Amanita Design forum

Hi
   
    I was just wondering whether the price was going to be lowered later, or maybe in several years,like what happened with Samorost 2.


                                           Thanks in advance.

Oh, come on. The game's not even out yet and you ask for a price reduction? The 17 bucks for the download version will definitely be worth it. Don't be so greedy. ;) Just pre-order the game. It will most probably be one of the most anticipated adventures 2009 will see released.

well, you sneaky bastard >: /

Removed...

Edit by Moderator: Not exactly a nice thing to post on these forums. The people at Amanita work hard to create these great games.

@Qweexel

I don

To answer your question I would say yes...  so I expect you prefer to wait 18 months beforep laying it?

The current pre-order price is lowered and will sell for a higher price when releaser so why not say thank you for all the hard work they have put in this gem?  Then you will feel very good inside doing this, trust me you will be proud.

I wonder who is the stupid one...  Samorost was free BTW and I believe that helped a lot for a worldwide reputation of his talent.

  My apologies to everyone, especially the game creators.

   Guess I was being pretty stupid...

There has been a misunderstanding here, Qweexel.  That comment about being "stupid" was not directed toward you!

After your original question about whether the price was ever going to be lowered "Seu_Kumiama" posted a message about how he was going to pirate Machinarium as soon as he could and anyone that paid for the game was stupid.  "Lotus" mistook you for him and wrote "Qweexel I don't like you", but she was really responding to "Seu_Kumiama".

Then it got more confusing when, just before a moderator removed the "Seu_Kumiama" message, "Rhialto" wrote a reply to him (look again and you'll see the name "Seu_Kumiama" is embedded in the quote Rhialto was responding to).

Sot it's just a big misunderstanding.  You are NOT stupid!   :)

  Ah...

Why did I pre-order Machinarium for $17 for the bonus of a couple screenshots and an OST preview they were going to give away anyway, only to see it being available for pre-order on Steam today for $14.99?  Where's the value?  I should have waited if this is all I am going to get for pre-ordering.  At least with Steam, I get to re-download it if my hard drive crashes.

Amanita Design is an "Indie" company, grebnork.  Supporting indie development efforts is a good thing... no?... wouldn't you agree with that sentiment?

I mean, please don't tell me that it all comes down to an equation about perceived "accumulated value" for what you paid for something - thence it's a "good buy" versus a "bad buy" if you paid X and then later the game or other screenshots were available for Y and the difference - of a few dollars - was your "loss".

That just plain cheesy!   :P

if you pre-order through us, you will receive also Mac version and the soundtrack in MP3's. on Steam you will get only Windows version.

I understand that you would have to sign a contract with Valve to keep mout shut about it but how much (%) do you actually get from the STEAM sale? Less than 50? more?
I figured I would give this question a go anyway :)

Getting the mac version is inconsequential to me but the full OST download would make it worth the difference in cost.  I'm all for supporting indie developers, which is one of the reasons why I pre-ordered the game in the first place.  The only reason I was pointing this price disparity out is because the pre-order "savings" were being touted back when I placed the order - with no mention that it'd be available from other venues but with every implication that the price would go up to ~$20 upon the arrival of the release date.  I don't mean to ruffle any feathers, here.  Hope you guys have a very successful release.

At least you're free from Steam's DRM. No need to be online to install or play, no need to wait for Steam servers when they're under maintenance or simply offline, the game is not tied to an account which can be disabled or stolen. In other words, instead of renting the game, you have bought it for a similar price. Plus you'll have to OST and gave more support to the devs :)

is it just me, or does steam sound terrible? ;)
actually i'm a lazy person and have not checked up what it actually is, but what i got out of your last posting (@ilsyde), i would never use a service like steam (my humble own opinion). is it true that you can play it only when you are logged into your online account? why actually anyone would want to do that? just wondering. :) especially when you can get it directly from amanita together with some goodies. sounds fine to me.
and for the slight price difference, i think nothing to care about. and you get it directly from the guys, for different systems with the soundtrack... more than i would ever have asked for considering the 17$. and i have to admit, i was hoping they release a full game like this, the demo makes me really longing for the 16th (not only me). first time in years that i'm looking so forward for a game, i have the feeling like purchasing a piece of art. ;) by the way, who wants art combined with drm?

STEAM is basically an Online vendor. You can easily purchase games through this service, those are then tied to your account. It's more than that though, it can also be used for Instant Messaging, managing friends (:P) joining multiplayer matches, joining a Community...
It's by far the leading industry online retailer, it has its supporters and haters. I'm in between  :) .

I couldn't get around using STEAM, Valve's games (starting with Half-Life 2) are all deeply embeded in it. I'm a Half-Life fan since the first hour, but looking at it in this context it could be more accurately described as powerful tool. What I mean by that is it actually makes sense in concordance with the Source Engine (it powers all of Valve's games), it was meant for modding and to manage game content but that's another story.


You can use the client in Offline mode but you will not be having some of the proposed services that are available when Online. An advantage this system has is you can basically access all your games (purchased through it) from anywhere in the world if an internet connection is present. This represents a big reason for some person to get their gaming needs through it. STEAM is by far the biggest fish in the Online Retailer Industry and is the DRM scheme per se. However DRM has become a very trendy topic nowadays and Companies are willing to spend money on Protecting their Intellectual Properties with complex DRM schemes (like SECUROM's Online Authentification). Retail games come packaged with all sort of mess therefore purchasing through an Online vendor looks more and more like the logical next step. Today it's all about which version has the "milder" copy protection scheme, DRM free titles are few and very exotic.

They may be few but they're coming back from the deads! : http://www.gog.com/ (http://www.gog.com/)
I love this service you get the feeling like you actually own the games instead of "renting" them (STEAM alikes)

A growing opposer to STEAM is Impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com/), it's still a DRM scheme but you actually don't need the client to play your games. (each one is tied to your E-Mail account)

I hope the industry is moving towards adopting the DRM free philosophy, some stand out as being exemplary in this context: Stardock (responsible for the Impulse service) have released their games DRM free in stores. CDProject (Polish game developer, responsible for GOG.com) has patched out any DRM out of their game "The Witcher". They're few but services like GOG.com or Direct2Drive proposing some of their games DRM free and of course most notoriously Indie Developers (I look at you!) clearly hint at a turning point. It's a step in the right direction in my opinion  ;)

What I want to tell is that you have to be more vigilante when it comes to purchasing a game. There's no way around really you have to inform yourself about what protection this or that game is using or you may get some really bad surprises after purchasing your boxed copy!

Apologises for getting a bit Offtopic here (just a bit...)

That's awesome! I have both a PC and a Mac, so glad I pre-ordered with you guys :)