah, I don't get it. They're trying to help drive sales to some indie devs by offering rewards for their game. Such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing of them to do... ya know, supporting the smaller devs.

What ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.