jamyskis: To be honest, the worst aspect of it is that Harebrained promised a DRM-free version, and is doing the absolute bare minimum to meet this promise now. It's a bit of a stab in the back for backers who trusted the devs to do the right thing, and Harebrained seems to be doing this only to avert demands for refunds.
The excuses surrounding the inability to mod the game in the DRM-free version is utter bullshit. Games have been modded for 20 years and more without the aid of Workshop. The DRM-free version of Dungeon Defenders can be modded without Steam workshop. Hell, even Skyrim can be modded without Workshop.
In fact, I would imagine that the community will make up for this shortfall by releasing its own mod tools for the DRM-free version.
Workshop, like so many things about Steam, is a great thing as long as it remains
optional. As soon as it stops being optional, it becomes a leash and a pain in the arse.
And as for the DLC...well, that's just petty. "Use Steam or don't get the DLC." How childish.
So glad I don't back Kickstarter projects with this kind of fiasco going on.
Lets go even further than just continued DRM free support, check out this comment from the article I found quite interesting:
"Zeewolf says:
Another thing that confuses me is that the second city, which was a stretch goal for the game, is now suddenly paid DLC.
I mean, yeah, backers will get it for free. But it was my expectation that I was backing a game project with two cities, thanks to the extra funds. Not a game with one city plus DLC.
I feel making it DLC is a very liberal interpretation of their initial promise, and I don’t like it at all."
So something that the backers likely assumed would be in the game itself being a stretch goal, in fact won't be and it won't be able to be used with the DRM free version that was promised.
Is this a case of bait & switch with the stretch goal, or just betraying the backers' trust with them trusting the judgement of the developer to do the right thing?