Price will increase by $10 for v1.0 after the Steam Summer Sale ( www.youtube.com )

(But it's also heavily on sale right now, for $15 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/526870/Satisfactory/)

Personally, I don't mind at all. For one I bought it at $30, but also I have 2,000 hours logged. Per hour that's a cost of $0.02 per hour (at the new price) if I had bought it at $40. I'm all for calling out studios like ubisoft for being greedy, but coffee stain has done a very fair job with Satisfactory IMO, and they very well deserve $10 more for the game.

That being said, go pick it up now for $15

heckypecky ,

Ahhh I'm torn about it. Is there any news about the stuttering issue that came with update 8? It's unplayable now around the northern forest and if this is how 1.0 is I'll pass

Pika ,
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

Honestly as much as I dislike it raising in price, if this is a price increase for the initial release that's completely fine due to the fact that the game is definitely worth more than they're selling it anyway, plus I give them props alone for releasing the fact that they are going to raise the price because most Studios would just have this really good deal and then raise the base price after the sale never letting anyone know ahead of time

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’d agree but apparently this is due to “inflation”, so more than likely they’ll increase it again on release.

rdri ,

They can leave steam and stay on egs for all I care.

arvere ,

triple the price if that means we eventually find out what those talking spheres do

scrubbles OP ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

And SAM ore

CaptainEffort , (edited )
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Gross, and they even used the “inflation” excuse the Factorio devs used, despite it literally not applying to existing digital goods.

Not even EA would try to increase the price of a half decade old game…

Edit: And wow, putting it on sale right before a price increase? Sounds like fomo to me.

Alexstarfire ,

They are still developing it. Aren't they? If it's got more stuff in it than when it originally came out a price increase could make sense.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

By that logic any game that gets updated should have its price increase. No Mans Sky should cost like $100.

jeeva ,

Yes, and?

Trying to make money from games with long term support is a tricky thing that companies keep trying to do - it can lead to season passes, microtransactions, deluxe/supporter editions, buyable maps and expansions - or stuff like this.

Companies try to get money to support game, more news at eleven...

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Maybe games as a service shouldn’t be a thing then. Just a thought.

Kecessa ,

Well then, devs should be able to increase the price as inflation increases so the equivalent cost stays the same.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

I wrote is elsewhere but I’ll write it again here:

Inflation affects physical goods because you need to make the product from the ground up every single time. And those materials cost money, and rise with inflation, so making the product from scratch each time gradually costs more as time goes on. Hence why they need to raise the price of the finished product - otherwise they'd literally lose money on each sale.

Digital goods don’t work this way, once the product has been made it can freely be distributed without having to be remade again and again.

Yes, it costs money to patch and update. But that’s not comparable to rebuilding the product from the ground up like with physical goods.

Kecessa ,

Selling the game is the devs income, if everything else costs more and you don't increase your income you're just becoming poorer.

Just because you're doing office work do you believe you shouldn't get a raise?

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Hence why you release a new product. You can’t indefinitely make income from one thing until the end of time.

You can charge more for a new product, as you can actually scale for inflation when you have to make it from the ground up. After all, the tools and manpower it required cost more now. So you can charge more.

But asking for more money for a product that was made half a decade prior, that didn’t cost what it costs now since inflation wasn’t where it is now, isn’t the answer.

Listen, as a general rule of thumb, if even EA and Activision won’t go there, maybe you shouldn’t either.

Kecessa ,

So they should just stop development on a game that's still considered early access and leave it in an unfinished state and start working on something else that they can charge more for and just stop working on it once inflation catches up no matter the state it's in? That's what you're saying devs should do?

EA, Activision, Ubisoft don't do it this way, instead they charge you for all extra content separately.

Maybe that's what the Satisfactory team should do, release the game as is as being complete, not change the price and then release paid DLC that would otherwise have been updates so in the end people need to pay more to get the full game... Damn, we're back to square one but now people who already paid for the game also need to pay for updates...

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Nope, they decided to accept purchases for a game that isn’t finished, and in doing so promised that one day it would be. If they stop now they’ll just be scammers.

They should do what Larian did. Release the game in EA, develop the game with those new purchases helping to keep things going, then release it when it’s complete. No artificially changing the price, no bs.

And in what world has what we’ve gotten from free Satisfactory updates constituted would-be paid dlc? Or are you just using hypotheticals that aren’t relevant?

Kecessa ,

I mean, they get to decide when it's finished, if it's stable and there's enough content that people are playing hundreds of hours then they can say that that's the basic experience and if people want more they need to pay for it, in the end it's even worse than just not having paid DLC and increasing the price as the game gets more content and life becomes more expensive.

Not as if there was anything new to doing that, Minecraft cost about 5$ for the people who bought it as soon as it was made available, now you don't even get the mobile version for that price.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Again, there’s literally no reason for you to believe that this price increase somehow means you’ll never have to pay for dlc. Have you never heard of Factorio?

And for the record, like with your Minecraft example, I’m not against devs charging less for Early Access versions, alphas, betas, etc, and charging more for the finished product when it fully launches. That’s a very common practice, in fact it’s the standard.

That’s very different than deciding to increase the price arbitrarily in the middle of developing an early access title that’s been in development for 5 years, and isn’t releasing officially yet.

Kecessa ,

"I'm not against what Minecraft did, I'm just against what Minecraft did."

Get your story straight buddy.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Google strawman.

Look, I don’t mean to be a dick but unless your reading comprehension is abysmal you’re purposefully misunderstanding my point.

Like I said,

That’s very different than deciding to increase the price arbitrarily in the middle of developing an early access title that’s been in development for 5 years, and isn’t releasing officially yet.

I’m okay with how Minecraft did things. Same with titles like BG3, Hades, Shovel Knight, and countless others. This is different, and if you can’t understand that after I laid it out twice for you then it’s clear you’re not arguing in good faith.

Kecessa , (edited )

That's exactly what Minecraft did...

Free then 5 then 10 then 15 and so on, all price hikes that happened while the game was still in development and had not reached 1.0. it was one of the first mainstream example of an early access game!

You just don't want to recognize that Satisfactory today is different from what it was when it was first made available, just like Alpha and beta Minecraft weren't the same.

But hey, I guess I'm the one that's not arguing in good faith by pointing out that the situation is pretty much exactly the same and that the alternative is worse for all current owners.

Again, if you keep doing the same office job as before, do you refuse to ask for a pay increase and prefer to become poorer over time just because your job hasn't changed?

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

No you’re right, Minecraft did do that. At least they didn’t hide behind inflation though, they simply increased the price as content was added.

Regardless, office pay has next to nothing to do with this. The consumer doesn’t directly pay the worker’s salary. The worker makes the product, the consumer buys the product, end of transaction.

Pay is handled by the studio. If the devs want a pay increase, which is more than deserved, then the studio needs to find the funds for that. If they don’t have the funds then they need to create more product. Simple as. Artificially boosting the price of existing products isn’t the answer.

Again, it’d be like if CDPR decided Cyberpunk was suddenly worth $90 after the 2.0 update. That’d be silly.

Kecessa ,

Pay is handled by the studio. If the devs want a pay increase, which is more than deserved, then the studio needs to find the funds for that. If they don’t have the funds then they need to create more product. Simple as. Artificially boosting the price of existing products isn’t the answer.

So contrary to any other industry, game development studios don't have the right to increase their price on products that are already on the market to follow inflation and to have the funds to increase their employee's wages, that's what you're saying?

Regardless, office pay has next to nothing to do with this. The consumer doesn’t directly pay the worker’s salary. The worker makes the product, the consumer buys the product, end of transaction.

It's funny because your next paragraph makes it seem like it's the exact same thing happening for games, there's a third party in-between the consumer and the employee doing the work in both cases.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Other industries follow the same standard. Buying a movie on Amazon that released in ‘95 doesn’t cost 100’s more dollars today than it did back then due to inflation. Like I said, digital goods aren’t affected in the same way that physical goods are.

Kecessa ,

They actually are affected the same way tough, hosting cost, labor cost, the programs used for development, the computers used for development, all of these things cost more and more, just because some people in the industry don't act on it doesn't mean that the same thing doesn't happen...

Oh wait, what's that? They actually do act on it by selling paid DLC for extra content and people are too dumb to realize that it's exactly the same thing as increasing the price of the complete game while continuing to provide updates? Dang...

Also, look at paid subscription services, are prices staying the same forever or they're increasing? Because I'm looking at Netflix and they haven't released a new program, they've just added more content and the price is going up! Plex's lifetime price nearly doubled in 2014, they didn't release a new program, it was the same thing just getting updated.

You're just mad because the Satisfactory team is being honest about why they're increasing the price and it makes you angry because it doesn't fit your vision of how the world should work but everyone else is doing the same thing just without mentioning inflation and that's fine to you.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Hosting costs and labor costs aren't equivalent to the costs of building a game from the ground up.

And no, dlc isn’t the equivalent of bug fixes and updates lol. Factorio is a great example of that - they increased the price arbitrarily and plan on releasing a paid dlc.

Paid subscription services increase because constant work has to consistently be put into them at a regular rate. There is no end point. It’s not as if a subscription server is “finished” and then only requires small updates and bug fixes - it’s a constant thing that requires endless man power and resources to keep afloat.

There’s a massive different between Netflix and Oblivion lol.

And in what world is everyone doing the same? The literal only other game to increase the price of a game over half a decade old has been Factorio. Literally nobody else, not even the scummiest publishers in the space, have done this.

Regardless, as I’ve said, it’d be more than fine if the price was increased due to an official launch, or even if they just felt that they’d added enough content to justify it. But hiding behind inflation is scummy imo, and makes me regret supporting them in the first place.

Kecessa ,

Paid subscription services increase because constant work has to consistently be put into them at a regular rate.

So like an early access game that requires constant work to fix bugs and add content?

The literal only other game to increase the price of a game over half a decade old has been Factorio.

Even you said that Minecraft did the same (and I'm sure I can find plenty of early access games that did the same).

As I said you're just mad that they're being honest necessary you're angry they inflation is a bitch and you would prefer that some sectors pretend it isn't, that makes you unable to analyze the situation objectively so you keep contradicting yourself. But I'm the one arguing in bad faith somehow.

I'm done here, goodbye!

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

So like an early access game that requires constant work to fix bugs and add content?

No, not like that. Maintaining a massive service like Netflix isn’t comparable to updating and bug fixing an indie project.

Even you said that Minecraft did the same

I’m specifically referring to using inflation as a cover. I’ve said multiple times that it’s fine for these projects to increase the price if they feel they’ve added enough content to warrant it. That’s what Minecraft did.

and I'm sure I can find plenty of early access games that did the same

That used inflation as an excuse to increase an existing game’s price? Go for it.

Either way, the fact that only two indie games in the entire industry are the only two to do this sort of proves my point. Sooo why would I be angry? Hell, I already own Satisfactory lol. But oh well, good luck to ya.

mysticpickle ,

Inflation applies to games that are actively being developed for sure. Games don't program themselves. You need people to do it. Those people need wages to pay rent/food/utilities. If the prices of those things go up they'll need higher wages which will usually come from higher prices on the game that in this case, they continuously develop.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

No, no it doesn’t. The cost of a game getting patches and updates isn’t the same as the cost of making the game in the first place.

Inflation affects physical goods because you need to make the product from the ground up every single time. And those materials cost money, and rise with inflation, so making the product from scratch each time gradually costs more as time goes on. Hence why they need to raise the price of the finished product - otherwise they'd literally lose money on each sale.

Digital goods don’t work this way, once the product has been made it can freely be distributed without having to be remade again and again.

Yes, it costs money to patch and update. But that’s not comparable to rebuilding the product from the ground up like with physical goods.

By your logic all movies, tv shows, and all other forms of digital goods should actually increase price with age, not decrease. Team Fortress 2 should be like $100 by now. After all, servers aren’t free.

Also, their wages come from sales. If they no longer have money to pay their employees then they should look towards developing new games, dlc, or merchandising. Artificially inflating the prices of existing goods isn’t the answer. There’s a reason that not even EA or Activision have pulled this.

Etterra ,

They've been developing it actively continually you fungus.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

They’ve been developing No Man’s Sky for even longer. Should it cost $100 now?

Edit: And it’s in Early Access so… no duh?

Etterra ,

If they think people will pay it, sure. It's not food or housing; games are a luxury. Nobody's forcing you to buy it. Do you have a job? Would you like a raise because food and rent cost more than they used to? Yes? Cool. But you're not here to debate. You're here to whine and bitch and moan about the price going up $10. That the price of lunch (or less) at most fast food joints. So if you can afford Subway and a Coke, you can afford an extra $10. Or you can buy it before the same ends. Or when the next sale comes along. But you're not going to. You're just here to be a jackass.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

If you unironically think No Man’s Sky should cost over $100 now I can’t help you. The fact that it doesn’t, the fact that no game released over a decade ago does, should be all the evidence you need.

If EA or Activision genuinely thought your take had any weight they’d be charging over $100 for all of their older titles. Thank god not everyone is as braindead as the Satisfactory fan base seems to be…

This isn’t about the price going up. This is about the explanation as to why. If it were due to the amount of content added since it released into ea, or due to an upcoming official launch, that’d be fine. But using the Factorio “inflation” excuse isn’t it.

Nouveau_Burnswick ,

The cost of a game getting patches and updates isn’t the same as the cost of making the game in the first place.

Satisfactory is released!!!

No, still in early access. I'd guess this price hike aligns with 1.0.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

I wish that were true but according to their video it’s due to inflation, not due to any official release.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

He explains that there are some guidelines on online stores like steam and EVs that they cannot just talk about that requires them to do it now, even though they feel the price point is better represented by the final release. So they wished they could do it then, but this is an issue.

The team has had a split dev track the past 2 years, where one part developed the 1.0 stuff that will be added and was kept secret, while the second team did the early access part.

After the last major release they found that they now needed to merge the 2 branches and stop EA updates to work towards final release.

So there areany changes coming to what we saw in EA and there is also new content coming that we so far only saw parts of (like the summer sloop and mercer spheres).

These guys are like the gold standard for keeping their fans in the loop and explaining their dev proces. The hate is unwarranted. They even put the game on sale at the old price point and gave everyone fair warning. I think 40 euros is a good and fair price for the final game if you want to wait.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Fair enough, maybe I’ve just become jaded after seeing what the Factorio devs pulled.

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, I’ll take your word for it. I’ll be really sad if they decide to increase the price even further on the official launch though.

calcopiritus ,

Not only material costs go up with inflation.

Those materials have a price because you need labor to obtain them. The cost of everything is driven by the price of labor. The price of labor goes up with inflation.

There is no product that is unaffected by inflation.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

So you’re saying that because of that, all things must also rise in price, just inherently?

By your logic any movie released decades ago should cost far more now than it did back then, right? To rent or buy, it should be infinitely more. What about games from the 90’s or 00’s? They should be far more expensive.

Why don’t I have to pay 100’s of dollars every time I watch A Clockwork Orange? Why doesn’t it cost hundreds of dollars to play the original Half-Life? After all, counting for inflation they should all cost far, far more than they currently do. Actually take a second and think about it.

Why do you think buying a digital copy of something is cheaper than buying a brand new, physical copy? Because each physical copy had to be built from the ground up, taking all new materials to do so, whereas the digital copies can effectively be infinitely reproduced. They’re not affected in the same way.

calcopiritus ,

Inflation is not the only factor in the pricing on products. Otherwise a potato would cost 1000x what it does.

Even then, all the things you mention are media that was already produced, and the only cost associated to them now is licensing and distribution. Satisfactory is still in production, which costs orders of magnitude more.

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

The costs of updates and bug fixes, ie maintenance, aren’t equivalent to building the game from the ground up.

call_me_xale ,

The cost of a game getting patches and updates isn’t the same as the cost of making the game in the first place.

Tell me you've never tried to maintain/update software without telling me...

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Are you unironically saying it’s cheaper to make a full game than it is to make bug fixes and minor updates?

Dude I love you but you’re delusional.

call_me_xale ,

I am unironically saying that, as a career software engineer, fixing bugs and adding new features to an existing product is about 80% of a programming job.

thesmokingman ,

While it’s certainly true that some classes of bugs are very easy to fix (“oh shit I forgot to apply the correct style”; “I mean to use this method whoops”), many bugs that exist in later-stage games require pulling a bunch of shit apart to figure it out. They’re in the same pool of difficulty usually as performance optimizations or balancing new functionality. Getting a successful test case can be difficult even if the bug is readily apparent. Getting the regression test to pass is the subject of a plethora of literature. It can be hard and difficulty often scales with codebase. If the bug was obvious and easy, it would have been done before.

If it was obvious and easy and wasn’t done before because of time constraints, devs can still charge more because their wages should have gone up. This whole thread OP is kinda nuts (not the commenter I’m vehemently agreeing with and expanding on).

Pika ,
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

I mean, would you argue that the game isn't worth the price increase? I've always felt that this game with what they gave you for content is well worth a $50 price point, honestly tentatively say maybe even a $60 price point, I mean I do agree you that it's weird that they're choosing to raise the price now, considering that they honestly should have raised the price point of the game easily one or two years ago, but I definitely wouldn't go to say that the game isn't worth the price that they're asking for, I still personally believe they are under selling their game.

Honestly, they could increase the game after the sale, launch the 1.0 release and raise the price again saying that okay now it's no longer Early Access and I think that would be 100% Fair, I've gotten exponentially more hours out of this game than I have out of games that I've paid $70 for

CaptainEffort ,
@CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works avatar

Tbh I feel it’s totally worth the price, and if they said that they increased the price due to the added value since releasing into ea I’d be totally fine with it. But using inflation as a cover, like the Factorio devs before them, is gross and deceptive. Hell, I’d rather them just say “we want more money”. At least that’s honest.

Like I said, it’s fine if they want to increase the price due to an official release, or simply because they feel there has been significant value added since launching into early access. Lots of devs do that, it’s not a big deal. But none of them lie about inflation somehow affecting an existing digital good in any meaningful way. Well again, except Factorio lol. But that guy also excused statutory rape so…

Pika ,
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah I do agree, it seems real sleazy blowing it under the guise of inflation, that being said it is understandable because inflation is infected quite hard with those projects, whether it's hosting costs or salary well it may not be as much as physical products I can see where they may want to raise it but in this case I do agree I think they definitely had reason to just say "yo our game is good and we know it so we're upping the price" okay maybe not exactly like that but you get the point

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