Gearbox concern thread

[Captain Scarlett]

Note: Updated questions and answers here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/320240/discussions/0/1496741765123851173/

Hi everyone,

Since we made our announcement about increasing the scope of the game, coming to retail, and partnering with Gearbox, we’ve had a large number of people come into the forum to protest against Gearbox specifically. This is making it difficult to talk about the game itself with our community (to improve the game with feedback as we always do), so we are condensing all feedback into this single thread.

From now on, we’ll be closing all Gearbox threads and redirecting people here. This will remain stickied and can be a centralised place to give your feedback. We’re also adding a bunch of questions and answers, as many people voicing their concern aren’t aware of the full story.

In the meantime, please keep it civil and remember that everyone here (including people from Gearbox) is a human being.


First, here is our announcement blog post. It answers everything, but we’ll summarise here for you as well. http://compulsiongames.com/en/news/138/we-are-coming-to-xbox-one-pc-and-ps4-on-april-13-2018!

Why the price increase?

Because we reinvested in the game and in the studio. We decided to expand, to hire some of the best people in the industry, to bring the story to a new level of depth and sophistication. To make We Happy Few the best game it can be. You might be more comfortable paying this price for a Ubisoft game because of the name, but we’ve put a lot of work in our game over the past 3 years and we are proud of it. We have over 30,000 lines of dialogues, our animations are all hand made and the soundtrack is made by very cool bands specifically for the game.

If you’re not sure it’s worth the price, please wait for reviews.

Why the price increase during Early Access?

We have no alternative. As the game is coming to retail, the price must be consistent across all platform. The Early Access is effectively a pre-order at this point, except that you can play the Early Access version of the game.

If we were to close the Early Access then we wouldn’t be able to support our current players.

Why DLC/Season Pass?

We explain this more fully in the blog post, but
DLC is a good way to keep working on a game after it is finished and to use our team efficiently. With that said:

- Our team will not work on DLC until their work on the main game is complete.
- DLC allows us to have some fun and create some wacky♥♥♥♥♥♥that is not canon to the main game, so expect a couple of surprises.

Why Gearbox?

You can see that none of the reasons above are Gearbox specific. Everything here is because of the increase in scope and move to retail.

The folks at Gearbox Publishing are a new team created a year ago. They’ve brought Homeworld, the Bulletstorm remaster, and Fortnite (with Epic) to retail. Randy is not involved day to day with the publishing team.

They’re a good team who care a lot about the game and our team. They’re doing their best. If you guys want to direct your anger and frustration with them, you can do it here. Please keep in mind that we (Compulsion Games) look after this forum, so if you’d prefer to complain to them directly, you’ll need to do that elsewhere.

[h3lldr0p]

So insteaed of addressing the concerns, you're going to be hiding them.

Great PR call. That won't backfire in the least. /s

[pompe]

c: hi

[Aki]

Could you withdraw the game from retail/pre-orders for now? Would it be possible to make it available in retail later, when the game is almost done?
I am not effected by the price increase, I already have the game and love it. I just don't want players not being able to buy the game anymore (especially in India or other countries where the price increased so much) .

[Foosball]

Increase in scope? Lol.

Increase in price. At least try to have some respect for peoples' intelligence when you talk to them or some semblance thereof.

[Chirp]

Yeah, sure I guess this is the way to hide all your criticism while being able to say you're not actually deleting anything. Good job sleaze balls. Absolutely disgusting.

[Strahl]

You didn't complete the AAA checklist. You forgot microtransactions, lootboxes, and hats.

[emo twink gangster]

ah yes, censoring now. I think ill save some money here.

[Aki]

Originally posted by Chirp:

Yeah, sure I guess this is the way to hide all your criticism while being able to say you're not actually deleting anything. Good job sleaze balls. Absolutely disgusting.

It's disgusting to accuse the developers of such methods. I don't think the devs are that greedy.

[Cyberghost]

Originally posted by Captain Scarlett:

Why the price increase?

Because we reinvested in the game and in the studio. We decided to expand, to hire some of the best people in the industry, to bring the story to a new level of depth and sophistication. To make We Happy Few the best game it can be. You might be more comfortable paying this price for a Ubisoft game because of the name, but we’ve put a lot of work in our game over the past 3 years and we are proud of it. We have over 30,000 lines of dialogues, our animations are all hand made and the soundtrack is made by very cool bands specifically for the game.

If you’re not sure it’s worth the price, please wait for reviews.

Please address the 366% price increase of India,Turkey and Mexico. Please give a decent regional pricing for the game

[Bakimono]

I doubt you will care but you lost all my future business partering with Gearbox.

They kill everything they touch.

[Aki]

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD:

Originally posted by kath745:

It's disgusting to accuse the developers of such methods. I don't think the devs are that greedy.

Three words.
Aliens.Colonial.Marines.

It's even more disgusting to belive that Gearbox never did anything wrong. Like a sheep.

Before WHF I didn't even know that Gearbox exists. I just don't think that the devs of WHF only want our money and nothing else.

[Aki]

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD:

Originally posted by kath745:

Before WHF I didn't even know that Gearbox exists. I just don't think that the devs of WHF only want our money and nothing else.

*points out double price increase, collectors editions , preorder bonuses, season pass, kickstarter and publishers history*
So you admit that everything that you say here thus far comes from pure ignorance about the subject. Ok....

1.) Double price increase was planned from the beginning.
2.) Maybe they NEED the money to cover their costs?
3.) The season pass is for content they didn't plan to include in the game when they started working on it. It is purely additional content.

The price for the collectors edition seems to be to high indeed though :(

[Revolt]

Dat price increase. No thanks

[JustinSix]

Originally posted by kath745:

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD:

*points out double price increase, collectors editions , preorder bonuses, season pass, kickstarter and publishers history*
So you admit that everything that you say here thus far comes from pure ignorance about the subject. Ok....

1.) Double price increase was planned from the beginning.
2.) Maybe they NEED the money to cover their costs?
3.) The season pass is for content they didn't plan to include in the game when they started working on it. It is purely additional content.

The price for the collectors edition seems to be to high indeed though :(

People need to top acting like increasing price equals increasing profits. That's not how this works. Profits are something like sales x price - share of steam, publisher, etc. So price is only so important and too high of a price means too few sales. Optimal price for optimal revenue isn't automatically the highest price you can reasonably give. Undertale wouldn't have done as well as it did argueably if it had been priced at 60.

This means point 2 is irrelevant. Also point 1 is irrelvant because them planning it from the beginning doesn't make it right. Me personally, I don't care about gearbox, I care about what the practices in themselves are. As for point 3... season passes are still stupid, even for my favorite RPG Witcher 3 I thought the season pass was retarded.

[There is No Spoon]

Was considering buying this-but after this shady bs, nope. Your "triple A" game and "triple A" price hike can overdose on whatever drugs the main character had to take before being WOKED