What's this "Subscribe to receive an exclusive monster" BS? Will this be an indie game with DRMed content on here now? Why the fuck do developers think it's good to have people jump through hoops to get all their content?

We'll see what comes back, maybe it's just a GOG redeem code for a hidden DLC, so at least might not be DRM-free. But it'd still be obnoxious, vile, and disrespectful.

I was somewhat interested, but the 'subscribe to our newsletter to receive an exclusive monster' bullcrap made me go 'nah, fuck it'.

A shame. :/

Edit: Basically what mqstout mentioned earlier than me. xD

There's a developer response on Steam: "You can also have this optional content on events, there is no obligation to join the newsletter ;)"

Which I'm not even sure what that means or how to interpret it. "get"? Does the newsletter subscription make it always available rather than sometimes available (effectively making it like a cheat?)

From what I understand they give out codes through their discord for special events, not events in-game.

From a dev on Steam:
You have multiple way to receive a code, we give it for the newsletter subscription (you are free to unsubscribe after) but we also distribute codes on discord / for special event etc... no worries it's not a problem ;)

So a redemption code of some sort. It remains to be seen how it's implemented. It's still quite unfriendly to make people jump through hoops to get the entirety of the game. (Like signing up for Discord -- a centralized place with pretty noxious policies, like requiring a verified mobile phone number from a certain list of providers. And a terrible place for any meaningful interaction.)

Newsletters, twitch streams, discord events blah blah blah... there's more of this obnoxious nonsense in this release than there is of the game. And why does the Supporter Pack include a "We will also prepare content later during the In Development phase" section, when the game is supposedly a full release now?

Why are people surprised, this is what you signed up for with the new GOG, online, drm’d, paywalled microtransactions.

I wouldn't buy until they clean that up. Something that's always pissed me off is on the Iratus supporter package it says you get "The official „Iratus: Lord of the Dead“ artbook and strategy guide."

They still haven't released either one, the game was released officially 1 year ago, and it's not like gog is going to hold them accountable. Wrote support, nothing, wrote Unfrozen, nothing. Maybe Goblinz is more accessible because gog sure isn't.

The Iratus strategy guide literally just came out today. I DL'ed it off GOG.

Hopefully someone can comment later on the in-game effectiveness of this exclusive monster. If it's not effective, it could be categorized as an optional cosmetic DRM.

This is about the same brilliant idea (read sarcasm) as Don't Forget Me developer's to integrate Twitch so viewers can participate and suggest words to streamers ... Signing up to a newsletter is somewhat different to DRM content only redeemable via client software and you can bet a million the codes will be shared online before long anyway.

Signing up to receive an optional item would not keep me from buying this game. Bugs, behavior of developer to this community/shop's customers, update frequency however might. For now I will wait since this is not the game I would blindly buy.

Unfortunately, as time goes on, more and more games are being tied to "social experiences". We're living in a world where your average extrovert NPC cannot even play a video game for a few hours without feeling lonely and needing to go on discord to talk about it. Buncha fucking weirdos.

I'm signing up under every single word. Exactly! I'm dealing with a whole bunch of people at work, so later in the evening I could what? Socialise even more?