Would you pay a yearly subscription for Squad if it meant faster/better development?
I am continually struck by how much I enjoy this game that I purchased in 2017 for $43. Compared to the cost of so many other things, on a per/hr basis this is downright cheap beyond belief. You can hardly have this much fun for this long for this little. I've always said I would happily pay a yearly subscription in order to help support the company in finding the best talent, bringing on more staff, having the best gear and resources, etc.
For the community at large, do you feel the same? If paying a yearly subscription for this game meant that OWI had more staff and resources to develop the game at a faster pace with more features, squash more bugs, would you do it? If you would, how much would you be willing to pay each year? $10, $20, $30, more?
[I wish the forums had the poll feature like the old forums had so people could just vote.]
Comments
Nope. This game in its current state is not worth $50. There's also no indication they would make it any better with more money on hand.
Nope. This game in its current state is not worth $50.
It is for me!
There's also no indication they would make it any better with more money on hand.
I'd love to hear from them on this.
I'm glad you feel that way, suggesting a paid subscription for squad is the single worst idea i've heard pitched for the game in a long time.
This game is already very expensive, I don't think.
I don't imagine that it would do any good. Squad's problem probably isn't a money issue but more of a workload/manpower issue. I'd assume once they finally finish up rewriting the whole game practically that update schedules will start to get back to how they were a couple years ago.
but more of a workload/manpower issue.
Hehe... Umm... if it's a workload/manpower issue, wouldn't that be resolved with more staffing, which can be accomplished with more money?
Yes dude….the company that threw $25,000 away to make a statement is totally financially responsible and should be trusted to charge a subscription for an early access game.
they’d probably hire a community manager to tell us that they’re trying to “increase communication” for the next 3 years before officially pronouncing the end of updates to squad.
they’d probably hire a community manager to tell us that they’re trying to “increase communication” for the next 3 years before officially pronouncing the end of updates to squad.
Bwahahaah, amen to that! I really miss hearing actual updates from them. Remember when we used to have a good community manager that would tell us what was going on and would send our feedback back to the devs?
What if the subscription model came with a leadership change? Environment is created by the leader, and clearly something has gone wrong at OWI as they used to be better.
I generally dislike subscription models. Sorry for being so harsh earlier, but I really don’t see it ending well, at all. This might not be a money issue and we’ll never know. Squad has still sold fairly well recently despite the lack of attention and crippling update cycle. What’s to say that more money will mean more devs? Maybe they don’t want more devs. They may have another project they’re working on.
I generally dislike subscription models.
I hear ya. I'm not particular fond of subscription models, but what I do know is that I like this game and I'd like to see its continued development. I also know how much money I waste on other things I enjoy, and let me tell you, $40 spent for over 1700hrs of enjoyment (and counting) is a pretty damn amazing price/hr of entertainment. I'll fork over $150 for a ski lift ticket that gives me 8hrs of entertainment (if you don't stop for lunch,) so to me, this game is cheap, cheap, cheap entertainment during these damn long, dark winter days. I am willing to toss some more bucks at them if it means I'd get MOAR from them. To your point though, will we actually get moar? Will new releases come out quicker? Will bugs be squashed faster? Will they actually talk with us on these forums and generate excitement instead of making it feel like a dark dungeon that only the faithful walk the halls of? I can't say, but I was curious to know if anyone else would be willing to continue to support them financially if the end result was a better product. I also was posting this just in an effort to see more content on these forums, get people talking, maybe get the devs thinking outside the box a bit in terms of what they actually need to make Squad great.
On a similar but different note, it is funny that after our rant about hiring a community manager, they JUST posted that they... hired a "senior community manger." HAHAHA. So now we have a community manager (Krispy, who used to be active and good but has been silent for like 1.5 years now,) and now a "senior" community manager. And of course the announcement comes with lots of promises of better communication, just like it always does. Well congrats OWI_Wedge, maybe you'll surprise us.
If the game reached an actual non-early access state, including full gameplay loop finalization, everything on the roadmap, major bugfixes (too many to list) and better modding support, I would be ok with the game's current price and possibly some other form of monetization. But to switch to a subscription model after people have paid for a game would be disastrous.
Also, Wedge has been on the team for a while now (since September), and Krispy left months ago :')
I should have been clearer with what I was getting at. Even if they were to throw more resources at the issue I'm not sure it would do much. I'm not even sure that they are doing as much as they can with what they have. I'd love to think that it were different but simple stuff like getting out meaningful progress reports has been completely neglected. It might be hard to fix the problems with the game but is it really that hard to get the department heads to put together a quick writeup on what they are working on and their progress each month? Saying nothing says quite a bit.
Also, Wedge has been on the team for a while now (since September), and Krispy left months ago :')
Then someone should tell OWI/Wedge this new information, as Wedge literally said the following yesterday:
I’m here to work with the existing Squad community team, and will be providing additional support and back-up to OWI_Jenny in her role as the Licensing Manager, and Krispy in his role of Community Manager
I can't believe there are people out there saying that squad is expensive game...they probably played 15 hours and couldnt understand the game mechanics and failed to give it a chance i guess.
From the audio,video and player interaction standpoint it is the best fps multiplayer experience out there so far!Squad is literally a sport in my opinion...and has so much potential and i would definitely support them if that support would be transparent so we can exactly see where those funds are beeing pointed at,which would meant that community and developers would together develop the game.
Because i think we creators (im trying to become an architect) understand eachother in terms of how hard it is to accomplish certain lvl of quality in product and therefor we are rdy to help eachother because we all want to be part of a better world,right?
That is why we decided to become creators in certain fields,to change and make things better.Im not trying to say i or they or anyone is better then anyone but i think the average gamers are simply not so open for a game like this,
they dont want to understand it nor give it a chance(they will just go on youtube and watch some subjective review that has been made by a person that is similarly not as open of a gamer)
We are entering the new era of gaming in which u have to be ready to invest some time and patience in order to start experiencing the game for real,and to be able to understand what the developers wanted to say with their product.
same thing with the video experience,you cant judge certain game video quality by running it on a low end pc machine :D
Squad is a great game with lots of potential and has a perspective in the future but the thing is are there going to be enough players to support it and understand it,because that is the real factor that will,i think,decide the way this game is going to develop itself.
Squad touts itself as a fully release game. Saying "it has potential" is true, and is also one of the hallmarks of an early access game, which squad still is.
$50 is very expensive for an early access game.
ME: What if the subscription model came with a leadership change? Environment is created by the leader, and clearly something has gone wrong at OWI as they used to be better.
A Few Moments Later...
OWI: "Meet Vlad Ceraldi Offworld Industries New CEO"
Blink... blink... First we talk about the need for better communication and a new "Senior community manager" is hired. Then I talk about the possible need for leadership change, and POOF... new CEO??? My word... if I even mention the desire to see 2.12 released soon, will that make it happen???
No, that would make them want to drag out content release.
Paying for new factions (or be stuck playing rifleman only, like RO2/RisingStorm) would be the way to go.