https://items.gog.com/age_of_wonders_4/GOG%20Premium%20Edition%20Description%20Asset.jpg

Proof of cut content scam in plain sight.

It's a tremendous scam that they're letting everyone know in advance what sort of expansions they plan on doing. How dare they practice transparency in this day and age?

Read your own link again. Those are not cut content. They're future add-ons that haven't been developed yet.

Don't mind Gagcom too much. He's one of those "special" "customers" that sees scams and malicious intent everywhere.

Selling a game on GOG? Scam. Not selling a game on GOG? Scam. Giving away stuff for free on GOG? Believe it or not, scam, proably to steal people's mojo. Developers offering DLC? Straight scam.

I wish the chap a wonderful day, because, for the love of kitty buddha, they need it.

You can't have more than 100% of the game. Don't you worry. GOG has your back. They get a cut out of cut content scam.

Oh?

So Broodwar was cut out of Starcraft 1 before release to be sold later?

While I don't think this game is a scam and definitely gives you your moneys worth I can kind of see where he's coming from.

So while I don't doubt that these added content isn't (fully) developed yet, they purposefully left out fan favorite races like Dragon/Lizardpeople which I assume is coming in DLC#1 and heavy machinery akin to AOW3s dreadnaughts which I assume is coming in DLC#2.

But I guess this leaves the unsolveable question of:
At which point in development do you set the release date? How much content is enough to constitute as a "full" game?
At launch the Dragon DLC must have been at least partially done (Conceptual phase and asset creation was on their way, as we have screenshots already). So should they have set the release date maybe a month later and incorporated them in the base game?
Could they maybe have released a month sooner and had for example the mole people developed afterwards and released as DLC?
At this point I think the release date is just an arbitrary day choosen mostly based on business decisions and only loosely based on development progress or feature-completeness of a game.
They could have released half a year ago with less races and cultures etc. and more DLC coming up or released a year later with the content of the season pass being incorporated into the base game already yet every state would constitute a "full" game.
On the other hand: You can always think of more stuff to add to a game but at some point you have to release something to recoup the investment made already. The longer you wait the riskier the project gets.

Like it or not, for a company that makes most of it's cash by selling DLCs like Paradox, the answer is: When you have enough game to offer at a price that most buyers won't think it's a bad deal.

In this specific case release AOW4 is a pretty darn good game, if you like 4x. Most 4x fans will think it's a good deal.

What a strange take. It's obviously just meant to boost launch sales and recoup some of the massive cost of producing a new title. It shows their Board that it's a game people are excited about, and ensures that those expansions have a better chance of being made. Having that cash up front means it's safer for Triumph to move forward with whatever ideas they had for the expansions. It eases pressure on the developer by proving that the project is a success.

Game developers work with extremely tight margins. Devs work long hours. I'm thrilled for everyone who worked on this project, because it's a home run for Triumph. The game is fantastic. AoW3 was a neat re-imagining of a much beloved series, but it wasn't completely fleshed out. AoW4 has so much potential that I'd say it out-classes even Civ. If modding becomes a thing, this game will have legs for years and years.

Like I said, I personally don't think its a scam and well worth its asking price from what I've seen and played.
My point is simply, that its kind of arbitrary what constitutes a "full game". A full game is whenever the developer and/or publisher says its a full game. There is no objective metric and there is no way to definitely say what is "additional" content vs. content that should have been in the base game (beside maybe in some very obvious cases), so we pretty much agree. I probably didn't state that clear enough.

taking your logic to its logical end: no game should ever be released, b/c it is never 100% done b/c there could (at least potentially) always be more content added.
congratulations.

I did not say no game should ever be released. I said developers shouldn't exploit people with this kind of scam mechanics.


BTW: Chess, Go, X/O, four in a row... are finished.

Ah yes.... Comparing a video game to an ancient board game that you buy for a couple bucks.
Tell me, do you also play those games for 100s of hours? Unless you play it as a sport, I doubt that.

Your posting history indicates that you could benefit from a professional therapist. Just a friendly suggestion.

Why are you stalking me? This has nothing to do with AOW4 and developers who scam people.

Not stalking you. I follow some of the GOG subforums. You happen to post about AOW4 which I follow. I read those posts. Monomania and paranoia are additional symptoms, you know.