nvm XD

All I can say is that to excuse that price hike, this better be one hell of an announcement, on par with "Jesus has risen" or "McDonalds is going to start offering a 40 piece McNugget."

With all due respect, this is a *very* dumb move on Compulsion's part... I know you've never hidden a price increase was eventually incoming but, come on... 50 bucks?! For an Early Access/In Dev game? There's absolutely nothing you can tell us that would make this price seem remotely fair. Especially not when Hellblade -- an actual finished, released game with AAA production values -- just released and is being sold for $30. That's nearly half what you'll soon be asking for an Early Access version of We Happy Few.

I'm under the suspicion this completely nuts price hike has something to do with a big studio (looking at you, Microsoft) having chosen to publish We Happy Few. There's nothing else I can think of that justifies this base price for your game, other than major AAA publisher greed. You should tell them, though, that lots of indies have been published by big name publishers and that doesn't automatically make them AAA titles -- and they're not priced as such, either. We'll see whether I'm right or wrong about this on the 16th. Not that it matters much, the harm has been done. You guys definitely shot yourselves in the foot with this one.

Sorry, but it seems most customers that were even remotely interested in the game are downright insulted by this move and will wait for the inevitable %85 discount before they even consider buying it (and -- hey! -- that's still $7.50 for you, guys, with a base price of FIFTY freaking bucks!)

I think you're looking at this backwards. This isn't a price increase on an In Dev game, this is the end of the In Dev discount. Frankly, I'd like to see more devs take this route, and give a lower price to the risk takers that are backing an incomplete project.

I do find it odd that they've chosen to increase the price before releasing the final game, but perhaps that will make sense after the announcements of the 16th.

Full Disclosure: I'm a kickstarter backer of this game. The communication from Compulsion throughout has been spectacular - easily the best experience I've had on kickstarter. I am not currently actually playing the game, becuase I'm waiting on the Linux version, so I can't comment on the content or value. I backed it at $30CDN, and if the game plays / looks as good as it sounds from the weekly updates, I'll be pleased with the purchase.

Does this have anything to do with our dipshit president saying you were charging too much for milk, because if that is the case, I totally support your actions.

Well, now you've piqued my interest!

Jeeze I didn't know. Thanks for the heads up.

I am still on the fence about these changes, but given your honesty I'll stop being so cynical because in the very least you've proven you deserve our time and attention, and I'll take your word that the ongoing/upcoming changes will help all of this make sense. As for my own personal purchase, I just don't know right now, but I will think about it.

I usually have nothing against a game increasing price. *If* something happens that I feel justifies it. You, though, have a game in development. Adding more content is pretty much expected and required from Early Access games. I don't know of a single one who went through this steep a price increase just because the devs added more content. And whatever content you're adding, I have trouble believing it's worth a whole extra $20. That's basically the asking price for most games released today, so you'd better be adding an entire game's content this upcoming 16th... and even if that happens, again, it's a game in development -- it's *expected* of you to add content without having to increase the price. I'm not saying it's fair, or anything, but it's what customers have grown accustomed to. I bought a lot of In Dev games here on GOG, and most -- if not all -- of them received meaty updates before release, that never was motive for the devs to increase the price, and even if they had increased it, I highly doubt any of the dev studios of the games I bought would have been so careless and unaware of their target audience as to suddenly increase the prices of their games up to $50. Even the most "high-profile" game of the ones I bought, The Long Dark, which has a theoretical endless mode in the form of its sandbox survival, a game which received *LOTS* of updates during development, only increased price *after* release. Not during Early Access, despite receiving huge content updates. After release. And even when it released, its price isn't nearly as absurd as what you're asking for We Happy Few. The Long Dark is being sold for €31.99 in my country/region. That's roughly $20 less than what you're asking for your game. So, approximately $30 for a potentially endless game, with its sandbox survival mode, plus a genuinely interesting story mission, the first two available episodes of which take around 15-20 to finish, with three upcoming episodes for free (I guess Compulsion games would ask $20 for each extra episode, if you guys were Hinterland Studio?) -- this should put the whole story mode, once completed, at 37,5-50 hours long, if they maintain the average size of the episodes consistent. That still beats your 30 hours of story (10 per each character, if I remember correctly?), and it's also not a cheap padding out technique of "play this three times with three different characters", it's just *the main story*. So, yeah, as a potential customer (I *was* intrigued and slightly interested in We Happy Few before this announcement), I feel insulted and offended by this price increase, and you most definitely lost a customer in me. I think it's safe to say you lost a lot more customers, too, not just me, but that's just speculation on my part. Time will tell, I guess, whether people will vote with their wallets and punish or reward you for this risky move. I'm inclined to think the vast majority of people are more suspicious of devs and publishers pushing a "No Man's Sky" or something similar, and it is my belief that you'll regret this decision in the long run.

I don't own your game, but I definitely would have wanted to try We Happy Few. I like the dystopian setting a lot (George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of my favourite books ever), the game looks fun to play, the art direction is gorgeous -- even if it isn't the most stunning game I've laid my eyes upon, from a technical standpoint --, in short, it does seem to have a whole lot of stuff I like a lot. At this price, though? Nope. And buying it afterwards when you won't make enough money and it will (inevitably) go on sale would just be "rewarding" you, which I won't be doing, either.

I can't stress this enough: I've watched a lot of footage of We Happy Few; I loved most of what I saw, even if the game is still clearly in a very much unfinished and unpolished state. I was mildly hyped for it, at some point. But, as much as I enjoyed what I've seen, I don't feel $50 is a fair price for it. I sincerely apologize for being blunt, but it's my honest opinion. A lot of other people apparently agree with me, too, and a few of us fit in the target audience for the game, so maybe this decision wasn't as right as it might have felt when you initially took it.

Still, sincerely, best of luck. I have a feeling you're going to need lots of it.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter too much to me - I already own We Happy Few.

Interesting. Compulsion has decided that they have some announcement that justifies $50 for the game. Based on the $50 price tag, you've decided that you aren't going to buy this game. Ever. And you haven't even heard the announcement yet.

As a non-player to whom the game looked moderately interesting, but not $30 interesting and definitely not $50 interesting, I think you should take the well-meaning criticism about the price rise to heart.

Whatever your reasons for doing so - whether they've been imposed upon you by contractual conditions (perhaps by Microsoft?), or whether you have internally decided on your own steam that your game is worth $50, I promise you it will not be conducive to your game's success. It's not a question of tripling the content. It's simply a matter that at that price, you are competing against various triple-A titles: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, F1 2017, Everybody's Golf, Splatoon 2, Madden 18, Project CARS 2, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. You are an unproven developer producing a game in an unproven franchise and will have absolutely no retail exposure. You'll probably have a day or two in a prominent position of the Steam storefront before you fade into obscurity there.

And whatever the joke may be right now about the Xbox One schedule looking a bit "sparse" to say the least, it's worth realising that you will be competing against Forza 7 in early October. Most of these games will be not much more expensive than your $50 - some will even be cheaper.

$30 is a good price point to encourage impulse buys from players who spot your game on the Steam, GOG or Xbox One storefronts and are willing to front that kind of money for downloadables. $50 for an exclusively downloadable title is the sort of price point that only established franchises and names can afford to demand. I can promise you with 90% certainty that your game will fail on the Xbox One at that price at the very least (games at the $50-60 price point on consoles tend to have a 85/15 physical/digital share), and I don't like your chances on PC either.

This isn't a matter of "I want this game for next to nothing so I'll scream and shout until I get the game at a cheap price." For my part, I've laid my cards on the table - I only pay those kinds of money for boxed copies of games on consoles, so I don't really qualify as a potential customer for you.

This is a matter of seeing a relatively well-made indie game (that's suffering from a fair few technical problems at this late stage, as I understand it) in a market chock-a-block with shovelware, wanting it to see some degree of success, and realising that all the work you've put in is jeopardised by a very silly business decision.