Crozekiel said:
Except that people putting money into Kickstarter know (or should know) that they are taking a risk putting in that money in the hopes that the product in question will be developed. They are purposely funding the development of the game, not purchasing it. There is a major difference between the two acts.
Exactly this.
Steam is not a Kickstarter portal or a funding drive. People who funded the original Kickstarter project were knowingly paying into a risky venture, and as far as I can tell that has not changed with the Early Access version -- there is no guarantee that Planetary Annihilation will ever get finished (if you doubt this could ever happen, no need to look further than another Early Access game,
Towns), and frankly demanding $90 from the average consumer for access to an alpha build is entirely unreasonable. The kind of precedent that could be set here for future Early Access games is dangerous.
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Anyway, it's still not clear to me if those who contributed to the Kickstarter drive already had access to a playable version of the alpha prior to the game's release on Steam. Can anyone verify whether this is true or not?