Thanks for your comment. I agree with you 100% and your point is absolutely valid.

"Spite" is probably a wrong word to use for what I meant. What I wanted to say was "anyone with an interest in this game should not pass on it if they've not been affected by the bait and switch by Gollop & Co (ie. helped funding it) and just because others are negative to the game because of what the company behind it did."

I support your decision to give Phoenix Point a pass because of the Epic deal, and I myself will be very sceptic about funding their next game if they choose that path again.
That said, I think they've been fairly open about the deal and their plans around what happens after the Epic exclusive period and involved during the development of the game.
I think that deserves some recognition as well (but it will of course not mend all the damage done to their supporters, and rightly so).

The Epic Games Store Exclusivity deal of Snapshot Games was a dick move, and a slap in the face of PP backers, though. One of the premises for backing Snapshot Games was the promise that PP would be available on GOG and Steam from day one.

And the “early games service” is just another way of anticompetitive business practice—one large distribution platform of an oligopoly of only a handful of large platforms basically bribing gaming studios into joining a monopolistic structure, even if it’s only temporary.

I can understand why a small game studio like Snapshot Games would accept an offer like that, but that doesn’t make the practice any better in my eyes.

But if the developers never got that timed exclusivity money from Epic, would the game be much worse?

My point is that they got their dirty money already and chose the less risky way [or so they thought / were promised by the EGS salespitch]. It would really be a shame if they go anywhere above 20 €. I certainly won't buy it without a hefty discount because I despise EGS and the move itself. (abandoning their true supporters in the process). This has to have consequences.

The thing is when a game is getting a kickstarter with huge support it means it already has the ground to run on.because:

a. The game already bult at least with beta version to show to possible backers, so it can still be funded from backers and

b. The promises to backers were already broken, hard to rely on someone who always lie from the get go. If people hate lying politicians why suddenly it's okay when a company lied to you?

Hm, I liked it.

Comparing it to modern X-com is like comparing an Indie sci-fi film to a brand new Star Wars movie. It doesn't have luxurious presentation and narrative of a big publisher-backed modern X-com game but is still an excellent tactical sci-fi game, if you're into that sort of thing.I think the "either - or" arguments that are so prevalent in modern hipster gaming and among juenile gamers are simply idiotic.

None of those are necessarily true though. The game development could of been going fine and on track for release, Epic comes up and says to the devs "Hey want this money for Epic timed exclusivity" and they go "Yes this will allow us to add a few new features and polish the overall game".

So, is the game all it was hyped up to be and is it worth the wait for those who backed it ?

Backers were told the game available to them via GOG and Steam.
We backed based on that unequivocal statement in the pledge pitch.
EGS showed up later and via sack of cash made it an exclusive, and to be clear I never saw any statements that it was 100% confirmed to be a "timed exclusive", much less what time frame that would be, or that backers could still redeem their games on their chosen platform.
And even if those statements had been made how much are they to be trusted after one unilateral change to the agreement had been made after they'd already taken our money.
It shows a disrespect on the part of the Epic and the devs toward the end user, and crowd funding end users at that which frankly takes a bad thing and makes it even worse because destroying trust in the crowd funding sphere undercuts the entire funding model.

So yes, point B from RedRagan is exactly true.
As to point A, that's also accurate. They'd competed a crowd funding campaign based on what they already had and in so doing made explicit commitments to those people who'd already paid to support their vision and development.

If Epic believed in the project like the backers they could have invested rather than going the exclusive route, but they didn't. They weren't interested in supporting the dev or the project, they were trying to cash in. And the devs decided it was more important to cash in on that Epic greed than to keep faith with their backers, or even communicate in an open and timely manner with their backers.

The situation was *not* "so that we have the resources to deliver an improved experience we are doing an in development release on Epic but all our commitments to backers are guaranteed to be honored".
It was "we have a ton of money from Epic now so we hope you'll just except that we've pulled a bait and switch on platforms but if not you can GTFO because we have enough money to refund anyone who's not willing to suck it up. Your time, energy, and investment in our project from the early days is going to be treated as holding no value whatsoever."

So again, maybe the game is good. But no matter how good the game may or may not be the developer shouldn't be trusted to communicate with, or make choices based on respect for, the people supporting their game because they have demonstrated that's not among their priorities.

I'm not going to go and one star review the game, because I think the game should be reviewed on its own merits.
But I also think it's relevant and legitimate to make sure people who are new to the situation have relevant information regarding the developer so they can make their own choice about how much trust and faith they're willing to give them.

First, thanks for a thoughtful and civil response. All too rare in these times and I want to give the appreciation that deserves.

Second, I will probably end up getting a copy eventually if reviews look good. But I'll wait until development is fully concluded and there's a very deep discount. These are because I don't trust the developer any longer due to their unilateral behavior and poor communication.

That last point calls for some elaboration/clarification. Because all other things being equal doing an "early access" period on EGS to better fund the game (as I've seen others in this thread describe it) wouldn't be an issue at all.
But that's not the situation here. This game was crowd funded, without any involvement from EGS or even their store listed as a possible option for distribution (if memory serves it didn't even exist yet, but maybe I just hadn't heard of it despite having an Epic account at the time).

Even then, if the devs had been transparent about the process and come to the backers - who's money they'd already taken - and said "we need more funding to provide the quality we want so we're making a deal to provide that, but you will still get everything we've promised you just with a delayed time table" that would have been a different thing. But they didn't take that route, they made a post facto declaration which lacked transparency or assurance. It was essentially a statement that this is the way it is and you can get a refund if you don't like it.
Maybe they clarified that later, I'm not sure because I stopped following the project after their initial statements on the subject. So maybe I missed their later e-mails on the subject and if so they do deserve credit for those but those statements should have come right out of the gate, or ideally before the ink was dry on the new contract so they were properly including backers in the changes they were making to the process.

Backing a crowdfunded project is different than buying a product, and the extra trust and faith that a backer is showing when supporting a project at such an early stage deserves some recognition and respect from the creators who often would have no project without that support (many funding groups and publishers withhold support from projects until after they've successfully funded because of the support for the project that crowd funding success shows so it's relevant to the material success of the project).

I think even in business people should act with integrity and making a unilateral choice to revoke an agreement made with many people in favor of a more lucrative one with another organization, and doing so clandestinely so that the very consideration of it isn't even discussed openly until after it's already a done deal. Well, that's not acting with integrity or respect. It is acting purely with self interest.
Self interest is not inherently negative per se, but when it trumps all other considerations it certainly risks causing harmful effects to others and it does seem relevant to keep that in mind about someone when they've displayed that as their first priority.

Post scrip: Since it seems I've missed some of their communications on the subject, if you have any links for those, especially links that would provide dates as well so that their communications can be properly contextualized by when they chose to share them I'd be interested in reading them. Because you are absolutely right, transparency and communication deserve credit. And if I've missed something pertinent and timely that they shared I would like to see it so I can revise my perspective accordingly and give them whatever credit is due the transparency they've offered.

PP was backed on Fig, not on Kickstarter.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/phoenix-point

As a backer, I was quite disappointed after their one-year EGS exclusivity stunt. It wouldn’t have ben half as bad if Snapshot Games hadn’t promised to publish PP on GOG and Steam from day one.

At least backers get the first 5 DLCs for free as “compensation”.

Oh, right. I forgot about Fig. How is that scheme of a website going?

Heh - hey, we're called "Private Contractors" - it's NOTHING at all like a mercenary or "gun-ho" ;)

It’s still running, it seems. And I heard from a few Phoenix Point investors that they even got some nice returns from their investment on Fig. Why are you calling it a scheme? I guess I’m not up to date on bad practices of that site.