I honestly am not sure -- that's something that GOG controls internally. You'd have the exact equivalent, but I'm not sure how that would work.

Ick, season passes. Yeah.

In terms of not knowing about the collection until later, I would actually counter that _I_ did not know this collection was going to be a thing for sure until a few months ago.

Will there be a third expansion to this game after this one, and then a revised collection like we did with the AI War Alien Bundle, AI War 2013 Collection, and then currently the AI War 2014 Collection? Possibly. It really depends on how this one goes financially, and whether we have time and money to make another one, etc. It seems quite likely that might happen, but I don't know for sure.

For something on the other side of the coin, I was planning on making more than one expansion for Skyward Collapse, but the first one did so dismally sales-wise that that pretty much killed any more content for that game. Shame. But if you'd asked me right when that came out if there was to be more, I'd have said yes.

Another reason I don't like season passes right there.

Not marked as owned.

Thanks for the very extensive explanations Chris :) Not that im not used to that from reading your forums. While I was pissed about the expansion price I will buy it now for support but please get the ball rolling again on the Stars Beyond Reach soon. It was kind of my most expected game for this time of year. Regarding march release date (Hearts of Iron IV release might be a problem then).

Thank you for coming here and giving us (huge) explanations ! That's really great :D
And I admit that what you say makes sense. In fact, it's mostly a matter of point of views and of choices an yours have their reasons.
Another thing : thanks for the free additions to the base game (integrated in the same moment as the launch of the expansion, even if you don't need to have it). That's a really nice move ! (see #7 of Chris' answer if you want to know more)

Arcen's game are amazing and original, and really worth the money asked for :) (but it's only my opinion)

Thanks again guys. :)

And in terms of the wallpaper... there should be one in each of the expansions, and then 5 with the base game. So the collection would have 7, and then each expansion one. I'll email GOG and see if perhaps that was missed in the second expansion individual package.

In terms of the collection, there should be absolutely NO difference in having that versus having bought all the things in it individually. It's meant as a way to draw in new players, not as some sort of twisted way to get anyone else to re-buy the game to get some horse armor.

There is no wallpaper for the 'Betrayed Hope'. At least in my library. ;)

Meant to respond to this. I'm definitely incredibly burned out on Stars Beyond Reach right now. It's just been a hugely expensive project that took us 14 months so far, and so this break is definitely a good thing. I want to be sure I'm in the right (excited!) frame of mind for this one. Right now the plan is to start working on this again in February, and hopefully have the flexibility to release it within a few months of that "when it's done" and done fully right. It's a very cool game already in a lot of ways, but there are some things that I just have been struggling to get nailed to my satisfaction. It's getting there! But right now the best thing for it is a mental break for me.

In the meantime, we're working hard on Starward Rogue, which I'm incredibly excited about and is a completely different sort of game (twin stick roguelike thingie rather than strategy), and a welcome change of pace. That's going really well. Hopefully that will also be able to fund us taking a more ponderous approach with the completion of SBR, and thus really hitting every note right with it. SBR is such a big game, and so important to me in a lot of ways, that I really want to do it right.
Okay, I'll let them know!

As someone who purchased the base and Betrayed Hope on day one; I feel like I should wait a while for some patches. Quite a lot changed over the patching course for the game previously, almost to the point where it felt I was playing a different game. Still a definite purchase though, it will just be a month or two away.

Same goes for me. Pissed first but now I am just on my way to the checkout to support further expansions. Thanks for the answer.

Thx, for the answer Chris. Will keep an eye on your forums and maybe jump in to the blueshirts program when its ready for SBR again. One other thing. Is there any chance for a Skyward Collapse release on gog?

I won't talk about the perceived discount discrepancy between Collection and DLC 2.
My point is that, for me, Arcen Games is special. Their games appeal to me, they are not trying to copy others, their customer focus is exceptional (as I experienced several times over the years), they communicate openly like no other game developer (to my knowledge). Bottomline: I want them to be successful, to be able to produce more of the great stuff they have produced over the last couple of years.
Another point in favour of Arcen Games is that the price-value-relationship of their games is generally very good, compared with others - my personal opinion. Consequently, I make the assumption that the price of the new TLF DLC is probably ok for me.
And finally, I understand the intention and need to make money for Arcen Games right now. They postponed the release of SBR several times, resulting in a release delay of a year or so. They didn't release a buggy game with reduced scope according to the original schedule, but decided to stick to their quality principles, not at least in the favour of us, their customers. And they explained their reasons in a very detailed way - and I applaud wholeheartedly. There are several examples of developers who decided differently, and killed themselves business-wise, and others who tried to act like Arcen Games, but had to give up for lack of money. I don't want this to happen to Arcen Games, too.
For these reasons, I'm willing to spend the price asked for this second DLC without hesitation, and without bad feelings because the Collection is discounted higher (except that I think Arcen Games are giving a great game away too cheaply, but they are in a much better position than I to make sound pricing decisions).

That...actually makes me less likely to purchase the second expansion ever.

Though that's mainly because I have yet to actually play this game yet and I purchased the base game and the first DLC back in June of this year. Yes, it had a huge discount then, but I think I might still be saving more now with the "collection". And if there's a chance of more DLC and another "collection" and then the issue of having multiple collections for sale of the same game on the same platform... :(

I nearly purchased Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition until I got the email advising of the free upgrade there. I could easily see my accidentally purchasing your game multiple times when I have zero use for more than one copy and can't sell or gift the old ones. (I have repurchased games before, sometimes up to three times, between my phone/tablet/iPod and STEAM/Humble and finally GOG [to get rid of the STEAM-DRM], but never multiple times on the same service, and never because a creator just keeps re-bundling things I already own...)

Who knows, I might accidentally own DLC 2-to-whatever when I accidentally repurchase the base game and DLC 1 in a future bundle...

Great response from Arcen. I'm buying the expansion now.

I talked to the GOG folks about this just now, and they said that basically it looks the same if you get the things separately or if you get the collection. So, even if you get the collection, it will show up on your shelf as separate products.
Also on this issue: there actually is no wallpaper for Betrayed Hope it turns out, but there were supposed to be two in the new expansion and one of them was misplaced. I'm told that is fixed now, although you may have to refresh your account to see them both in the new account.

Thanks!
I... am not really sure. I'd certainly like it to be, let's put it that way. It's not by my choice that it's not already there.

That's fair enough. I can certainly understand that. If you're not actually playing a game, I think that buying DLC for it is questionable anyhow -- makes more sense to buy later if you're seeing it on sale, or really get into it later, or whatever other reason. Hopefully you get into the game and really enjoy it later, whether or not that ever leads to more purchases from you. I just hope you enjoy it. :)

For a long time with AI War, we did not do collections. And then we had one with a collection with the first three expansions, but not the fourth. Then we had one with the first five. And then the sixth expansion came out and so we have one with all six.

Basically each collection is discontinued when a new one comes out, so there's never multiple collections competing for a new customer's attention. For existing collection owners, it affects nothing, because the collection is just a way of getting the individual pieces in one lump. So then they can buy the other pieces later, or if you give it five years or something and there are like six expansions then, then you could buy the collection and get a big savings even though you already have the base game.

We don't exactly rush the DLC out. The first DLC for a game sometimes comes out in the same year that the base game does, but only if the game is doing well and there's a desire from players for it. The second and subsequent DLC comes out yearly or every two years, roughly, if there is ongoing interest enough. Thus far we've done 6 expansions for AI War in 6 years, 1 expansion for Skyward Collapse in the same year it came out, and now two expansions for TLF in the year and a half it's been out. If there's another TLF expansion, it wouldn't be until October of 2016 at the very earliest.

Yeah, I have like four copies of Braid, and several of World of Goo, and at least two of Limbo, thanks to bundles and mobile. So I understand that. In terms of the rebundling of existing things, I think you may have some misperceptions about it, though, with how we do it. We put out very infrequent new paid content in large batches over long periods when there are people who are asking for it, and we give people the option to buy that separately at a low price, or as a group at a discounted bulk rate.

If the individual price is too high for your taste, then rest assured that whenever we discount the collection and the base game, we always discount all of the expansions by the same amount once they have been out for a half year to a year. So if you see a super good deal on the collection (or some future collection) in a half year, year, two years, whatever, then you have the opportunity then to snag this expansion and possibly others at a super low price at that point.

Anyway, we go out of our way to try to make it fair and reasonably priced, but sometimes the fact that we do things a bit differently can be confusing. Most games get dumped after a year or two at most, whereas when player interest stays, we tend to stay as well. And either way, even if you never buy an expansion from us again for this game, each expansion that comes out will bring you yet more free base game content that you get, so if you come back and play the game three years from now, and the game has continued to do more expansions, then you'll have some new goodies without paying anything more.

Hopefully that makes sense!