I guess it's hard to talk about fundraising in general. You'll always have different circumstances and financial demands depending on what kind of game you want to develop. A "real" indie team of a few people will cost less, than a company of 40-50 or more people. Daedalic should be about that size at some stages during the development.

It's a good thing that this is obvious to you. Sometimes I got the feeling that there are people who think games are made by some nerdy programmers, who got too much time to spend. They just don't take the games industry seriously.
And the focus on artists just because there are many of them working at Daedalic because of their strong focus on handdrawn graphics.

I'm not an expert in fundraising, nor do I know what Daedalic was thinking when they signed the contract. Of course they knew what the contract said and what negative consequences they would be facing. But whatever the reason was, they chose to agree with the publisher. Yet I believe not because they were greedy or planned to piss off the customers, but because they thought it was the best option at that time.

Oh, such a deadline would bring some intensity into the game industry!
Perhaps they will try crowdfunding some time, but I guess they got a certain line they follow regarding how to conduct their company, in which crowdfunding isn't included (yet).

Like you said, signing such a contract was their decision and they have to live with the consequences. I won't force you or others to buy their productions. I just think that you'd miss out on their amazing games, just because you dislike their distribution and pricing policy. Sure, there are cases where you have to prevent negative developments by boycotting products and services. But in this case I'm quite certain that Daedalic doesn't plan on capturing the world. At least that's what I'm hoping...

Seriously, what kind of critique is that supposed to be? rondomedia can look back on steady growth and definite success in their endeavors, BECAUSE of the games you name, whether you and me like them or not. That they would release a retail version with German language only if same version is not available online, that speaks FOR their knowledge of online distribution. And that they have effectively made this game possible by lending the money to Daedalic, that also speaks for them.

It's almost guaranteed that you won't have any such problems with Deponia 3 though. The game is financed from Daedalic's resources exclusively (an actual 'indie' game); the retail publisher in Germany is probably Eurovideo again, which doesn't even force a copy protection on their DVDs; and German as well as English language was a part of the previous two Deponia GOG releases as well (not that the German buyers of those retail versions did not complain their butts off that the GOG had both languages and was cheaper ;) ).

It gets really boring, all arguments are said and discussing with fangirls isn't going anywhere. So: bye bye and have fun. ;)

None, just my own opinion.
I didn't critize Rondomedia for what they are. In fact, I own some rondomedia games as well.
"Landwirtschaftssimulator (select your year here)" is surprisingly fun to play, and I would also like to mention "1914 - Shells of Fury" released a few years back to be an excellent WW1 submarine sim, and a lot of the "Wimmelbild"-games have a high artistic value.
But 90% of rondomedia's simulator games are shovelware. Different games made with the same graphics and physics engine, may it fit the theme of the game or not. Most have boring mission designs as well.

In my opinion, they are focusing on a different target audience and may not be familiar with the growing "cult" following Daedalic is currently gathering.
Business-wise, rondomedia's choice regarding "night of the rabbit" is indeed the right one. But fanbase-wise, not so much. It is their descision to weigth the increased profit higher then the loss of daedalic's fans who now decline to buy.

People who leave a discussion by wielding the term 'fangirls' or 'fanboys' around like a battle axe just make me laugh. You wanted to blow off steam here, we all get it, and you weren't too comfortable when you met opinions different from yours.

Grow up.

It all depends on what the publisher wants. Can you imagine that? In many many cases, the publisher dictates Steam exclusivity, maybe that would have been more to your liking. Maybe the funder demands exclusive rights to the IP, how great is that for the creatives? Maybe the moneybag just delays the international distribution to sell his German retail version, how fucked would you have felt if the game came out on gog/Steam for 10 bucks in December? And those are about the alternatives these 'other developers' have. You really think that's BETTER?

As idiotic as the present situation is, rondomedia hasn't kicked Daedalic's ass, especially not if you compare it to other developers' means of fund raising. I'm glad that gog.com doesn't do that international pricing stuff, but of course that leads to a feeling of inequality if compared to retail prices in countries with higher real wages. I would have nothing against a FAIR international pricing on gog.com (not Steam's €=$ bullshit), one that would consider the wages in target countries. They could sell NotR with a 25$ price tag to Germany and with a 10$ price tag to Czechoslovakia. Yup, exactly that would be FAIR. Incredible, isn't it, Wintermute? You're living in a rich country!

Again, because of this deal, you have a choice that other kinds of deals would not have given you. If you don't want to buy the game, that's just fine. But just dumping on publisher or developer, that's just a self serving, opportunist point of view in disregard of any kind of market realities or the differing situation in target countries.

/edit: Having evaluated both the German and the English voices in the meantime... errrr... yes, German is the "original language", but it seems to me the protagonist sounds 99% less ennerving in English than he sounds in German. I'm going for the English version here, and it's absolutely not the price.

Well, thats grown up ... ^^

Yeah, but my mainpoint wasn't the pricing. And this isn't a discussion about world economy, maybe you failed to realize that.

I leaved the discussion because anything was said and I only reply to you as you especially addressed me again. Anything IS said about that issue. In my opinion the decisions are crap and if I repeatedly read about how amazing the game is, even when nobody had played it .. well .. however: I pass on this and my opinion is told. You have to live with that also, my mature friend. ;)

I was asking someone acting needlessly derogatory towards a community member to act his supposed age. Yes.

I've quoted exactly those lines of yours which I thought I had something to add to, and my main point remains in its unchanged form as an answer. I detailed the usual publisher deals with definite hundreds of behind the scenes examples which I believe are far, far less fair towards the customer than the one made for Night of the Rabbit, which was described openly by a Daedalic employee. And I did this because the quoted remark was made in definite disregard of that common knowledge.

Don't worry. The main problem for Night of the Rabbit was that Daedalic could not act as an indie developer for this additional game in 2013 and had to get funding from a proper publisher. Deponia's last two parts were completely indie and so will part three be - giving Daedalic all the options for digital distribution while hopefully employing Eurovideo again for the completely DRM free retail DVD version in Germany, which I'll readily buy again at 15€ more than the gog version.

I'm skipping Night of the Rabbit though. Just not my topic. ;)

Yes, I hope so too! I bought all 2 editions from Amazon.de for a fair price. Came with awesome posters! Will definitely buy number 3 there too, to support Daedalic. It's available now for pre-order, or at least it's listed for a release in October 2013.

Argh, I didn't pay attention that it's no German language included. :(

But to be clear, I don't blame Daedalic at all and can fully understand their situation (thanks Vainamoinen for explaining in detail).

I can only hope that one day we will wil get the German language added here. In the meantime I'll play it in Engslish.
So far all Daedalic Adventures also had great English voiceovers.

EDIT: Sorry for the necromancy on this thread, I actually really thought the last entry was in August. Time to go to bed it seems. :)