As of late I have noticed ALOT of companies heading this route. Paying for a founder pack to get access to early alpha game development.
Do you think IMC games would go this route? And if so would you be on board with this?
Depends on the price. The only game I played with Founder’s Pack was Aura Kingdom and those were way too expensive.
I don’t think they’d go this route, I don’t really see why they would have to.
Would I buy it? Yes. Just to play earlier.
Would I support it? No. They have no real reason to have one, if it’s less of a founder pack and more of a supporter pack (like PoE), where you get the equivalent amount of cash shop currency and goodies, then I’d definitely support them.
Founder packs are just a gimmick, unless it’s for a small indie game, or a company that needs cash. Supporter packs are for supporting companies.
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Same as Kiyoshiro (just saw your comment pop out, really well made forum mecanics I must say). If the price isn’t uterly overprice, I’m definitly going for it. It could depends on what will be inside… But I’m not worrying about it at all ^^’
I don’t see any harm to have early access to a game. Only if founders have some kind of advantage over non-founders that badly affects the gameplay.
Why not giving items only for testers before the main launch?
I was never a fan of founders packs…I’ve always thought they were just a huge waste of money 
it’s nice if you want to support the game but I really wouldn’t buy one just to get access a week or so faster than the masses or because of the exclusive items you get that you probably won’t ever use.
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It’s always good to have incentives to keep original testers/founders around, but not at the risk of breaking the game or costing way too much money. I remember them having it for Aura Kingdom as well and they were exorbitantly expensive 
as i have been waiting for the game 2 years, i would say
because, well I want play the game and I never bought a founderpack, so I would take it here.
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Founder’s packs are for… founding a game, as in, giving money to make it possible to develop or publish. Shouldn’t really be applied to a MMO because it really gives off a bad impression - MMO’s are some of the biggest up-front costing games to make, so advertising that you need money to get it off the ground is really, really bad.
I hope they don’t do this, simply because a lot of MMO players still have the whole Archeage scandal fresh in their memory and seeing “Founder’s Pack” combined with an MMO will almost definitely turn away players.
That said, ToS feels different, and I want it to succeed, very much so. However, the current trend of MMO’s turning into cash cows really averts me from investing as heavily into an MMO as Founder’s Packs generally go. Nobody likes feeling like a chump, after all.
Also, the phrase “An MMO” sounds so wrong and stilted. Enska er það versta.
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Also GGG only add support packs for PoE after people ask for it in certain weekend stress test, where everyone can get in and play freely that weekend. And they still randomize cbt keys every few minutes interval for 1 random user, just like before they add supporter packs.
And GGG is indie btw.
Yeah they are pretty indie, but at the point their in, they didn’t really need founder packs, like you said, it was something people asked for.
If a company like GGG didn’t need founder packs, and is indie, why would ToS?
It’s just in bad taste.
Founder pack system is just a pre-sale in MMOs and not crowd funding. Even big studios with funded projects make use of it (SoE for example).
The line of thought you guys are following is more towards steam early access, which is different from a founder pack system. In early access you pay to play a game before it’s completion.
A founder pack is usually a bundle with a lot of in game items/currency and a beta key that will give you access to a version of the game that’s basically decided as the one for the final release and with most of its development complete.
So yeah, it’s just a pre-sale…of a free to play game.
But with SoE/Daybreak the use of Founder’s Packs was technically both crowdfunding and early access, since they allowed people to play an uncomplete version of Landmark (a rather broken one at that, but that’s beside the point) whilst using the raised money to fund EverQuest: Next. That may just be nitpicking though, sorry.
Anyways. I feel like the phrase “Founder Pack” is quite a misnomer since it is used interchangeably to mean crowdfunding or early access, and worse still, the idea itself has been dirtied a fair deal recently as publishers realize people will throw money at an incomplete game because of hype alone. This gives them an incentive to milk the game as much as they can with minimum amount of development in return. Personally, I think pre-sale is a bad idea too, as it means people are buying blind without knowing what they’re really going to be getting - imagine buying a $200 founder’s pack for ToS now and having it change into a turn-based RPG by the time it’s released. I’m not saying that IMC is crooked, but so many companies as of late have been using these sorts of methods in a dubiously underhanded way to make more money.
Regardless, it’s up to IMC to choose how they handle things. All we can do is hope they make the right choices for both their reputation and ToS’s future, and if the worst comes to the worst, we can vote with our wallets.
Edit: Maybe my opinion is just like this since I’ve seen people burnt by the Early Access fire a few too many times, and as a result am a bit too cynical.
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I was thinking in Planet Side 2. About everquest I think they want to use player created content as assets for the main game or something like that, I’m not really sure of what they are trying to achieve with that thing and got a headache while thinking about it.
Now back to the main discussion, let’s just use clear terms and treat early access and pre-sale as different models:
Pre-sale: Bundle with items and beta access (usually on sale a few months before open beta). You can play earlier the release build of the game (some minor tweaks apart).
Early-access: Access to alpha/beta phases (on sale a hell long time before release). You can play an earlier build of the game that does not reflect the final product to be released.
For me there’s a clear distinction between those two regardless of how publishers call them.
Oh yeah, that being said I would probably pre-purchase ToS depending on the price (25$ max) but refuse an early access offer.
I don’t agree with Early-access, not that it’d make much of a difference with ToS since it’s not really gonna be on sale a hell of a long time before release.
If this founder pack is more like what you call “Pre-sale”, then there are a few things I disagree with.
I think it’s wrong for a company to ask for money for a product that’s not out yet. Aurakingdom had one, Archeage did and a plethora of other games these did. It’s now a trend in F2P games. All those pre-sale packs not only give early-access but also do reflect the final product.
And if it doesn’t reflect the final product, then I believe it’s wrong to ask for payment for testing a product. Because that’s what it would be, testing.
Now if it’s a supporter pack like GGG does, in which the company doesn’t need the money but gives back to the community entirely that’s fine.
Here is how it works, as an example:
You pay $20 for a supporter pack, you get exactly $20 worth of cash shop credits, as well as a few other benefits that don’t really effect game play. You get into the beta. This shouldn’t be the only way in, just another way in. Your purely supporting the company, and their making a profit, and your getting your moneys worth back.
That’s opposed to those early access packs, where you pay to test the game, get less credits than the packs worth, and sometimes even get to play the game officially days before a game is released. No reason for that, it forces competitive players to have to pay.
However, someone can make the case that this game is published by the developer. So all money will go towards actually developing the game and not a 3rd party publisher.
It is for that reason that I will support IMC regardless of what type of pack they introduce, but I do not agree with it for other games.
As long as the developers are clear about what they are selling to you I’m not against any of the models.
If you think your money and feedback will help the developer to make a better game and you believe in that game concept so go for it, just keep in mind that the final product may differ greatly from your expectations, and since the devs have previously warned you about it you won’t have any right to complain.
But we have people that are totally ok with taking such a risk and keep funding great games like Shovel Knight or having disappointments like in Mighty N9.
I wouldn’t mind to be honest if it helps the devs
Will do if it’s not too expensive. But what I prefer is Name Reserve Card. huehue.
@Kiyoshiro I hope you didn’t get Diamond Pack, lel.
I never bought any of them, actually…well, I never bothered with Aeria’s cash shops in the first place xD