Factorio devs: we declined investment opportunities to focus on branding - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-293 The famous quote of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and also "No bullshit policy" is something we take very seriously all the time during the development since the early days. Things like pricing $30 instead of $29.99, no sales, no micro-transactions, game stability over features, no selling-out to big companies that would use the game as cash grab while destroying the brand (we actually declined to negotiate "investment opportunities" like this several times already, no matter what the price would be), the same would be when it would potentially come to any exclusivity deals, which is its own subject... Even if it's not a game I'm not at all interested in, it's nice to see some devs going "We don't want to be labeled as 'Cunts of the Week' to drive short term sales". I find it somewhat tragic that such a phrase has to be said.

It really should be fucking obvious; Don't sacrifice the bigger long term gain of integrity for the smaller short term gain of betraying the good principles.

Absolute lads, wish more game studios were like that.

Huh, and suddenly I've purchased a copy of Factorio. Never really had an interest in the game before but funny how that worked out. https://i.imgur.com/JSIxZMC.png https://i.imgur.com/8CC0vtY.png

I would really like it if this game had color coding/ ability to color areas/ labeling of things as well as zone designation.

E who must not be named, eh?

I think Phoenix point is a great example for what not to do - they've basically said what amounts to "We chose this negative decision because it meant more money, we knew players wouldn't like it but that doesn't matter to us now, even if every backer refunds it we don't care". It's so unfortuanate that many promising and highly anticipated indie games have recently prioritized short-term gain over their playerbase.

Weren't the Satisfactory guys doing passive aggressive shit about people being upset with their choice to go Epic just a few weeks back? And then the Factorio guys basically tell them to BTFO

Factorio is a fantastic game and I highly recommend it to anyone with an excess of free time. The devs display a lot of integrity, its early access yet the content, polish, and stability blows most 'released' games out of the water.

and it's funny because satisfactory is directly inspired by factorio. They captured the gameplay, but not the soul behind it. what's even more funny is coffestain would be nothing BUT a stain on the wall if they hadn't made Goat Simulator, and stayed in touch with fans. Now, they're more than content to throw that away for some EZ-Bux

Despite being a soulless clone, I'd probably think about getting Satisfactory if I saw it on the Steam store on sale or something or during a drought where I felt I had nothing to play.

And that was the last we ever heard from him... This is your life now

Just lemme fix this here bottleneck and... *9 hours later* I CAN'T STOP!!!!

Local devs have trouble standing due to the weight of their massive granite testicles. Integrity like this is too rare.

This is how it is guys. THIS is what a great number of devs are missing. I hope these guys have several hits and never lose this attitude. Amazing.

What makes Satisfactory "soulless"? Coffee Stain are dicks about the epic games stuff but the game's good.

factorio is really good but whenever you start a save all of the sudden it's 30 hours later and the last couple days become a blur it's so immensely time consuming

I can't justify the price or their decision to never have sales (personally! remember, it's a subjective topic.) But I respect the devs a lot for this.

It's so refreshing to see a game studio actually having principles and sticking by them aka actually being passionate about video games and the industry and not selling out for that $$$

Does this imply they were approached for exclusivity, or am I reading into it?

The game has been available for a long time, any exclusivity would have been a small fraction of total sales. Whether people bought in @2013 kickstarter or steam in 2016 (as I did) Epic wasn't a concern at the time. That said their workflow is incredibly versatile, it captures a starcraft era iso aesthetic and that could be vectored towards many other styles of games once factorio is complete. Having fans to play the game is more important than having money to make it for the devs which is admirable. By comparison Satisfactory seems like someone mentioned above "soulless" Its entire theme being "serving under a massive corporation to exploit the natural resources of a planet for profit"- ironic game design there.

You will never be a shareholder. Go to your corner.

They're also quite transparent about their decisions and actively interact with the community. The only issues that ever come up are issues like Kovarex (or was it Klonan? I always mix the two up) wanting to remove logistics bots which caused a multiweek argument on the forums. And that's a matter of the devs' vision of the game not necessarily lining up with what the players expect. But the devs aren't unreasonable and are willing to hear people out. Hence why that debate resulted in logistics bots being kept in. (Though the devs themselves were largely split on the subject anyways.) The price is actually worthwhile for most people. I rarely even get a hundred hours out of any game but Factorio has easily given me over a thousand. No idea the exact amount though since I bought it straight off their website and not from Steam but that adds up to no more than $0.03 per hour played.

https://i.imgur.com/t9P3CWc.png One of the best things I ever funded on indigogo. Sometimes makes me sad I only spend 10€ on it but hey, it helped it going I guess, well and I got friends to buy it. Great example of a game being funded, with great Early Access period and a likely great release plus some nice post release updates. Hope they keep it up for a new game after release, would fund them again.

I don't consider price per hour, I consider overall enjoyment. I don't think Factorio gives me $30 in enjoyment, at least yet.

I'd say that if you play the game for this long as say that you didn't get $30 worth of enjoyment, then something is wrong.

They murdered them with kindness. https://i.imgur.com/pIrByPR.jpg

So what they're saying is "We turned down Epic"

I got my $30 worth in the first few days of owning the game - I'm surprised you don't think it's worth that much, when $30 is also equivalent to a nice meal for two.

It's just like Mr. Robot, E-Corp is actually Evil-corp. EA Epic. If it starts with E, it's all about money