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FOUNDERS: Earth Rising

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FOUNDERS: Earth Rising

from StarControl Forums

Greetings!

Star Control: Origins is a hit.  Its sales are better than Ashes of the Singularity + Offworld Trading Company combined.  

Critically, the game is has gotten mostly positive reviews that is broadly split between people who were expecting something very different and the people who are happy with the direction we took.

What's next?

In October we will be releasing v1.1 which is the big update that facilitates modding more easily.  You can mod right now but sharing mods and enabling/disabling mods is a lot of effort.  v1.1 makes it a lot easier for people to share and use mods which in turn will encourage more people to create them.

Myself, Derek Paxton (Fall from Heaven) and a few others will be creating the first set of mods to show people how mods are done and how easy they are and how to share them.

Season Pass: Earth Rising

We have gone back and forth on the best way to release new story-related content for Star Control: Origins.  Let me walk you through our thoughts and why we chose the path we did.

Option 1: DLC.  We could just release a bunch of $5.99 DLC for the game but over time, this would become very unpopular.  We learned this the hard way with GalCiv III.  Even though we stuck with only 3 or 4 DLC per year, by 2018, that added up to a lot of DLC and a lot of unhappy new players (and subsequent negative reviews which also hurt sales).

Option 2: Traditional expansion.  This path would require us to wait until we have finished a full on expansion before players could get anything.  That's not viable.

Option 3: In game micro-transactions.  Yea, you can imagine how well that would be received.

And so we are looking at a Season Pass called Earth Rising which will deliver 6 mini-expansions over the next year for $19.99.

These would be released as follows:

  1. Earth Rising: Aftermath (November)
  2. Earth Rising: The Lexites (December)
  3. Earth Rising: The Syndicate (February 2019)
  4. Earth Rising: The Lost Parsec (April)
  5. Earth Rising: Enemy Within (May)
  6. Earth Rising: Destiny (August)

As a collection they would introduce new species, new ships, new star systems, new quests, new ship parts, new game features (like being able to modify your ship) and so on.

Now the base game would still be getting updates with QOL updates and such.  But the story would continue through the Earth Rising season pass.

We invite you to comment on this and express your opinions and ideas on the subject.

Cheers!

 

26,874 views 29 replies
Reply #26 from StarControl Forums Top

Sign me up.

I would imagine this to be a rethorical question but I'm guessing you can use your main game saves throughout the mini-expansions?

Reply #27 from StarControl Forums Top

I'm really looking for things to add... but the main idea of it all is quite nice, no Micro-transactions and such, just plain DLC~
And not only at a good price, but with a fair time between each other, can't wait to see what happens! :)

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Reply #28 from StarControl Forums Top

I like the idea. It gets new content in the players hands faster than waiting a year for an expansion, and keeps the players around and playing the game instead of just forgetting about it and moving on to something else.

 

Reply #29 from StarControl Forums Top

I approve, season/expansion passes showing up as one item in the store but being delivered over time seems fine to me, and the pricing seems reasonable if the total content is equivalent to that of an expansion (although in all fairness the price won't apply to a lot of founders).

 

On DLC:

The real issue is not the quantity of DLC (although it can contribute), it's the price to get the 'whole package.' Let's use Paradox's Crusader Kings II and Stellaris as an example. CKII is in my library, along with a couple DLC - I think I picked it up in a humble bundle. The current price to have all content released for the game? $217, assuming that the complete your collection bundle includes all the DLC. On sale I think I see this go down to ~$100. Because I don't own the complete version of the game, and I have other games to play, I still haven't played it. At release, each piece was reasonably priced, and had I got in on the ground floor and continued playing the game periodically, I'd probably have picked up most DLC as it was released, maybe on its first sale. This is what I've been doing with Stellaris. Now, I look at that and see that over half that DLC was released 3 years ago or more. Why should I, as a new player to the series, want to pick all that ancient content at such a high price? Additionally, why would I play the game without all that content that probably makes the game a better experience?

So what's the solution that allows you to capture that large initial spike of revenue from new content, while still getting new players to buy into the game? Price old DLC accordingly. For CKII, that 2012, 2013, 2014 content shouldn't cost more than $1-5 (depending on standard dlc vs expansion) now, and the more recent 2017/18 content can be priced as is or slightly lower ($5-15). Developers operate under the idea that players will just buy the DLC they're interested in, but I suspect most players would rather have the full game, even if they have to spend more. If this becomes cost prohibitive however, they simply won't buy into the game.

Anyways, my case is anecdotal, but I know a couple others who are on the same page on DLC crazy games like CKII, so perhaps the above would be useful food for thought.

 

TLDR/In short/Summary (Can't even make my summary titles brief haha): Players want a complete game (ie - all the content in one package). Too many released DLCs drive up the price. Price DLC so that as it becomes old it becomes cheap. Keep the price to get the whole game (minus perhaps a recently released expansion) below ~$40 (at least when on sale). DLC should be thought of as a way to continually demand a release day price for the whole package from new players, rather than a steadily accumulating price tag.