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[Scelly9]

It wouldn't bother me, since I'm paying for early access to the beta as well as the full game. Besides, I'm helping them pay for the development of it.

[Shades]

I had more fun playing this, very buggy, alpha than pretty much any other game I've played recently. Well worth the $30 from my point of view, might help that I was a big theme hospital fan and it feels very similar.

The bugs are crazy for the most part, I've only had a couple of out right crashes though.

The most irritating bug so far is that escaped prisoners appear to keep their cell assignments so it doesn't get allocated to someone new.

[Knight of Fools]

I think the main issue with the pricing is precedence. Indie companies tend to do the Minecraft payment thing, and big studios do the full price pre-order thing. Indie games are $20 at most, triple-A games are $50 - $60. Hardly anyone goes out of that range, because it's easy and expected. I'm alright with people breaking out of the cycle because, hey, capitalism.

What I don't want to see is some sort of extra charge for early access, especially if they're not going to be up front about it. Post-launch sales and price drops don't bug me one bit. If prices are going to change from now to launch, though, but be up front about it. Tell us why you're doing it, and how things are going to work out. With that information, I would gladly make an informed decision and I won't feel cheated if I prepurchase. If I wasn't given that information up front, though, in spite of my willingness to pay the prepurchase premium I would feel cheated. Really, though, if you want to have a prepurchase premium, isn't that what the payment tiers are for?

Of course, I'm basing this most of this on rumors about rumors. Is there any official word on what's going to happen?

[Dr. Johbson]

I think the main issue with the pricing is precedence. Indie companies tend to do the Minecraft payment thing, and big studios do the full price pre-order thing. Indie games are $20 at most, triple-A games are $50 - $60. Hardly anyone goes out of that range, because it's easy and expected. I'm alright with people breaking out of the cycle because, hey, capitalism.

What I don't want to see is some sort of extra charge for early access, especially if they're not going to be up front about it. Post-launch sales and price drops don't bug me one bit. If prices are going to change from now to launch, though, but be up front about it. Tell us why you're doing it, and how things are going to work out. With that information, I would gladly make an informed decision and I won't feel cheated if I prepurchase. If I wasn't given that information up front, though, in spite of my willingness to pay the prepurchase premium I would feel cheated. Really, though, if you want to have a prepurchase premium, isn't that what the payment tiers are for?

Of course, I'm basing this most of this on rumors about rumors. Is there any official word on what's going to happen?

I completely agree with this. And for official word, I don't think theres been anything, I've looked but I could have missed it.

[Viken]

I got a friend to let me demo PA on his laptop while he was over.  Its cool, but I found the starting restrictions to be rather... hard.  Less than 10K in cash to start a prison is really tough. Lol.

But I did finally get into having roughly 40 inmates all at once, which was nifty.  But the one thing I couldn't figure out how to do was to set guard patrols, even with the required tech.  No button for it or anything that I could find.  Bugged the hell out of me, just watching the guards stand there like idiots.

[Darvi]

Obvious explanation.

[Knight of Fools]

Hey.

It's 4:00 AM. I need sleep, not TV tropes.

_{Dang kids.}

[Shades]

I got a friend to let me demo PA on his laptop while he was over.  Its cool, but I found the starting restrictions to be rather... hard.  Less than 10K in cash to start a prison is really tough. Lol.

In the reports you can get grants for building other parts of the prison, I found it impossible to do anything useful without them so I'd recommend getting them when you start. Impressed you managed to build something with just 10k

Another suggestion I'd make is to mark your entrance doors as staff only, that way during a prisoner escape the doors don't just open automatically for them ¬_¬
Prisoners are still escorted through doors marked staff only so no worries on that part.

[Virtz]

The game sorta killed me when I ran out of grants to fulfill and they suddenly announced they're sending in 24 prisoners my way (even though I had like 3 or 4 cafeteria riots resulting in prisoner and staff injuries and deaths).

Is there a way to get a decent income once the grants are gone? Cause I had like 500 bucks daily once that happened. Also, can you expand a building? Like without double walls in between?

[Goron]

I appreciate the replies from both sides of the fence.

To those who have bought it, if the price goes down in the future, would that bother you? I know all games get cheaper for the longer they've been released, but what I mean is instead of the standard 'cheaper price before release, then the standard price, and then it gets cheaper again over time', it skips the first step, the cheaper price one might expect with an alpha, and instead starts at full price in the alpha, and then gets cheaper the more its finished? I hope that made sense.

Would that bother you, where the early adopters are buying early to, instead of trying to find a good deal, are there to promote the company and the game? I'm seen alot of people say things like that, that the price point is for the hardcore fans, and is, as the developers said, a "quality bar."

I think its an interesting idea, to get the ones who really care about your game in first and then the people who just want to play a good game in later.

I couldn't care less if they give it away for free in a few months. I have it now. A movie ticket costs me 10 dollars for less than 2 hours of fun. The full experience (drink, snack, popcorn, ticket) will cost me 3 times that. Looking at it from your 'only considering the monetary exchange and completely ignoring the development support aspect' angle I can safely say thati am getting a bargain for the hours and hours and hours I will be playing the game while it is in alpha. I am getting more therefore it is perfectly acceptable for me to pay for it.
That said, as I wrote a while back it is not about the cost of the final game for me... I am paying to support development-and considering I paid 50$ I can assure you I know that price will go down from my cost at release and I am fine with that.

[ThtblovesDF]

Arrggg...

I have showers (room designated, shower heads, drains, water supplyed) - yet my prisoners don't use them (angry about no showers)
I have a canteen (+kitchen, tables, food, cooks, power...) - yet my prisoners take the food, but never eat it (angry about no food)

Whats wrong here?


*** hehe, just like teenagers they are better (For a limited time) after being beaten.

Edit2: This is the shower... http://i.imgur.com/wT4dg.jpg

Edit3: After 3x beatings, they started to use the shower. Ah well...

[Darvi]

Are your prisoners, by chance, teenagers?

[LoSboccacc]

How you get a pass to the wiki?

[Meta]

The download link of the game is on the wiki. That's why you need a password to access it. You should receive yours by mail if you bought the alpha access.

...but I'm not sure this is how it works. I did not yet buy the game.

[Charmander]

PCG: Isn’t $30 a little higher than normal for alpha or beta access?

MM: There are a couple of reasons for that. We’ve got a pretty close relationship with the Humble Bundle guys, and we were talking to them a lot about how they do things. Another is that we’re more interested in a smaller number of players that are more engaged in what we’re doing, than a huge audience that want to pay less. There’s a quality bar we’re putting in there.

Imagine the [alpha] went on sale for $10. This is all “ifs”, right? But imagine it goes on sale for $10 or $20, and people chose to buy it, and it doesn’t work for them, and they say, “This is bollocks. I hate this. It’s crap. It’s broken. It doesn’t work.”

Also, when I ordered it, they were all, "whoops, the keys fucked up, download it through the thing you downloaded the PDF telling you how to download it", so.