Why Founders Pack Exclusivity Is Hard To Defend

[Sniperoth]

First of all, let me make one thing clear: I am neither for nor against re-opening Founders Pack. My goal is just to clarify why some people 'feel' that re-opening it is justifiable. Let's admit it, there's a 'feeling' that it's not so horribly wrong as opposed to some other games where you can flat out say, "No. Exclusive is exclusive." and not have any hesitations about it. And this, I think, is the crux of it.

The fundamental difference between "Founders Pack" for Warframe and every other game is this..

For other games:
1. Game is in beta, Founders Pack is offered
2. Founders Pack ends
3. Beta ends, game goes 'retail' (or 'production' stage)

Warframe:
1. Game is in beta, Founders Pack is offered
2. Founders Pack ends
3. Months later, game is still in beta (and looks like it will still be in beta indefinitely)
4. More people joins in and supports the beta game

Founders Pack is a 'token' for the devs to show appreciation to people committed enough to support their game while it's still in development. It works for other games because their Founders Pack program ends at the same time as (or a bit earlier than) their beta phase. This doesn't work for Warframe because the game is in beta indefinitely. Instead of having Founders Pack serve as described above, it becomes more of a privilege behind a time wall.

For other games, it's the difference between people who believed in and supported the developers while the game is under development VS people who joined well after it's already a successful "retail" game - making it distinctly obvious why the former deserves the Founders Pack privilege compared to the latter. Whereas in Warframe, the difference is merely between 2 groups of people who are both playing a game that is still under development and who both want to support the developers. It's just that one group learned about the game earlier than the other group - which makes it really hard to justify exclusivity.

For what it's worth, exclusive is and should always be exclusive. But at least remove the 'beta' label and go 'retail'. As it is, instead of the Founders Pack serving as a token of gratitude for people who supported the game while it's under development, it's serving as a slap in the face to people who are here right now and ARE supporting the game while it IS STILL under development - whose only fault (if you can even call it that) is they arrived a bit later than the others.

That or find some other way that won't insult the people who supported the game before and the people who are supporting the game now - while it is still under development.

[Arunafeltz]

It's too late to change anything about the Founder gear imo. Sure hope DE has learnt from this and does not release exclusive Valkyr Vandals or something anymore.

[Vunie]

or just deal with the fact that they do what they want and if they say its going to stay for founders then it is 

[Stormandreas]

The reason founders has ended, is because DE no longer need the extensive funding from players they used to. As they are now on PS4, they are also supported by Sony, and have so many players paying for Platinum, and the Prime access, that they do not need players to "found" warframe.

Also, the items in the Founders pack were a small 'Thank You' for founding the game. All Beta games have exclusives in their Founders package, and none I have seen have released these items publicly.

[Padawelts]

Live and Learn, if they bring it back, they bring it back.

[Shehriazad]

*Waves excalibro prime infront of your face*

YOU WON'T GET IT...:NEVAAAAAAA

[immolator1001]

Why Founder's pack exclusivity is easy to defend:

 

They are legally obligated because they said it was exclusive and would never be released again.

[Sniperoth]

Before this gets derailed further by people who didn't seem to grasp the point of the thread, let me say this again: exclusive is and should always be exclusive.

 

I'm not saying Founders Pack should be back. I'm saying what they did wrong and why it's hard to defend the exclusivity

[Dtexas]

Problem is, the game is no where near a "retail" release. The amount of problems with people having games crashing, strict NAT problems, crashing again, hosting/lag issues and even more crashing is why the game is still in beta. If any of those things are in a retail game and a lot of people experience it, the game is considered more or less a fail. Once all the connection issues are fixed to where very little people experience it, then the game can go retail. 

 

Something else you have to realize is the fact that this is DE's first completely solo game, and its big on multiplayer at that. There are going to be issues. And Founders packs are usually only closed beta anyways, it was lucky that the Founders pack even lasted as long as it did (even I got lucky with this). As far as I know Founders stuff is only ever closed beta, and it ends once the closed beta is over, not the entire beta.

[ajwalker65]

Founders Pack was offered for a limited time to people who helped support the game in it's early development. Therefore "Founders." 

 

The people who come along later  (myself included, and no matter how much later), have no reason to complain or feel "cheated."

 

Why is that so hard to understand?

[immolator1001]

Before this gets derailed further by people who didn't seem to grasp the point of the thread, let me say this again: exclusive is and should always be exclusive.

 

I'm not saying Founders Pack should be back. I'm saying what they did wrong and why it's hard to defend the exclusivity

No since your arguement is that this is still in beta so exclusivity is pointless, however Warframe keeps the beta tag so that they can overhaul massive issues (damage 2.0, melee 2.0, mods) without any backlash. Warframe will never be "retail." 

 

It's also difficult to explain just how little you are missing. I only got excalibur prime and all he has is a slight shield regen boost and cosmetics. DE releases exclusive cosmetics all the time, they are called badges.

Edited March 12, 2014 by immolator1001

[jrkong]

Why don't we just treat Founders Program like a Kickstarter campaign? When you help kickstart a business generally you get discounts and sometimes a Kickstater skin or look for the product you're backing. Does it make sense for people to ask for the Kickstarter skin after it's ended?

[Stormandreas]

Before this gets derailed further by people who didn't seem to grasp the point of the thread, let me say this again: exclusive is and should always be exclusive.

 

I'm not saying Founders Pack should be back. I'm saying what they did wrong and why it's hard to defend the exclusivity

 

my response

 

the items in the Founders pack were a small 'Thank You' for founding the game. 

[xShadowsaur]

To me it made sense why they ended it. It was for the founders of the first year of Warframe's existence. They were there from the start (presumably). Founders was supposed to end with closed beta, but we were lucky they pushed it as far as they did.

[RoboDoge]

If DE promised that Founders items are exlusive, they should keep onto that promise.

 

 

Founders program ended and you cannot buy it anymore. People should get over it and buy Prime Access. Game isnt in early developing anymore and they dont need founding backing anymore, so DE decided to terminate Founders.

 

 

Go with your life, and dont bother. I hardly see how having Founder package affects your gameplay.

[TheFakeMackie]

The thing with the founders pack is that, while it is easy to say a person who supports the game and is active now is more of a "founder" than someone who joined a month earlier and got the founders pack yet rarely plays the game. You need to consider the comparison of even that same new person who is currently supporting the game compared to the people who supported the game yeeeears ago. At that point I don't think you can deny that the older person probably does deserve an exclusive. Yes whenever there is a hard cutoff there will always be people on the edge who may or may not deserve to be there (think of someone who gets a grade of 92.9% and as such doesn't get an A) but you still have to cut it off at some point. To use the grade example again, imagine a teacher bumps that 92.9 up to a 93 and the student gets an A. But what if a person gets a 92.8 and they are now .1 away from an A. Should the teacher change the standard now for that person? DE had to make a decision to cut off the founders pack at some point and obviously people who joined after that date unfortunately won't have access to that pack but that's just how it played out.

 

A final hypothetical for you: pretend that the founders pack was brought back even for a few days. What would DE do for people who sign up right after those two days are over? would the founders pack eventually return for those people? Once you stop keeping concrete dates and barriers concrete you begin down a slippery slope of contradictions that is in the long term toxic for the developers and the health of the game

[Ourobor]

Can someone find any evidence of Warframe still claiming to be in beta? Only steam still seems to claim it is("Warframe is a cooperative Free-to-Play third person online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world and is currently in open beta."), and that sentence is changed in DE's official description of the game("Warframe is a cooperative free-to-play online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world.").
I don't know if it's somewhere else on their page or I missed something glaringly obvious, but perhaps the game isn't considered to be in beta anymore?

[Bobsplosion]

If Founders is re-opened...

I would be bitter, but I probably wouldn't stop playing or buying plat, realistically.

[Arunafeltz]

Can someone find any evidence of Warframe still claiming to be in beta? Only steam still seems to claim it is("Warframe is a cooperative Free-to-Play third person online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world and is currently in open beta."), and that sentence is changed in DE's official description of the game("Warframe is a cooperative free-to-play online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world.").

I don't know if it's somewhere else on their page or I missed something glaringly obvious, but perhaps the game isn't considered to be in beta anymore?

Try opening your Warframe client and looking at the top right

[Zachles]

Why Founder's pack exclusivity is easy to defend:

 

They are legally obligated because they said it was exclusive and would never be released again.

 

This.

 

It's not coming back, ever. Get over it.

 

-Waves my exclusive Founders gear around!-

[(PSN)Daikon177]

I just want Excalibur Prime

[Ryme]

The flaw in the OP's reasoning is the association of the definition of a "Founder" to the status of "Beta." A Founder is not simply someone who supports the game during Beta. A Founder is a person who supports the game waaaaay back in its infancy, when the company was relatively unknown and the game had little to no backing, other than the few players who believed in the idea of what the game was intended to be.

 

Just because the timeline of the two may overlap with what is the "beta" stage of the game, does not mean that one defines the other. Or rather, a Founder is a Beta player, but a Beta player is not necessarily a Founder.

[Ourobor]

Try opening your Warframe client and looking at the top right

So glaringly obvious >.>

I don't even understand the push for getting the founders gear back. Why not just ask for the affinity to be given out for free or whatever and leave the founders their gear?

[RoboDoge]

So glaringly obvious >.>

I don't even understand the push for getting the founders gear back. Why not just ask for the affinity to be given out for free or whatever and leave the founders their gear?

They want shiny.

 

Because game is ruined without it.

[Padawelts]

The flaw in the OP's reasoning is the association of the definition of a "Founder" to the status of "Beta." A Founder is not simply someone who supports the game during Beta. A Founder is a person who supports the game waaaaay back in its infancy, when the company was relatively unknown and the game had little to no backing, other than the few players who believed in the idea of what the game was intended to be.

 

Just because the timeline of the two may overlap with what is the "beta" stage of the game, does not mean that one defines the other. Or rather, a Founder is a Beta player, but a Beta player is not necessarily a Founder.

 

I didn't play in the Beta but I became a founder cause I believed in DE that they could make a good game and they delivered, they just so happened to give me a warframe in the process. Founders really should be more about supporting the game, not getting items out of it.