UPDATED: Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter DLC announcement causes fan backlash
We reported yesterday that Carmageddon: Reincarnation is coming to Steam early access, alongside a number of bundles for the game being announced. This announcement included that backers of the game's successful Kickstarter would receive a "standard package bundle," while a full package with all DLC would eventually become available. This has irritated backers of the project, who have pledged up to $50 already.
Paid DLC had not been mentioned prior to this update, and many backers feel that, despite it being they who made the game possible, they're getting a raw deal.
Jason Garber of developer Stainless Games offered this statement to Kotaku:
"Simply put, everyone who pledged on Kickstarter will get the complete game. Kickstarter Backers will get the Early Access content, plus all subsequent updates that go together to make up the complete game. The “complete game” is what it says — the full-featured game as originally described, with multiple environments, cars, peds and events.
"It’s common practice to offer DLC for games — hell, we did the equivalent back in 1998 when we released The Splat Pack for Carmageddon. DLC is the additional content we offer after the game is finished and complete because we want to keep the game fresh and new for our players long after its release. The $US625k raised by our Kickstarter fans has contributed to development of the complete game. These Kickstarter funds are not being used to fund DLC development.
"We hope that fans of the game will be excited to expand their game with more stuff from us here at Stainless, as well as the CarMODgeddon content that will be coming from the community as well."
UPDATE: Stainless Games has been in touch to let us know that they've listened to fan feedback, and have now pledged that all Kickstarter and Paypal backers who paid to receive the game will get the full Carmageddon: Reincarnation game and all DLC.
Stainless Games says it looked at the feedback and realised that the fans had a point: "We’ve concluded that the fair thing to do would be to make this announcement," said publishing director Jason Garber. "EVERY Kickstarter and Paypal Backer who pledged the $15 and above for a copy of the game will be eligible to get The Full Package. They’ll get the full, final version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation and ALL DLC, for the REST OF TIME.”
Neil Barnden, brand director for Carmageddon, said, “We have always listened to the community, and felt that in this instance we’d clearly got it wrong the first time round. So it was imperative to make it clear how important the Backers remain to us, and deal with this as swiftly and positively as possible.”