Another interesting idea - but as ever, anything will need dev time ultimately.
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A the end of the day, if the game is not successful, then the people developing the game need income to support themselves and their families. I do understand that. Given the option of working for Larian or not being paid, then there is not much of a choice and I would agree that the right thing was done.
Now as a person that has heavily invested time and money into Boundless, I would like to find a way for the game to survive. If that is through Square Enix versus Turbulenz then I am fine with that. My personal goal is to know if there is a way to keep the servers running and see if ultimately at least the self hosting development can be completed.
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Well, it’s almost three years since the game left Early Access. While I’ve not played in a while now (I mis-timed my Gleam Club renewal, and lost everything…) I have been perusing the community update emails regularly, and since the point about “maybe Square Enix should do some marketing” came up (which, is a very fair question) I thought it was worth answering. Or at least, if not answering, responding to.
A quick glance at Steam, I’ve put over 1600 hours into the game, and it will always have a place in my heart. I’m as gutted as anybody that it didn’t work out the way we hoped, and my personal frustration is that (with hindsight) we could have marketed differently.
But, all we can do is learn lessons (and take those learnings into future projects), even if the process of doing so is bittersweet.
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I’ve said this a few times so I will own it. My apologies if it seemed a bit harsh.
I search several times a week for new games (been doing this for 5+ years) & I almost never see anything mentioning Boundless, unless there is a steam sale.
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As I said, SE doesn’t own the IP and we don’t have devs standing by even if we did. So I don’t think we’re really in a position to offer a solution - but if at least it was break-even vs running costs, that would be a way to maintain the current status.
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In another thread ( @dev headquarters - can we, the players, help in any way? ), there are fans here willing to do work… and another game I play has hired at least one fan as contract support. Could that be another workaround on dev time and cost saving - even if they can’t take on volunteers/unpaid interns for legal reasons, contract hire a few people here to work remotely on the game at the minimum wage? There would be some onboarding time of course, and this is something I can’t do myself, but could outsourcing some of the work maybe be a longer term way to make it more sustainable? I actually think fans as hires might be less liable to leave than your average hire perhaps.
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@philelliott Just to clarify there… I think many of us here as you can tell are grasping at straws here as we are all very worried about the future of the game. There are also many of us that feel there are many ways the game could recoup funds and I by no means meant to insinuate that Square Enix didn’t market the game. I based my marketing comments mostly around the fact that the game fell under the radar of a great many of sandbox players I play with and on top of all that I am not even sure at this point like many have stated that marketing is the best idea.
I do however feel that maybe there is something that can be done here and there is a lot of untapped potential here both from a monetary standpoint and from a development standpoint. I am not sure what options are on the table, but I hope at least the game is still considered as salvageable by Square Enix.
I am willing to do whatever I can to help in any way much as I offered to @james and Turbulenz.
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So if I understand we need a zero (or near zero) development effort way to incent players to fund the running costs. So we need something that exists or has existed in the game. Could players fund events like gleambow? Maybe have a $500 goal and when it is reached we get a gleambow event? As others have stated maybe buy a color changing exo for $100 a week?
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No, not at all. It’s a fair question - and there is more we could do. To be fair though, when we did email and social marketing post-release (and I’m talking months after release, not just in the first few weeks) it just didn’t move the needle.
Collective is a small team, and we also work on multiple projects - we could take the decision to put the community and marketing resource into Boundless again, but that would be at the expense of other current or forthcoming projects. And, to be honest, without knowing myself what the future holds, it’s not something I’m going to consider anyway.
So I totally get that folks will ask about marketing - and I don’t take any insinuations. We did take a specific and thought-through approach that involved a range of marketing types (social, influencers), but it just didn’t generate results; and thereafter word of mouth wasn’t enough to get over the hurdle for the kind of critical mass of players we’d hoped for.
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Yep, that was part of my thought process too - it wouldn’t take much work I’d think? All the parts are in place, with the purchasing system and the special types of planets. Sounds like the Gleambow exos are part of the update so just about done.
It really strikes me as the most fair route of monetization if everybody can access them (buyer just controls timing), and a method that would I think really bring some players back. It is upsetting for people when they’re too rare and they can’t make them. The ONLY potential downside is the game economy, and that seems like a very small issue, and perhaps would go the other way, stimulate it some, especially with players coming back for special rentals.
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I would gladly pay for portals via Gleam Club add-on and insta-craft abilities as Paka mentioned.
They could make oort weapons and tools available in the live MMOverse so people would still farm oort.
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Honestly, I don’t know - it’s not for me to say in any case, and I definitely don’t want to put pressure on James or the team to commit to one thing or another.
I’m really only commenting because I feel like it’s probably overdue on my part, and I recognise the passion and commitment of the community here. I guess in a way it’s a kind of apology, because I wish we’d done better overall.
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I do think there are impacts on the economy, just like there are whenever events happen. I do agree that we do tend to get a player bump during special events so it might compensate enough or it might be that at this time is it not really important. the economy can always recover once the game reaches critical mass.
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Really appreciate it. 
Thank you for taking the time here. We really do love the game (check out the hours some of us have put into it! - PS4 users, see your 2019 hours here! ) and there is so much potential here I see to grow it… Boundless is innovative, and has hit on some really cool things like the rental worlds (see if James can print up a statement of how much I’ve spent on them 
)… like others here, I’m convinced there is a lot of potential here to grow and flourish, though right now things don’t sound very promising here from what you’ve said and I appreciate your honesty. Regardless of how it goes, I will always be grateful for Boundless, it really made a difference in some of our lives - the escape the game provides, and the bonds we formed in the community.
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ok I guess the real question is one that cannot be answered. How long is Square Enix willing to cover the costs to run the game? Unfortunately we are not getting regular information from Tubulenz. There are likely good reasons for this, but if they are the only ones that can put things in place that might be able to keep the game running until they have time and resources to further development, then we are essentially stuck at a point where it seems to be up to Square Enix what happens next.
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If they’re able to get the 249/250 update out with melee weapons & local worlds, I’ll commit to creating a new trailer/video along with posting on my social medias. It may not help anything, but I don’t think it could hurt.
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I can’t really answer that one.
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Pay to win !! But what exactly do you win in this game? The object of the game is to have fun. You could rate the PayToFast game. Pay for the quality of life and save some of the grinding to move forward faster.
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@philelliott I greatly appreciate your honesty and communication and there is no apology necessary in regards to commenting on here. I do wish it were better news, but I like to be optimistic and think there are some positives here and if anything (as you have mentioned) there is a ton of passion here in this community and I feel blessed to be a part of it.
I do realize your hands are tied to an extent, but I am very happy to know that you keep your eyes on things.
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That is unfortunate. I truly do think that a marketing push would help; especially with more visible steamers (Twitch, Facebook) and Youtube. Yet, I also understand that this may take resources your team doesn’t have at the moment. Still, there has to be options. 
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