The high price aside, in my opinion it's rather fair to offer in-dev games for less than the full release. I'd appreciate to see this approach on more titles instead of cashing in with pre-orders and steep price drops a few months after release.

Please, be more careful; there are pre-school toys around here.

Is the game finished? No?
Fuck off.

Well, they can ask any price they want and I can choose not to make a purchase.

I had a sudden realization (something most other folks probably realized longer ago but, alas!, I'm slow and dumb): I'm really inclined to think the price increase's "main reason [they] can't mention until the 16th" has something to do with the game being picked up by one of the "major" studios (my bet is on Microsoft, considering the relationship Compulsion Games has with them, and how well they've spoken about Microsoft Game Preview -- and how much this program "helped them"). I can see no other reason that would justify this absurd of a price increase. Maybe We Happy Few is getting a AAA game price because it's... becoming an indie published by a AAA publisher?

Because, obviously, indies published by major studios are automatically AAA games. ? [url=https://www.orithegame.com/blind-forest/]Right? Right...

Weird move, many games grow in scope and quality, but don't inflate the cost.
Plenty of alternatives. so no. not even with a last ditch push for sales.
Will wait for a sale when the games even less than this.

*eyeroll* Buy this now for an already jacked-up price from a studio without a major amount of trust in them, rather than in a few days for an absolutely silly price? How about neither?

Seriously, I bought Divinity Original Sin 2 in dev at full price as soon as it became available here...But that's because I trust Larian and wanted to support their work. No regrets. But this? You wish, Compulsion. You wish.

When we've reached a time where people think that $50 is too much for any game, nobody has to wonder anymore why this industry is financially in the gutter. $50 for a full-price game used to be a steal at a time when games were created by much fewer people in much less time than they are today.

Also, everybody seems to look at this as a pre-release price increase, rather than the end of a discount for pre-orders. Why? The $50 is the price for the finished, full game, not an unfinished prototype as people here present it. It's just that In-Development is the same as a pre-order, so you have no guarantees how good or big the full game is going to be. I don't do pre-orders myself for exactly this reason. So it seems strange to me that people go for the pre-order thing (or at least pretend that they wanted to) and then complain that they paid for something that didn't turn out how they imagined. That's the nature of pre-ordering. People projecting the end product by what they saw in pre-release versions don't understand much about how game development works. Nobody can judge how it turned out, and whether it will be worth the $50 price tag, until the final release is out. If you don't want that risk, don't pre-order. Simple as that. And I fail to see the moral nastiness in a developer deciding to ask a lower price for people who want to take that risk.

This is not a game I'd likely have bought anyway, so sorry for barging in and defending the "wrong side". But it bugs me to see how it became almost impossible to make a living off game development, because everyone got so used to $1 blowout sales and 95% discounts. No idea if this game is going to qualify, and the opinion on that will vary from person to person, but if this turns out to be a well-made game with enough content to keep one occupied for a few weeks, $50 would still be a fair price.

It is?

The difference is when I bought Midwinter, Hunter, Railroad Tycoon, Gunship, etc back then for $50 or more, I got a full game. Rarely there was a need for a patch. Now you pay full price, you get 4-X GBs of game and you keep getting GBs and GBs of "patches" over the following months. Why, because you get an alpha or beta of a game at best. They are selling you unfinished games. Try that in any other industry.
Even software related outside of games.
Customers are getting loyally SCREWED by developers/publishers. $50 for an unfinished game? I don't think so.
Finish your damn game first, then sell it to me for $50. If it is my type of game, I will buy it. You sell half a game for full price and intent to "patch" it or DLC it to death over the next 6-18 months and you expect me to buy your game? Not any more, sunshine.
I had high hopes for this game, it sounded super cool. But I wouldn't buy it now even at the same price. I wouldn't buy it now for 9.99 I don't buy unfinished games. Some time in 2018 when I hope the game is finished (ie "patched" and DLCed), talk to me again.

If you think that's unfair, tell you what. I am a video editor. You hire me to edit something for you, you will pay me the full amount and I will finish it some time between now and 1 year from now. I will send you piece by piece of it. After 6 months or 1 year, I will ask for more money than the agreed original price so that I send you the DLC, that is for example the audio, or the last part of the video, or perhaps something from the middle.

That certainly sounds more than plausible. I'd bet money you're right.

Since being In-Development means I can get a refund within two weeks of purchase, I think I'll take this as an opportunity to actually give the game a chance. I don't think I'll find it worth $30, but maybe I will! And of course I'll get to see what this big secret for the 16th is, which might be able to convince me to hold on to the game. If not, I can always get the refund.