The thing is, that they were the ones that had access to numbers that showed what that 'love and appreciation' meant financially to them and they were the ones making the decision. You're calling that decision wrong without access to the same stats. I'm not questioning whether others made it, I'm saying that the fact we have every year four or five indie darlings taking the spotlight doesn't invalidate hundreds of ones that can barely stay afloat, if that.

And yeah, that's the trap, they were bunch of people that left Ubisoft and decided to make their own studio, making a hard choice. Throughout the years their company grew and they're no longer taking that leap alone, if they won't reach the other end of the chasm people that made the decision will drag others with them, so I can see them opting for a safe bet with SEGA.

Guess everyone must judge for themselves if they kept their independency in their: creative freedom, financial freedom, DRM standards freedom, quality of releases and pricing freedom, taking their time to finish and refine the product releases freedom, have the back of their community that cheered for them freedom and all other freedoms that are there.

I`m not a judge that decides what good they did or not, i am just saying i don`t like this new direction they are taking and time will tell how much they change from who they were or not. I cherish all opinions and i believe everyone should think for themselves and see if what is happening now is good or not for them as a company and for us as consumers/buyers/fans

No-no, don't back down now, you were judging, especially in you big long Humankind critique thread.

GlorySign wrote:
DRM standards

Didn't know they had any, Amplitude were never known for their DRM-free games.

GlorySign wrote:
taking their time to finish and refine the product

May I remind you they delayed release publicly twice already.

Sublustris wrote:

No-no, don't back down now, you were judging, especially in you big long Humankind critique thread.

GlorySign wrote:
DRM standards

Didn't know they had any, Amplitude were never known for their DRM-free games.

GlorySign wrote:
taking their time to finish and refine the product

May I remind you they delayed release publicly twice already.

Yes, but they had to beg SEGA to grant that second delay. Now that they're owned by SEGA, release schedules aren't entirely up to Amplitude. If the game isn't ready, but SEGA insists on releasing it, then it gets released.

And sure, I'll judge them. Why shouldn't I? Previous Amplitude games didn't have Denuvo. This one does. Why? Because they sold out to SEGA.

DNLH wrote:

The thing is, that they were the ones that had access to numbers that showed what that 'love and appreciation' meant financially to them and they were the ones making the decision. You're calling that decision wrong without access to the same stats. I'm not questioning whether others made it, I'm saying that the fact we have every year four or five indie darlings taking the spotlight doesn't invalidate hundreds of ones that can barely stay afloat, if that.

And yeah, that's the trap, they were bunch of people that left Ubisoft and decided to make their own studio, making a hard choice. Throughout the years their company grew and they're no longer taking that leap alone, if they won't reach the other end of the chasm people that made the decision will drag others with them, so I can see them opting for a safe bet with SEGA.

I'm taking a philosophical stance, and I'm arguing they would have been better off not selling out, even if that meant dying out.

Because right now, as far as I'm concerned, they might as well have died out, except now their legacy is also marred by their betrayal.

Getting bought out by SEGA clearly didn't help with Endless Space 2, since that was way more of a mess than any of their previous games, and as far as I'm concerned, any game with Denuvo might as well not exist at all, because there's no way I'm touching it.

Kwami wrote:
Yes, but they had to beg SEGA to grant that second delay.

Any proof to that bold claim?

ElegantCaveman wrote:
Sure, they had access to data we don't, but that doesn't mean they read that data correctly. Going by what they said when they sold out, it sounded like something they embraced wholly and were looking forward to, not a grudging necessity

How about them wanting to hire more people and make higher budget games, even several projects at once? Before they couldn't afford to send their sound engineer to a real volcano just to record sound of it, but now they can.

ElegantCaveman wrote:
There's a disturbing lack of mid-range publishers/self-publishing indie devs in the industry

Probably because that model isn't viable in long term, or relies on very successful releases to grow and remain self-sufficient, which in itself are miracles when they happen.

ElegantCaveman wrote:
Amplitude felt like they were in a prime position to explore alternative options

You think they didn't? You think people, that quit their comfy positions at Ubi to create their own studio just gave it easily just like that?

Sublustris wrote:

How about them wanting to hire more people and make higher budget games, even several projects at once? Before they couldn't afford to send their sound engineer to a real volcano just to record sound of it, but now they can.

If the cost of that is Denuvo, my argument is that it's not worth it.

Sublustris wrote:

You think they didn't? You think people, that quit their comfy positions at Ubi to create their own studio just gave it easily just like that?

Again, my concern is the end result. And whatever they did or didn't do, I don't approve of the end result.

Maybe they thought it through very carefully? Maybe they acted impulsively and hoped for the best? Maybe all sorts of things.

I don't know know what happened, I just know that I believe they misjudged things and made the wrong decision, regardless of how they reached that decision.

Maybe they see nothing wrong with Denuvo, and are perfectly happy with how things are. In which case, we simply disagree on a very fundamental level. That's life.

As a customer, the only recourse available to me is to let them know how I feel about their business decisions, and why they won't be getting my money anymore. It's not much, but it's all I have.

Sublustris wrote:

GlorySign wrote:
just release it when it`s done

Will you pay the bills?

This is a pretty rude statement but i might ask you is there a company that starts building a game by planning a budget that will never be enough to finish that game with the sole purpose of just making a incomplete game? And after that ask the customers: "what? you want a finished game? will you play the bills?, outrageous to think we plan budgets to finish our games". 

What exactly is this? I really don`t understand as it really does not make any sense

Sublustris wrote:

GlorySign wrote:
“Larian Studios” 

Great example you brought here, I was expecting it to be brought up for several days. Let's recap it.

Judging from your harsh reaction maybe you have something against Larian. That is ok. I really like that they make very good RPGs and they are appreciated by everyone as you can see from media and Steam reviews. Even Wizards of the Coast approached them after seeing their work to ask them if they would want to do Baldur`s Gate 3 for them. Maybe their journey was now flawless as it is not for everyone but they did it and that matters. Also Amplitude had it`s quirks and misses and now for Humankind they said they will gather all their experience and learn from their past mistakes. It`s natural that other studios also make mistakes and learn from them but that does not mean you don`t remain who you are

If you don`t like the Larian example why didn`t you look at Blizzard, and unknown company that made it on it`s own and made great games until it also sold itself to Activision for a lot of money. Or maybe Owlcat games and a lot of other companies that did it

Now don`t get me wrong:

1. If you want as seen from the examples above you can do it even on your own

2. If you don`t like that you can just sell yourself for more security to a publisher but you can also do that in your terms with a good signed contract that protects your way of making your own decisions, keeping your financial freedom or at least some of it, your choice of DRM, quality of releases and pricing, taking your time to finish and refine the product releases, be near your community and so on

3. If you just want to sell yourself without any measures that is also fine i have no problem with that i just shared my thoughts

So i don`t understand why are you so upset when i say they can do what they want to do as you can too, i just wanted to say my opinion and if someone finds value in it it`s fine, if not it`s also fine, i just thought i owe it to this company that i love to say at least this: my opinion, at a moment where i felt it could count to do just that from my part

Sublustris, you obviously have great love and respect for Amplitude. I do think though that you are a bit blinded by it and what game development is about especially when it comes to indy games.

Game development is a high risk endeavor. Maybe we can argue that it shouldn't be like that, but it is what it is. An indy game developer has the responsibility to know this and to plan according to their budget, time and resources to make a game that falls within those specs and to stick to that plan until they can make a more expanded game experience.

The "trick" is to know when and what to put into a game and what to concentrate on to make the best game within those tight constraints. That is the obligation of the indy dev to his studio and staff because you want to have more money at the end of the day to make a better game next time. It is a hard thing to juggle and it means that you have to have the absolute minimum of staff to do the job and your staff needs to be very competent at what they do. 

Note: I am not saying that Amplitude Staff are in any way incompetent. Please do not misunderstand. What I am saying is that Amplitude has produced 4 games for market. Endless Space 1, Endless Legend, Dungeon of the Endless and Endless Space 2. Those games were very ambitious (well perhaps with the exception of Dungeon of the Endless), but were they perhaps TOO ambitious in their scope and reach? Looking back I think they were. Now I don't know if you remember when Endless Legend launched. It had near zero AI. I waited months for them to get some sort of AI programmed into the races and provided feedback and suggestions and finally after a long period they had something that worked...kinda.

Now if they had lowered the starting number of races to something a bit more manageable and maybe scaled back on a few things, could they have had a more polished release? Maybe taken the time to get a competent AI in place before adding even more races with strange new ways to play and breaking the game even more? 

The same thing for Endless Space 2. Did we really need to launch with that many races? And then add to them even more with expansions? Were perhaps the systems of government too complex and maybe there was more there than needed to be. When I play a game of Endless Space 2 right now I feel so...stuffed with things that I am not sure are needed. This is also a larger issue with 4x strategy games in general. Few of them try to take a lower number of features and get them to a state where they play and feel really good before they just add more and more stuff onto them. And then more cinematics and pointless features that they could have taken less time to make and taken time to refine what was there. Make the core smaller, but deeper and more fulfilling. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that would have lead to less costly games and maybe more manageable projects that maybe they would not have felt as much need to go to a publisher for? I mean...they left Ubisoft afterall.

What I'm saying is...you think that the only way forward for Amplitude is to go bigger and bigger and have to join with a publisher to try to make games that compete with Civ6 and other big budget titles. Publishers are NOT a necessity to a game company...not if the game company has a plan and sticks to it. But when that company starts being risk-averse, then the need for a publisher becomes the only way to go. And you get bigger and prettier games...but I think you lose something along the way.

I get what you are saying and it was a good conversation, I believe you are a cool person and I appreciate you as I said and I also believe we both agree on some things and maybe have a bit of different views on others

I think I said what I wanted to say in my posts and I made my points of view pretty clear there. Now if someone takes their time to read them with an open heart and finds value in them that`s great, if not it`s also great. As I said I just wanted to state my opinions about a few things.

We should not diverge too much from the main purpose of this thread and I think there are some pretty valid points expressed in it that may need consideration for the future if someone find them important

The only things that I would like to further touch on are:

Yes, it is called Cloud Imperium Games, and their customers indeed fund game with no completion in sight.

Even though “Cloud Imperium Games” or other companies fund their project through crowdfunding (a mechanic I also mentioned in my posts) they make and fund a budget for the project they want to undertake till it is in a finished state and than start making the game with that budget till they finish the game. This is how things are usually done as I have some experience in project management.

But if they want to just work on parts of the game while waiting for the next part of the project to be funded and they have faith in that system (more like an very long early access mechanism that they undertake) that could also work but I still don`t believe they release the game fully until they finish all their proposed parts to finish that game officially. Definitely they don`t release the game unfinished and ask the customers to pay for the bills if they wanted a finished project, as they already paid for the game and/or initial crowdfunding and expect a finished one at the final release.

Personally I prefer the approach to fund a budget from crowdfunding, banks, investors, publisher or in what way you see fit and release a final finished game even if you have a short weeks or few months testing/early access period. I do not like that much endless years long early access kind of stuff. Although I have nothing against that

You find infinite delays to be fine, but you don't propose any source to finance them

I should not propose how to finance projects, companies have hired professionals for that and I think it`s smart to first fund a budged in the ways mentioned above (crowdfunding, bank, investors so on) and than start making the game. Otherwise you are at the mercy of others and even than it`s better to wait until you finish your project, than to not get a fully financed budget initially and than also release as final an unfinished game. 

Still i believe customers should not suffer either variant you take as they had no choice in deciding how the budget was spent and how things were done

See? Survivorship bias

Well how is there any bias? I even said that everyone can do what they want, I also presented in a numbered succession all the possible variants and I agree with them all, i just put some recommendations if someone finds them useful, just read my last post

I am glad you are not upset as I don`t want you to be, it was just an interesting discussion and I am glad you came along with your opinions and we discussed it a bit. I am sure we will find some others in the future where we agree maybe even more or totally. As I said I find you also a good person and good vibes to you as to everyone else

Just wanted to point out, that delays mean you already went over budget, even if you secured your funds from crowdfunding, bank, investors so on. And indies might be more limited on how far with delays they can go, unless they per for it from their pocket.

Sublustris wrote:

Just wanted to point out, that delays mean you already went over budget, even if you secured your funds from crowdfunding, bank, investors so on. And indies might be more limited on how far with delays they can go, unless they per for it from their pocket.

Sure, but why should we pay them full price for an incomplete game? They might lose more money from lower sales than they would lose from delaying the release again.