UWE getting disgustingly greedy...

[リアンダ]

So let me get this straight. You guys want to charge 30$ for Below Zero on release which is 1/6th more than what you charged for the original game? How do you justify that price increase when the groundwork used for the creation of BZ has already been done for the base game? You re-used a large portion of Subnautica such as core mechanics, scripts, assets, gameplay loops and concept art but for some reason you want more money for this glorfied DLC then when you had to build everything from the ground up? All of that while the map of BZ is substantially smaller than the basegame?

And to make things worse you even have the audacity to increase the price of the original Subnautica which is over half a decade old at this point. When you have invested zero ressources into fixing its terrible performance or add any content updates? Look at all the free stuff players of "The Forest" got even years after its initial release. I understand that its not common to hand out stuff for free but why increase the price when you've invested pretty much zero ressources in Subnautica in the last 6 years. I mean 30$ is a lot of money for an Indie game. I recently bought Gears 5, a one year old AAA game for 15 Euros but you expect me to pay 30$ for a 6 year old indie titlle? And since when do games get more expensive over time especially when a sequel is just arround the corner. That's just pure greed at this point.

And don't even get me started on how the release has been pushed back over and over again to rewrite the story for the tenth time in what was supposed to be the successor to an exploration game that worked just fine without much of a story at all. I bought BZ in EA on day 1 because I loved Subnauica. I now wished I had never bought it in the first place given how greedy your company has become. I'll definitely remember this moving forward.

[Arondil]

Originally posted by Jexton:

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

I bought BZ in EA on day 1

Well that was silly of you, lol

That depends on the reason they bought BZ in EA.

If they were hoping to give feedback and have an influence on the direction the game development takes then it would make sense to give that feedback as early as possible, for the simple reason that new proposals - no matter how good - might not make it into the game if they were made too close to the release date.

If they were unsure whether they'd enjoy the game and were waiting for reviews to see what the final game would look like then they would not buy it until late EA when the game was unlikely to change any more but was still available at EA price.

There's more possible reasons, of course, but these are two examples that would bias toward an early or late purchase.

[2ndSight]

Ya know what? You have exactly one rational, adult-sized option here. If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it. Go find something else to entertain yourself at a price you don't mind paying. Complaining about the price of a game is juvenile, and it won't change a single thing.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

ShakingZealot please dont get us wrong. Imho the vast majority here actually dislikes what UWE does right now.

I just try to explain to you what I believe UWE tries. They have the numbers.. subnautica 1 still is a massive hit and far superior to BZ.. everyone actually doing a lil bit research can at least aknowledge that. Even if BZ has some nice things.

They confirmed some extra qol updates for sub1.. why do you think they did that ? Because there is still potential to milk the game. It's old, sure. But there is also always new waves of gamers interested in the game. Heck even I still have to buy it on steam.. I considered that but nah, not anymore.

Yes it isnt a typical practice. UWE also isnt the usual developer. They still have to learn that the majority wants a fully fledged new subnautica. Not some kind of cutted addon content with a story that does not go anywhere.

I didn't get the feeling you were antagonizing me so no worries.

But I am a bit surprised how apparently most users in here read how they increase the price of a 6 year old game that still runs like *ss and hasn't received any meaningful content and say "this is fine".

I don't get how UWE gets away with selling what is basically a significantly smaller assetflip of their previous game for more money and people don't ask how they justify the price increase. I did a bit of digging and compared mapsizes pixel by pixel (see my findings here https://imgur.com/xewdhVK) and was pretty shocked to see how small the map actually is in comparison to the original and I can't for the life of me understand how to justify a price increase. Unless the new map is chalk full of creatures with complicated AI and behavioural patters, scripted events arround every corner and a bunch of mayor new gameplay loops, ressources.

I'm a fan of BZ but I expect developers to reasonably by their products and sh*tty behaviour is usually enabled by customers who enable this kind of behavior. If you think 20$ weaponskins and season passes and all that stuff came out of nowhere I've got bad news for you. UWE games will only get more expensive in the future because they not only get away with random price increases but are actively defended by fans for said behavior. I mean the fact that only buyers of the game can interact with this forum is kind of a sh*tty move to begin with (/edit seems like this is not the case, please disregard this part of my post)

Both Darksiders Genesis and Destroy all Humans I worked on cost 30USD on release if I remember correctly and their production value is a lot higher than the glorified DLC that is BZ. So unless Alex Ries charged them millions for concept art I really don't know why BZ falls inte the 30$ price range.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by angisilexpen:

Originally posted by Jexton:

Well that was silly of you, lol

That depends on the reason they bought BZ in EA.

If they were hoping to give feedback and have an influence on the direction the game development takes then it would make sense to give that feedback as early as possible, for the simple reason that new proposals - no matter how good - might not make it into the game if they were made too close to the release date.

If they were unsure whether they'd enjoy the game and were waiting for reviews to see what the final game would look like then they would not buy it until late EA when the game was unlikely to change any more but was still available at EA price.

There's more possible reasons, of course, but these are two examples that would bias toward an early or late purchase.

I wanted them to have the money early in production when they need it most to contibute to a succesful and save production. At that point in time I stupidly assumed they would just repeat the formula that made originally SN a success and move it to a artic setting. Explore new biomes as a lonely adventurer, dive deeper, scan new tech. You know that kind of thing. But yeah, lesson learned, I won't buy an UWE game in EA again unless BZ completely blows me out of the water (no pun intended) :)

[Arondil]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

I mean the fact that only buyers of the game can interact with this forum is kind of a sh*tty move to begin with.

I'm not sure why you would think this - I don't own the game on this steam account (no mouse icon) but I can still participate in the forum.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by angisilexpen:

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

I mean the fact that only buyers of the game can interact with this forum is kind of a sh*tty move to begin with.

I'm not sure why you would think this - I don't own the game on this steam account (no mouse icon) but I can still participate in the forum.

Huh I honestly though it said so when I first created a thread in the BZ discussion folder. But looks like I'm wrong here, thanks for the clarification. I'll make an edit in my previous comment.

[Black Raven]

voice actors are not cheap

[Bear Arms]

I don't think $30 is unreasonable for this game. The original Subnautica was too cheap anyway. If people think it's worth the money, they will buy it. It's that simple.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by Black Raven:

voice actors are not cheap

Oh please voice actors are a drop in the bucket in terms of overall production cost. Professional voice actors cost like 50-100$ per minute. That's about 3000-6000 $ per hour of dialogue and I'd be surprised if BZ even has one hour of fully voiced dialogue. So even if the dialogue has to be recorded 5 times over you'd still be in the 15.000 to 30.000$ range. Hell let's double that. It's still a drop in the bucket compared to other production costs. So yeah I'm not buying that excuse either

[*|PEZ|* Merivio]

1. $30 wouldn't even pay one of their devs for a single day's work.

2. Many licenses are per-product, which means some assets have to be purchased separately for BZ, even if they featured in the original.

3. Calling them indie is borderline. The only reason UW is considered indie is because they are self-funded. They're practically the size of a AAA company. Frankly, you're lucky neither game is $60 or even $80 in today's market.

4. 'The engine is built now' is only partly true. Game engines are under constant maintenance and improvements so they don't become obsolete. I've noticed BZ performing better than the original in fact.

5. The world might be smaller, but it is also more compact, and that's a good thing. It means you spend less time twiddling your thumbs travelling from A to B.

5. It's true BZ didn't spend as long in early access, but that doesn't mean they spent less to make it. Do we know how the developer numbers compare? What about the number of assets?

[MrPurple]

As a Modder for Both BZ and the original game I would like to inform you that they HAVE put MAJOR work and code overhauls into both games over and over and over in the last year to the point that every few months I have to keep fixing most of the modding tools that we use to alter the game.

Subnautica itself on the experimental branch that is waiting to be released to stable has undergone a MASSIVE overhaul code wise that when released will break almost everything mod related but will massively improve game performance.

They are also back porting a lot of the performance improvements that they have found while making Below Zero and they are updating the game engine AGAIN....

I say again because in Nov 2019 they updated from unity 5 to Unity 2018 and then in Dec 2019 they Updated to Unity 2019.2.4 and then in June the Updated the engine again to unity 2019.2.17 and when this new update comes out it will be Unity 2019.4.9 at which time they have overhauled the game loading system to be asynchronous and take advantage of the more powerful features of newer Processors.

They are also overhauling the way the assets are loading ingame so as to reduce popin and make it so the game runs better on the lower end systems without burning them out.

While you see very little change in content I and many modders can assure you that they have not been idle and many modders have even put planned projects on hold until things calm down with the updates as the massive number of changes every few months is a nightmare for us modders.

TLDR: Price increase here is not greed. They have been working their asses off for us and by god I hope they are done soon.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by *|PEZ|* Venima:

1. $30 wouldn't even pay one of their devs for a single day's work.

2. Many licenses are per-product, which means some assets have to be purchased separately for BZ, even if they featured in the original.

3. Calling them indie is borderline. The only reason UW is considered indie is because they are self-funded. They're practically the size of a AAA company. Frankly, you're lucky neither game is $60 or even $80 in today's market.

4. 'The engine is built now' is only partly true. Game engines are under constant maintenance and improvements so they don't become obsolete. I've noticed BZ performing better than the original in fact.

5. The world might be smaller, but it is also more compact, and that's a good thing. It means you spend less time twiddling your thumbs travelling from A to B.

5. It's true BZ didn't spend as long in early access, but that doesn't mean they spent less to make it. Do we know how the developer numbers compare? What about the number of assets?

1. If they could produce SN for 20 USD and survive and grow as a studio they can do the same with BZ. They could reuse tons of stuff that was already there.

2. All of their Assets were created by themselves so what licenses are yout alking about?

3. Lol you have no diea what youa re talking about do you. The budget of SN was 10 mio $. That's nothing compared to AAA games which cost 100 $ and more. If anything they are in the lower areas of AA nwhich ususally operate in a range from 10 to 50 Mio.

4. Subnautica doesn't use their own engine but Unity. They have 0 involvement in the developement of that engine. Again your argument is nonsensical. The main reason why Subnautica BZ works better than SN is because the map is significantly smaller.

5. This might be the case for some players. However i personally think it's pretty laugheable that you can only dive half as deep than you could in the original. I would have been fine with them designing the map like a a sinkhoel that small in diameter but very deep. But no, shallow waters it is for BZ.

6. Go ahead. Count the number of new biomes, creatures, new tech and mechancis compared to what you got in the basegame. Hell even think about core features such as building, movement, gamesystems like energy consumption, food and water intake etc. It's all been created for the basegame already. Making 5 new biomes and a dozen new creatures is nothing compared to building a game from scratch.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by MrPurple:

As a Modder for Both BZ and the original game I would like to inform you that they HAVE put MAJOR work and code overhauls into both games over and over and over in the last year to the point that every few months I have to keep fixing most of the modding tools that we use to alter the game.

Subnautica itself on the experimental branch that is waiting to be released to stable has undergone a MASSIVE overhaul code wise that when released will break almost everything mod related but will massively improve game performance.

They are also back porting a lot of the performance improvements that they have found while making Below Zero and they are updating the game engine AGAIN....

I say again because in Nov 2019 they updated from unity 5 to Unity 2018 and then in Dec 2019 they Updated to Unity 2019.2.4 and then in June the Updated the engine again to unity 2019.2.17 and when this new update comes out it will be Unity 2019.4.9 at which time they have overhauled the game loading system to be asynchronous and take advantage of the more powerful features of newer Processors.

They are also overhauling the way the assets are loading ingame so as to reduce popin and make it so the game runs better on the lower end systems without burning them out.

While you see very little change in content I and many modders can assure you that they have not been idle and many modders have even put planned projects on hold until things calm down with the updates as the massive number of changes every few months is a nightmare for us modders.

TLDR: Price increase here is not greed. They have been working their asses off for us and by god I hope they are done soon.

So you want to teall me that adapting the game to newer engine versions is even remotely comparable to building everything from scratch? Would you say that the performance improvements are the same workload it was to code these systems in the first place?

[Chimp]

"How do you justify that price increase..?"

Because Subnautica was a really good game. The devs deserve to make money for all their work.

[*|PEZ|* Merivio]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

1. If they could produce SN for 20 USD and survive and grow as a studio they can do the same with BZ. They could reuse tons of stuff that was already there.

2. All of their Assets were created by themselves so what licenses are yout alking about?

3. Lol you have no diea what youa re talking about do you. The budget of SN was 10 mio $. That's nothing compared to AAA games which cost 100 $ and more. If anything they are in the lower areas of AA nwhich ususally operate in a range from 10 to 50 Mio.

4. Subnautica doesn't use their own engine but Unity. They have 0 involvement in the developement of that engine. Again your argument is nonsensical. The main reason why Subnautica BZ works better than SN is because the map is significantly smaller.

5. This might be the case for some players. However i personally think it's pretty laugheable that you can only dive half as deep than you could in the original. I would have been fine with them designing the map like a a sinkhoel that small in diameter but very deep. But no, shallow waters it is for BZ.

6. Go ahead. Count the number of new biomes, creatures, new tech and mechancis compared to what you got in the basegame. Hell even think about core features such as building, movement, gamesystems like energy consumption, food and water intake etc. It's all been created for the basegame already. Making 5 new biomes and a dozen new creatures is nothing compared to building a game from scratch.

1. I heard they nearly went bankrupt during the development of the original game.

2. In no game in the last 50 years didn't require a per use license for something. Fonts, sound fx, code libraries, whatever it may be.

3. "In 2000 AAA game development on game consoles typically cost in the low tens of millions of dollars ($15m to $20m) for a new game". An example game of that budget was priced around $50 at launch. Your numbers are a little off, and Subnautica should have been priced at $30 based on those figures, even if you call it AA.

4. Every significant game has its own 'engine', even if it's using Unity. Think of it like an engine in a car. You've still got to build the car around it. When a new engine comes out with new parts, you've got to make new parts too, and even when it doesn't, you're still designing new parts to make the system work better.

5. So you'd rather spend an extra minute travelling every time you need to go from the seabed to the surface or vice-versa? I agree though that it would be nice for some places to be much deeper; it had an eerie, spooky feel in the original game.

6. Actually, most of the new additions required just as much creative inspiration as the original game. They didn't borrow any of the biome designs from the original, and only a few of the fish. Besides the resource-gathering, crafting, and base-building mechanics, almost everything about this game is brand new.