Blueballed by Doomed Coin

[Zyklon-Basti]

I enjoyed the demo until I beat the boss of the first chapter and got the Doomed Coin, which prevents you from gaining any gold in the following chapters if you don't preorder the game.
Ngl, feels kinda predatory to have a preorder button thrown in my face and my run being held hostage by the game, getting some gacha vibes from the way it was done. The demo ending right after chapter 1 woudn't have sat as badly with me.

[Walker_Paranor]

Publicado originalmente por Zyklon-Basti:

I really had no ill will when I opened this thread, just responding in kind to the dev's passive-aggressive tone. I think he got very valuable feedback and he chose to react indignant instead of being grateful. Oh well.

Honestly, I think the devs response was fair and maybe you're interpreting it as being passive-aggressive. You're also being pretty vindictive about it and might not realize it.

I don't think most of these responses have been productive feedback. A lot of people on here are outright saying that the devs are doing something underhanded when the reality is that they're actually being quite generous with a DEMO.

So, yes, most of the comments on here are fairly unwarranted, unhelpful, and pretty rude, and I felt it was important to let you all know that you all need to grow up a bit.

[MeltCat]

Publicado originalmente por Walker_Paranor:

Publicado originalmente por Zyklon-Basti:

I really had no ill will when I opened this thread, just responding in kind to the dev's passive-aggressive tone. I think he got very valuable feedback and he chose to react indignant instead of being grateful. Oh well.

Honestly, I think the devs response was fair and maybe you're interpreting it as being passive-aggressive. You're also being pretty vindictive about it and might not realize it.

I don't think most of these responses have been productive feedback. A lot of people on here are outright saying that the devs are doing something underhanded when the reality is that they're actually being quite generous with a DEMO.

So, yes, most of the comments on here are fairly unwarranted, unhelpful, and pretty rude, and I felt it was important to let you all know that you all need to grow up a bit.

The purpose of a game's demo is to build excitement for said game and encourage/entice a player to purchase the game in full.

If a singular aspect of a demo is encouraging players to instead _not_ purchase a game they otherwise would have been interested in based on the demo content, I believe that is valuable feedback, as it is not only causing the demo to fail in its purpose, but causing it to do the opposite of what is intended.

[Walker_Paranor]

If a demo not letting you play the entirety of the game for free is what causes you to lose interest, then I don't know what to tell you.

[MeltCat]

Publicado originalmente por Walker_Paranor:

If a demo not letting you play the entirety of the game for free is what causes you to lose interest, then I don't know what to tell you.

That is a deliberate misinterpretation of the complaint at hand and you know it.

[Walker_Paranor]

Wait, so are you implying that you'd rather have the game just shut down after Chapter 1, instead of being allowed limited access to the rest of it?

If so, that makes even less sense.

[MeltCat]

Publicado originalmente por Walker_Paranor:

Wait, so are you implying that you'd rather have the game just shut down after Chapter 1, instead of being allowed limited access to the rest of it?

If so, that makes even less sense.

I am certainly implying that, yes. It would have been a short demo, sure, but it would have left me wanting more, rather than allowing my interest to peter out over the remainder of my (loudly) hamstrung run.

[Walker_Paranor]

That sentiment makes so little sense that I really have nothing left to say lol If that kills your interest, then bye?

[Yogurtking]

Having read all this, I'd just like to say I'm glad the dev responded to explain their thinking and I agree with it. Letting us see more with a limitation is a fine and reasonable thing to do. I think the people who are/were complaining still have a point though. I'll to be as succinct as possible as this meaning seems to be getting lost.

strong arm tactics like the splash screen and the coin may push more people away than not.

perhaps the most significant point is that I was enjoying the experience and then suddenly not. and you don't want to end on a low note.

In closing I'd like to say thanks for sharing your work and weathering all the commentary. I look forward to trying the finished game.

[Misguided]

Publicado originalmente por Yogurtking:

perhaps the most significant point is that I was enjoying the experience and then suddenly not. and you don't want to end on a low note.

Yeah. This was the point. Having said that, in some informal polling elsewhere, everybody else seemed perfectly fine with this when I showed them a picture of the coin. So why did I react that way? Was it because I was the one actually playing and felt like I had a solid run going? Is it because I was sore & tired from a workout and it just hit me the wrong way? I don’t know.

Regardless, I’m willing to accept that my response might have been disproportional.

[Smartboy64]

Publicado originalmente por Misguided:

Publicado originalmente por Yogurtking:

perhaps the most significant point is that I was enjoying the experience and then suddenly not. and you don't want to end on a low note.

Yeah. This was the point. Having said that, in some informal polling elsewhere, everybody else seemed perfectly fine with this when I showed them a picture of the coin. So why did I react that way? Was it because I was the one actually playing and felt like I had a solid run going?

I think it was the same for me. It is a demo (which is a rare thing in today's market. It's either early access or nothing. So regardless, props to the devs for just demoing the game). And with a demo we know it'll end at some point. Just to quote some others, the strong arm nature of it, throwing up the splash screen and all, in the middle of a good run rubbed me the wrong way. If it ended right after chapter 1, yeah it would've been short but still enough to get a good idea of the game.

It's a different way to limit a demo, that does have that splash screen coming up which no one was expecting. I think that's what threw us all off and turned some people away. Not the demo was limiting, it was just limiting in such a new, and perhaps not best, way.

[Atmaz]

Thanks for the continued responses. Yeah, we had a talk about this internally and didn't really predict this would have such a negative psychological impact.

Our point of view was like: "Oh yeah that's a cool way to let them try out the later chapters"

But in practice clearly it doesn't feel so cool. Anyway, we have a bad (or good?) tendency to try new things rather than go with more standard approaches. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it isn't so great. This time seems like it wasn't so great.

The free demo will only be a week so we won't really have time/resources to change it. After that it'll go away and only the pre-order will remain, which people are ironically having much less complaints over.

Anyway, it's all good and we all learn things etc etc. Sorry!

[Misguided]

> Anyway, it's all good and we all learn things etc etc. Sorry!

It’s all good, just as you say.

> Yeah, we had a talk about this internally and didn't really predict this would have such a negative psychological impact.

I caught the end of the stream earlier. It seems clear to me that the team’s heart was in the right place.

> only the pre-order will remain, which people are ironically having much less complaints over.

I suspect that’s because it is a reward for preordering, which people expect, vs a perceived punishment for not having done so. Again, the team were trying to be generous, but perception is a funny thing.

[Dr Brian]

Publicado originalmente por Atmaz:

Thanks for the continued responses. Yeah, we had a talk about this internally and didn't really predict this would have such a negative psychological impact.

Our point of view was like: "Oh yeah that's a cool way to let them try out the later chapters"

But in practice clearly it doesn't feel so cool. Anyway, we have a bad (or good?) tendency to try new things rather than go with more standard approaches. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it isn't so great. This time seems like it wasn't so great.

The free demo will only be a week so we won't really have time/resources to change it. After that it'll go away and only the pre-order will remain, which people are ironically having much less complaints over.

Anyway, it's all good and we all learn things etc etc. Sorry!

Your intent may have been positive, but the message was unclear. If you had put some obvious humoristic implications in the cursed coin by breaking the 4th wall, it would have been taken much more lightly. As it was made in the game, it feels like a predatory move rather than a way to support the devs. Maybe counterintuitively, allowing only the preorders to see further chapters would have been better received overall than implementing artificial penalties.

Most of the audience for this category of games (roguelikes) don't mind paying for additional content but dislike in-game purchases, and that's the general feel that cursed coin accidentaly conveyed. You can see that in the dichotomy in the answers of this thread. You have an audience accustomed to in-game purchases that doesn't care at all and considered it as unimportant, and another that immediately associated it to gacha games and vehemently rejected it.

You're a few months away of release though, so good chances it won't stick considering the high quality of your game (at least from what I saw of it so far).

Also I'm really curious to know if it was a Richard Garfield idea.

[Omni]

I agree with others that if the demo had just ended at the end of Chapter 1 it would have been a great teaser. I also agree that while the ability to play on remains because of the Doom Coin, it ends up being a "feel bad" mechanic. Having something you enjoy ripped from your hands feels a lot worse than never having that something in the first place.

[live die repeat]

Finished chapter 3 with the coin - it was a nice run where I got the bonus gold gem early on to gather some coins. Went into act 2 with 450 gold which was enough to let me buy some powerful upgrades. Ended up with an infinite combo (draw 2 gem and an attack both at 0 cost) vs the final boss that kept dissolving my cards.