Premium version?

[Elegant Caveman]

Seems a ~10$ premium version exists[www.bigfishgames.com], so I'm wondering a) how that version differs from this one and b) will that version come to Steam? Why isn't it available here yet?

Or is that site lying and there's no premium version? They do seem somewhat shady... which is not helped by their "70% off to new customers" thing.

[Valdy]

I don't see anywhere on BigFish that this is a premium version. The Standard version, which this one is, costs $10. And BigFish doesn't have premium versions to begin with. What you can get is the Collector's Edition, but this game is sold at BigFish as the Standard Editions, the way you get it here for FREE. And there is nothing "shady" about that site. I have been a member there for 10 years. It's one of the biggest if not the biggest game site around.

[Elegant Caveman]

By "premium" I meant "costs money", as opposed to the version we have here on Steam, which is free to play, with an ingame store. I assumed the "premium" one would, to begin with, not have an ingame store.

Are you telling me that the version on BigFish is the exact same one as the free one on Steam...?

They're charging 10$ for an F2P game...?

As for them not being shady, good to know, thanks. Though if they're selling a F2P game for 10$, maybe we have a different definition of "shady"...

[Valdy]

Let me explain: This was not a F2P game to begin with. The developers (Last Day Of Work) offered this game at BigFish in March for a price. They did not offer this game as a F2P game. Then, 2 months later, the devs decided - for reasons unknown - to offer this game here at Steam for free.
I have seen a couple of other games from different devs that are sold at BigFish but offered here for free. I have no idea what makes them do that.
Now, the first Fish Tycoon can also be bought at BigFish and also costs money here. I find it rather strange that the devs still charge money for the first game, which came out here in 2005, but offer this new game for free. Go figure...

[Elegant Caveman]

That's all very strange stuff; I've never heard of something like this before. Thank you for the clarification.

Do you know if they added the ingame shop & gems for the F2P/Steam version, or is it also present in the 10$ version?

You can see gems in the screenshots on the BigFish Games store page, but the gems are absent in the video of the same page, hinting that there might exist a version without gems.

[Valdy]

All the extras you get with Steam, like Steam Achievements, etc, are for Steam customers only. When you say "gems", do you mean those turquoise ones? Yes, all that and a shop where you buy more stuff, are part of the game itself, not added by Steam.
BTW, you can get quite a few F2P games at BigFish as well. Just go all the way down the page, click on "Site Map", and then go down to the categories, and click on "Free to Play".

[Elegant Caveman]

Yeah, those turquoise things. There are two currencies in the game, "gold" and "gems" (as they're called in the shop). Gold is the "regular" currency you get from selling fish, and gems seem to mostly be gained from buying with real cash, though I've seen a few goals give a tiny amount of gems.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean that I thought the cash shop was added by Steam/Valve themselves, just that maybe the devs (Last Day Of Work) added the cash shop to the F2P version which they released on Steam (and maybe elsewhere? I don't know).

I'm just having an incredibly hard time wrapping my head around the possibility that the exact same game version is 10$ one place and free elsewhere. That's some next-level ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

The closest I've seen to that is how some mobile games sometimes cost (a lot) more on PC, but the mobile versions still at least cost a couple of dollars. The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ excuse used for that is that the mobile market "doesn't support the same price points as the PC platform", but that's a whole other story.

In this case, though, we're talking about the same platform... in both cases, it's a PC release, so there isn't even the "different platform" excuse to account for the difference.

There's absolutely no excuse for a game being free one place and costing money elsewhere, unless there are different versions. I mean, hell, isn't that illegal? It should be, if it isn't.

And by different, I'm not counting the obvious things like Steam-exclusive achievements or whatever. Even if you counted that, that would just make things worse since this is the free version...

[Valdy]

No, both are the exact same game. There is no difference whatsoever. And it's not BigFish's fault, it's the devs who decided to charge money for this game at BigFish, but hand it over for free on Steam.

[Elegant Caveman]

That's really bizarre.

Thanks for clearing things up.

[Valdy]

OK, I had another look at the game reviews on BigFish, and the difference is: the game on BigFish does not ask you to buy gold with real money. You play the game the same as you would play the first game, which is also not a F2P game. With all F2P games you will be able to buy ingame things with real money, as you can do with this game on Steam. But the one on BigFish is just a normal game, which you can restart - can't do that with this game on here (seems that all info is stored on Cloud) - and it plays just like the first Fish Tycoon game. So that's the difference. I never bought the game at BigFish, but I think I will, because at least I can then start the game again from scratch.

Oh, and I don't have to pay $10 for it. I can get it this weekend for 50% off, or if I wait a little, I can get it for 65% off. There are always good sales on BigFish.

[Elegant Caveman]

Ahh, so my initial guess was right, then, the 10$ version doesn't have an ingame store.

That brings me back to b) will that version come to Steam? And why isn't it available yet?

Strange and disappointing that they've taken a premium game and made it F2P. I've only ever seen that happen to online multiplayer games that didn't perform well.

[Valdy]

Oh, I see. When you mentioned store before, I thought you meant the store in the game where you can buy stuff. I didn't realise you meant the "bank" from where you can buy more gold with real money. LOL Anyway, I bought the game for half off at BigFish. I prefer to buy a game which I can start from scratch any time I want.

[Elegant Caveman]

Ah, yeah, by "ingame store", I meant the thing that lets you buy gold or gems for real money. Or "In-App Purchases", as it's called on the Steam store page. Sorry for not being clear.

Normally, that's the difference between a F2P and a premium game... or, at least, it used to be. These days, though, more and more games have ingame stores even if they cost money (lots of ~60$ "AAA" games with tons of microtransactions), so I wasn't sure what to think.

If there was no difference, though, it would have been really weird that this version was free but the other one was 10$. It makes more sense if the 10$ one is a "real/normal" game.

[Valdy]

BTW, those turquoise gems in the F2P game are not part of the game you pay for. Instead of paying with gems you pay with a few gold coins. So it's better to only pay with gold, because you get gold when you sell your fish, but it's harder in the F2P game to earn gems.

[Elegant Caveman]

Right, that's why I was asking if the non-F2P version was coming to Steam in the first place, and why I dislike F2P as a general rule.

This is the core of the issue.

[Astraea]

I know this post is old but figured I'd let others know if theyre interested, Last day of work gives out fish tycoon 1(full version) for free on their website. Been that way for a few years now. (Been playing these games since I was a kid lol)