Planetary Annihilation Haunts Human Resources Kickstarter
by Ahmad Khan
Uber Entertainment, the creators of Monday Night Combat and the Kickstarter funded Planetary Annihilation have started a new Kickstarter for a monster strategy game called Human Resources. According it’s Kickstarter page, Human Resources is a is a “PC real-time strategy game that puts you in command of apocalyptic factions vying to conquer the drifting remains of a shattered Earth. Using humans as your resource, assemble giant armies to annihilate your foes, then feed the newly-cleansed Earthshards to your almighty leader.” The Kickstarter went live a few days ago and so far is going ok. So far so good it seems.
However a cursory look at the comments section of Human Resources, as well as the latest update for Planetary Annihilation shows that a number of backers aren’t exactly happy that Uber Entertainment have launched a brand new Kickstarter while their pervious one is still, to quote a backer, “incomplete and un-finished“. Uber Entertainment promised a DRM-free copy for backers as well as offline-play option for Planatery Annihilation, which they promised in their very first update. So far neither of these options have been released to backers of that project, even though it has been over two years since that campaign launched, and over a month since Planetary Annihilation moved from Early Access, to final release. One intrepid backer also revealed the information on their Steam page promising DRM-free and offline play that was subsequently removed. It remains to be seen whether Uber Entertainment will eventually provide these promised features to their previous Kickstarter, or end up being yet another example of a video game Kickstarter that promises more than it can deliver. Either way, in the eyes of this backer, it is unethical to start a new project while the old one is still missing promises features, especially the one touted in their very first Kickstarter update and Launch Feature section of the Steam page.
Personally, I pulled out of Planetary Annihilation shortly after I backed it since it seemed fairly obvious they they were promising more than they could deliver. However, I’ve pledged to Human Resources on the lowest pledge tier, hopefully Uber Entertainment learned their lesson. Besides, I can’t say no to anything post-apocalyptic.
[divider]Update October 10th : We’ve posted an update on the Human Resources situation.
[author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ahmadkhan.jpg” ]Ahmad Khan grew up playing video games. A fan of RPGs and Post-Apocalypse games, Khan instantly fell in love with crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGogo that made games like Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity a reality. He also ended up being sort of a whistle blower for suspicious crowd funding project, believing that the venue of crowdfunding should be reserved for the honest and the passionate, not for the dishonest and dubious. [/author]
In three days backers will have offline. This is a clear sign that uber is still work on the game. I bet they will keep updating the game as long as people keep playing.
I am a bit wary on this game just hearing about how incomplete PA was even though it is now a full release . What really puzzles me is why no offline from the start surely they want to sell to as many people as possible and i am willing to bet more people can play offline then online
We’ve seen all this before from uber:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/new-kickstarter-giving-smnc-some-love.64733/page-4#post-1012239
offline play for PA was announced for the 9th now. Additionally Uber announced they hired the jables to further direct the way how PA is developed and how community interaction for PA can be improved. jables was producer on SupCom:FA in the past where his task also was to work with the community to make FA a good game. I think most people know how FA turned out: An addon that made a good base game fantastic.
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