I’m hugely disappointed with the decision to release an expansion so soon after the first one (announced a few months after Ashes of Malmouth) and locking quality of life features that players have been requesting for years behind expansion content and quests.
I played the better part of a thousand hours well before and shortly after AoM came out, and I purchased that expansion at full price on day one. The content that was added with the expansion was quite large, but ultimately not worth the majority of the full cost of the game. The marketing and hype did its job well and separated me from my money. I didn’t complain, because I decided that I simply made a mistake in purchasing it at full price. If anything, I assumed the team would continue to add to the game and expansion which just came out.
After paying three quarters of the price of the original game for AoM, we get an announcement mere months later of a new expansion with “QoL features?” I didn’t worry much about it at the time, because of the fact that when AoM was released, the new content was purchased with the expansion and some of the QoL features were simply added to the base game.
Now I’m reading that something players have been requesting for literally years is being locked behind the new expansion instead of added to the base game. That seems like a real slap in the face to me. Unless this new “expansion” is closer to the Crucible that is more like “DLC” with DLC pricing, I’ll be hugely disappointed.
Luckily for your pockets, it doesn’t matter what I think.
given the hours you spent playing, the price seems well worth it. As to it being close to the vanilla price, I agree the two were too close, because the base game was too cheap, not AoM too expensive…
I assumed the team would continue to add to the game and expansion which just came out.
they are, see 1.0.6.0
After paying three quarters of the price of the original game for AoM, we get an announcement mere months later of a new expansion with “QoL features?”
announced <> released, we are probably about 6 months away from that
Wouldn’t mind seeing the QoL added to the base game tho
I will preface this by saying that what you consider value for your dollar is entirely a matter of personal perspective and opinion and you are welcome to act upon yours as you see fit. It is money you’ve earned after all and up to you to decide how to spend it.
From a developer perspective, we charge what we believe is a reasonable price for the effort and investment we’ve put. If you as a customer disagree, then your options are to not purchase our product, or you can wait for a sale at which the price is what you consider “fair” for our work. Since we don’t want everybody buying the game at a 70% discount, it is our imperative to price our work fairly, within reason.
I dare say we’ve been very reasonable in the pricing of Grim Dawn content. The base game alone provides an average of 30-40 hours of content for the typical player, and that’s not counting replaying on higher difficulties or rolling additional characters. For that, we charged $24.99, which has come up time and again in the community that we’ve charged too little. I strongly believe Ashes of Malmouth was priced very fairly for what it offered when considering the base game price.
Considering the 1000’s of hours of entertainment that many players get for $43 (if you paid full price for Grim Dawn and Ashes of Malmouth), it seems like a pretty crazy value when you compare that to the average $2.99 price of 45 minutes of a TV show (or about $12+ for a 2 hours movie?!). If you got equivalent hours out of both, you’d be out a few thousand dollars for TV/movies but somehow an expansion that adds at least 20 more hours of content (again, never mind replayability) charging $18 is outrageous.
As for marketing and hype doing their job, I think we’ve been very forthcoming and honest with what’s included in the expansion before it was ever released, including months of developer updates and a run down of some key stats that we compared to the base game so players could decide if the expansion was worth it for them. Considering some marketing efforts out there these days, we probably look silly by comparison by spelling out in such detail what’s included. But we’re not here to fool anybody. We do the best we can and then make a sincere effort to sell our work to the players. I think reviews generally speak for themselves.
Regarding quality of life features. At the end of the day, those features don’t just appear. Developers spend time and the company spends money for them to exist. Eventually, we need to justify the work we put in by charging money for it, otherwise we are investing company resources without seeing a return and risking the continued existence of the company. One could argue that QoL features can invigorate future sales, but that has diminishing returns. Despite that, some work we do does get released for free, some of it was even pretty major. The DirectX 11 renderer upgrade and controller support were huge and took months of work, and those were included with the base game. The reason for that is that we strongly believe those features are critical to improving the experience of all players and can in fact have major ramifications for future sales of the base game as well as the expansion. Something like the Set Transmuter in this thread does not really fall under the “critical” category. It is nice to have for sure, which is why we’re working on it, but it is not something that’s a core of the game (just as the illusionist was not), and so it has become a feature of a paid expansion.
The fact that we were able to justify the development of a second expansion is why we could justify the development time required to add the Set Transmuter and other upcoming features to begin with. If we stopped with Ashes of Malmouth, this feature would not exist.
To the same point, the base game had seen 9 free content/balance updates and Ashes of Malmouth has already had 3 with another big one on the way soon. The 3 AoM updates also included improvements to the base game, over 2 years after it was released. All of this was work we did for free, whether you paid us $25 or $8 for Grim Dawn.
When you compare that to an MMO where you might be paying $15 a month for content drops every 3-4 months…yeah, we’re really making bank on these patches.
Considering all that will be included in Forgotten Gods, that is highly unlikely. The new game mode alone is going to take as much effort as the Crucible to develop, if not more. Going back to my earlier point though, if you disagree with what we consider a fair price for thousands of our man hours, then you can always pick it up on sale at a later time.
This is another matter of business. The game is not new anymore. Interest is, as expected after 2 years, gradually dying down. If we were to even consider doing another large expansion, we needed to do it in a time-frame where there is still enough interest to justify the cost of developing it and then turn a profit on top of that. It is a well documented fact that an expansion has about a 20-30% pick up rate of the base game. Each subsequent expansion is then expected to see additional decay of roughly 20-30%.
If I had to guess why Season Passes are such a popular publisher tactic these days it’s that it gets players to invest cash into future content while hype is still maxed out. Not to mention it gets player money into the coffers much sooner, possibly before they even know what they’ve paid for (it could very well be a small disappointing content drop).
Whew, this got long!
tl;dr Developers charge what they believe is fair for their work, it is up to the customer to decide if the price matches the value they expect for their money. New content doesn’t come out of thin air.
I think the devs have been very forthcoming with their plans for the future development of GD. In fact, they participate regularly in the discussions we have had in the forums.
I also understand where you, as the consumer, are coming from Rylocke.
That being said, crate and co. have often exceeded my expectations in their delivery of game content. While GD is far from perfect as far as it’s UI/QoL features go, they do deserve at the very least the benefit of the doubt.
I think some players forget the amount of time and effort it takes to make and update game. If you compare what Crate had in store for us with the kickstarter, and look how it evolved to it’s current form it’s crazy.
Just read Zantai’s really well phrased response, and I have to say, I agree and I salute him for handling complaints with this much professionalism.
And in case people forget, when Immortal Throne came out, it also did add the quality of life content only if you purchased the expansion - the base game did not get the improvements.
Btw, I was surprised to learn the base Grim Dawn was sold for such a low price! I have been recommending the game to friends for years whenever I see it discounted, but I never checked what the original price was, or known it, since I bought the game pre-Kickstarter myself.
Same here. I have some friends who have the game but never played it in multi, and I never traded either… same as in TQ. But that’s just me being a shut-in asocial.
Yes please! And more shared stash, especially. I am using my old characters as “mules” but it is complicated to remember who has the chest armor and who has the two-handed weapons…
That wasn’t done for free. Players pay for products with a reasonable understanding of what they’re getting. For a single-player PC game (and each of its expansions), a reasonable assumption is that the game will continue to be updated after release. You were paid tens of millions of dollars for, among other things, those updates.
I’m not upset that workers want to be paid for work. I’m disappointed with this particular expansion and things related to it:
The extremely short window between AoM and this announcement was one thing, but then for it to be [so far] on track to be completed before the end of the year? Considering the speed at which the game and AoM were developed, to me, that translates to one of two things: 1. Content that was planned for AoM, 2. Content that was planned for updates following AoM (the ones we paid those 8-digits of US dollars for). Or it could be a third thing (see next):
Then, there’s the subject matter of the expansion. It screams “Titan’s Quest.” While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I wonder if much of the source of the new expansion isn’t old, unused, or otherwise TQ assets.
Finally, my main point was this set transmutation thing (hence the reason my rant was in this post and not another). It will fix a problem that players (the source of all that money I mentioned earlier) have been upset about for years but requires a single interface and relatively little coding. I can’t believe you could say that justifying a second expansion is the only way you could justify this particular addition.
Now, I feel like the game is at a point where it could either get an earth-shattering expansion (something with truly new content and overhauls) or simply be complete where it is.
I’m happy with my initial purchase of Grim Dawn. After AoM I only put in about 10 or 20 or so more hours of playing to play through the new acts and masteries. Like I mentioned in my initial post, that was simply my bad. I should have waited for a sale.
AoM is much larger than was originally planned for (it was originally going to be one act, we got two), aside from the possibility of Ancient Grove releasing with the expansion (which didn’t happen immediately due to time constraints). So, doubtful.
Like…another expansion?
I wrote a response to this sort of thing on reddit already and wanted to quote it to save me the trouble of retyping it all, but I couldn’t find it, so here’s my TL;DR guess:
I think, based purely on my own speculation, that Forgotten Gods is the result of some content being made alongside Ashes of Malmouth that was originally intended to be free, but after the great success of AoM, it was decided to turn some of it into a fully-fledged expansion after working on it more and adding more to it.
When AoM’s final testing build went into testing (and maybe even before then) I doubt the full staff of the GD-team of Crate was still working on it. I’d wager it was really just Zantai polishing stuff up, Kinree fixing the occasional coding bug, and the map team (I don’t know who’s still making maps! :o ) fixing invisible walls/pathing issues. This leaves a bunch of people to work on stuff further down the development line. Around the time that AoM released, people were teasing Zantai about when the second xpac was going to release, at which time he eventually caved and said something along the lines of “maybe if this one sells 100k copies”. Well, it did (and then some). And I doubt Crate was sitting on their hands in anticipation of that. So they took what they had and chose to build upon it.
As to the pricing, we (playtesters) got a sneak preview of the price (I think we actually got a ballpark range estimate) and were all OK with it. Being the fanboys/girls that we are, some of us (myself included) said it was a little on the lower end. But one way or another, it seemed reasonable relative to the size and quality of the content and the time required to produce that content.
If it is, Crate is gonna have a pretty significant lawsuit on their hands. Crate does not own any assets pertaining to the Titan Quest IP, only the engine used to make the game. For TQ stuff, look to THQ Nordic.
the support you got is beyond what you get for most games though, so I don’t think your statement here is really accurate. If they had done 2 or 3 balance patches + bugfixes and no new content that would easily have been what you reasonably can expect.
You were paid tens of millions of dollars
rethink your math here, even if they sold a million copies at full price, it would not be tens of millions, Steam also takes it’s share. Gross and net are not the same thing…
Then, there’s the subject matter of the expansion. It screams “Titan’s Quest.” While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I wonder if much of the source of the new expansion isn’t old, unused, or otherwise TQ assets.
0%, as Crate does not have those assets
Now, I feel like the game is at a point where it could either get an earth-shattering expansion (something with truly new content and overhauls) or simply be complete where it is.
after the second expansion I assume it is complete, i.e. there wil not be a third one
I cannot believe this guy, really. Y’d think people would be happy that we are getting another expansion so soon, but he is complaining that it should not be? I mean, I have been waiting years now for Blizzard to do another expansion for Diablo 3 but I am starting to believe that a 4th game will happen sooner than an expansion. Is that the ideal timeframe for you Rylocke, waiting ages for any update, and seeing no news whenever you check the news page of the site but bloody Seasons, which offer no new game content whatsoever?
This is crazy talk. The game is so cheap already and mad respect for the support from the developer post release. I am on 985 hours and counting (and I got both of the purple Alkamos rings!!)…please release the next expansion soon and take my money?!
If you aren’t aware of the development history then :-
Grim Dawn was intended to only be 1 big act. It ended up stretching to 4 whole acts.
The original price was decided when it was intended to be a 1 Act game.
This means the base game is heavily underpriced
AoM itself again had the same problem, the ended up doing more than they intended. Instead of one big act they actually ended up doing two acts. For the price we paid there was more than enough content available.
So basically paying extra for more content isn’t a bad thing.
I’d actually love to see anyone beat Ceno’s meme for this one. His meme sums my views.
I get that you guys want to pick out little snippets of my comment to make me seem either stupid or the bad guy because you think I’m attacking you precious Grim Dawn or Crate team, etc. However, if you want to do that, at least focus on the meat and potatoes of my actual complaint (I believe a problem that players have been complaining about–very possibly the biggest and most glaring problem–should be solved with an addition to the base game)
The assets thing is simply a guess, but they have the ability to purchase them. The coding thing is absolutely true unless they have issues with the sets or items that need to be retroactively fixed. The money part is accurate. The expectations thing is true (nobody expects two or three simple balance updates after release. Look at… you know, any acceptable, comparable game in the last decade as a source). The content planned thing might be true, but there’s no way the team would admit to that.
But at the core of everything here is simply my belief that this particular decision (set transmutation in the expansion) is a shitty one and all but a slap in the face to me.
Except you are factually wrong and shows how ignorant you are. Have you actually try coding anything in your life? Something like the set items transmuter isn’t “little coding”.
Here’s the deal for you: either buy the new expansion or don’t. Or stop playing the game altogether. Some people here already made sound arguments to why the game is actually way underpriced. You just chose to ignore them.
They also didn’t made “tens of millions of dollars”. The game is underpriced and a lot of people actually got it on sale up to 75% discount. So they don’t have the money you claim they have.
I for one did not quote your whole post to not make the reply post even longer than it already is. Nothing I left out changes the context one iota and you would still get the exact same response from me.
As far as I am concerned you come across as a clueless, ungrateful, entitled, jaded little prick in your entire post.
at least focus on the meat and potatoes of my actual complaint (I believe a problem that players have been complaining about–very possibly the biggest and most glaring problem–should be solved with an addition to the base game)
That was a different post and I agreed with that in principle, but ultimately that is Crate’s decision and you are not entitled to it. That your second post tried to make the argument that you ‘should be’ does not change that.
The assets thing is simply a guess, but they have the ability to purchase them.
so presenting speculation as fact is fine I guess, you made it sound like the only question is how much was reused
The coding thing is absolutely true unless they have issues with the sets or items that need to be retroactively fixed.
what is true is that you do not really have an idea of how much effort it really is, as you do not know the code and did not analyze it. I grant you that it probably is not extraordinarily much effort, but that does not change the fact that it is still up to Crate to decide whether to include it in the expansion or in a future patch for vanilla.
The money part is accurate.
no it is not, anyone with a basic understanding of math and the difference between a sales price vs what money the developer ends up getting knows this
The expectations thing is true (nobody expects two or three simple balance updates after release. Look at… you know, any acceptable, comparable game in the last decade as a source).
done that, you are simply wrong. Most games get a lot less support… how about you name maybe 10 from the last 10 years that had better support, given how many games were released that should be really trivial to do
But at the core of everything here is simply my belief that this particular decision (set transmutation in the expansion) is a shitty one and all but a slap in the face to me.
you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how delusional it is, I guess
