Feels like a scumbag moment from GGG

As someone new, I have no issue with the $30, I thought they did this with POE also in EA.

The 300 points you get for your $30 basically makes up for it when you eventually need stash tabs.

It's not about the money - it's about making another F2P cash grab (I hate F2P on principle and have only ever played 2 F2P games extensively) while asking you to pay to test it. Doesn't matter if it is 10, 20 or 60, it is a scummy move. Especially when they are not a small studio anymore.

This is an absolutely terrible take. They are creating a vast game and this is a great way to continue to fund their work. Very simple, straight line logic.

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GreenChartreuse#4218 wrote:

This is an absolutely terrible take. They are creating a vast game and this is a great way to continue to fund their work. Very simple, straight line logic.

It's all about the principle. Players don't appreciate the bait-and-switch feel of these practices, especially not when "free-to-play" is plastered everywhere but doesn't align with reality.

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Johny_Snow#4778 wrote:

It's not about the money - it's about making another F2P cash grab (I hate F2P on principle and have only ever played 2 F2P games extensively) while asking you to pay to test it. Doesn't matter if it is 10, 20 or 60, it is a scummy move. Especially when they are not a small studio anymore.

And to this day i thought of you as one of the more reasonable on this forums. This take is simply stupid and not defendable. Why? Becuase this is what players want! Its win-win. Scummy move would be to invite only streamers or set a prohibitive price tag on access or have some kind of in game reward (impactfull one) for participating. Players are willing to pay to playtest the game and there is nothing wrong with that.

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ShamelessWhiteknight#7976 wrote:

It's all about the principle. Players don't appreciate the bait-and-switch feel of these practices, especially not when "free-to-play" is plastered everywhere but doesn't align with reality.

The game is not out yet, simple as that. It will be out in a year. Its not bait and switch. Just because you feel entitled to play EA for free doesnt mean its bad or malicious for it to not be.

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kuciol#0426 wrote:

The game is not out yet, simple as that. It will be out in a year. Its not bait and switch. Just because you feel entitled to play EA for free doesnt mean its bad or malicious for it to not be.

That doesn't change the fact that people are paying to access what is clearly a functional and playable product. If the "complete" version won't have a price tag, why does this version that players care about suddenly cost money?

At the end of the day, actions speaks louder than labels. If it looks like a launch, feels like a launch, and is marketed like a launch, then it is a launch.

This isn’t early access, it’s monetized access, carefully crafted to avoid accountability, and no amount of semantic gymnastics can change that.

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Johny_Snow#4778 wrote:

It's not about the money - it's about making another F2P cash grab (I hate F2P on principle and have only ever played 2 F2P games extensively) while asking you to pay to test it. Doesn't matter if it is 10, 20 or 60, it is a scummy move. Especially when they are not a small studio anymore.

I just want to point out that it is exactly because they sold their soul to Tencent that they were able to be a larger studio now and how nice of a game the sequel is.

It is also precisely that they are beholden to tencent to make money somehow that this kind of donation is demanded. If you don't like it, don't play it, find another game to play.

I feel like the detractors on this board argue in bad faith.

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ShamelessWhiteknight#7976 wrote:

If the "complete" version won't have a price tag, why does this version that players care about suddenly cost money?

1) The infrastructure around the game is (of course) not fully developed (servers, server payment plans, finetuning performance, expected numbers and so on). They need to limit the traffic somehow. A price tag would do that (CLEARLY!)

2) Some (a lot) of players (even in this thread) has a very hard time grasping the idea of an EA; what it is and what's the goal behind it. For those players to get in for free, just to be "put off" forever when meeting a boss they can't beat or a bug, without giving feedback (because they still don't know what an EA is), wouldn't help anyone.

3) An EA is for people that are particularly interested in a product. If you are particularly interested in PoE 2, you probably wouldn't mind spending $30.

4) The game isn't finished - and everything in the shop (you know the thing that makes this game free for 'most' people?) is probably not in place yet. They do not have their entire income structure in place, and not 'enough' ways to make the game economically sustainable just as of yet.

5) You DO get value out of those $30 and could buy several stash tabs which you need, which brings us back to pint 3). Those points aren't more expensive than usual.

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Question: Would it be better if they didn't sell EA access, and only invited the players qualifying for the $480 threshold?

3 Options the way I see it:
1)Pay $30 for Early Access and you will for sure get your moneys worth of gametime and play AND get that much in coins for stash tabs and mtx
2)Pay $30 for Dibalo cookbook
3)Wait for full game release next year

However; whining and misrepresenting will get you nowhere.

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Waqip#7703 wrote:

However; whining and misrepresenting will get you nowhere.

Unless this is all just an exercise in killing time for the next week!