The latter, yes, and was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else. But the former: a bit more serious. Honestly, if they're trying to be all equitable to their backers, a 'cheap' tier of 25 bucks that's limited during the kickstarter doesn't really demonstrate that. I've seen it on a fair number of kickstarters and it leaves backers that don't find out about the kickstarter until after day one - or for some reason can't pledge on day one - out in the cold looking at the lucky few who got to pledge at a cheaper, limited tier.

Don't misunderstand though, I've backed a fair few games on kickstarter at various levels. But I back them because I want the game to get made, not because I just want special goodies or want to get the game cheaper than the sell price. And I'd think it's the same for most people that back the game. So the idea that you have to raise the price or can't put it on discount because the backers pledged X amount seems strange in my eyes.

Doktor Jones has nothing to do with this game.

The last time I´ve taken a look at this it would have been better to give it a 15$/€-Pricetag. They won´t have good sale numbers if they are heading for 50$ now...
...except the percentages they´ll be able to go off in sales---these numbers will be great! :P

The words I'm searching for, I can't say. There are pre-school toys around.

This game was on my wishlist because it seemed like it could be interesting. For that price, off the wishlist it goes.

Also, there is nothing more in that "full announcement" link than the price increase, so yeah. Don't bother go there for more information.

I think in theory the early bird tier is meant to incentivize people to pay attention, or just pledge at a very early stage of the kickstarter signaling momentum to others. Otherwise I sure feel like I often saw people complain about price drops immediately or shortly after the end of the early access phase or even right after the kickstarter was done, leaving them to wonder why they should even bother to kickstart a game. Sure, the prime argument might be to have it made at all, but many still feel odd about paying more for less in some sense.

Anyhow, this game will not sell for $50 regardless.

Never ceases to amaze me what douchebag moves gaming companies pull and get away with. GOG should never have opened the floodgates of "In Dev" (a.k.a. pre-alpha) games to be "released" here, or pre-orders for that matter.

Presumably there are indeed few happy people about this price hike.

i wish them luck, game looks really interesting but the whole idea behind marketing is to give an impression of value with all kinds of gimmicks to lure customers to impulse buy whether thru buy one get one tricks to timed sales to preorder goodies only if you buy NOw NOW NOW etc ad nauseum. this whole thing leaves customers with an impression that its a huge rate hike for a game they already had tagged in their mind for 30 bucks, despite being informed the game price was going to rise at launch.

prob would have been better to list the final game price range at the start earlier in dev and offer price cut incentives to buy before launch, that way the impression was of a great sale with even deeper cuts the earlier you bought in.

just saying

think your marketing team needs improvement

Interesting strategy, Cotton.

The game itself does look very interesting, but I was a bit scared off by a $30 price tag. At $51 they can forget about it completely. I could buy a dozen quality games on sale for that price.

I appreciate wanting to monetize your product - I don't begrudge anybody making a good living - but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I will never be able to reconcile GOGs "curation" with in-dev games. It's downright laughable how they reject full, finished well received games for vague reasons or no reason at all, and yet sell what amounts to alphas.

The game looks interesting for sure, but I certainly won't buy a "In Development" for $30, let alone $50. Not to speak about the fact that the sudden price hike doesn't make me very optimistic about the further development. For me it looks like they are in desperate need for money and their is a good chance that they will abandon the game when they run out of it.

This one had big backers. Even Microsoft pushed it. I don't know what titles you are referring to, did they have Microsoft doing their promotion?

Anyway, I've had it on my wishlist since it appeared on GOG and only found out that it wasn't a classic adventure game from some reddit rants. Off that list it went with this announcement. Procedural open world survival with some points of interest offering story notes sprinkled throughout is not what I imagined it as.

I wonder if charging 70% more will make the game less mediocre and unfinished.

I want to clarify something.
The whole open world-ish and procedural generating stuff, that I LOVE. I am all for it. As well as the whole theme and looks.
BUT to ask 30 euros for an unfinished game is too much. To ask 50 is laughable.
I am more than happy to buy the game when it is released. By that I mean when it has its gigabytes and gigabytes of "patches" over the next months+

You finish the game, you will get my money. That's my way not just for this game but for every other game. Game developers and publishers have gone too far over the last few years. Just, no.