Backers and followers of Squadron 42 noticed something a bit worrying in the middle of May: The purchase page was returning a 404 error with no explanation from CIG. This led to a whole bunch of speculation, from the ultimately unwarranted assumption that development of the game had halted to the more feasible conclusion that a price hike was coming. Meanwhile, the studio stayed quiet on the subject for weeks and later stealth-removed the pledge button entirely.
Now, buried within the official forums but unearthed by Reddit, one of CIG’s devs has confirmed that an “expected price change” is indeed coming for SQ42.
As one might expect, this news did not go over well with backers, as many either decried a price hike for a game that has no obvious release window and no perceptible steps towards a released state or at least asked for an explanation, while other backers suggested that the single-player game should raise its price only on release.
In addition to the planned price hike for SQ42, players are also reporting price changes on certain ships: The Avenger Titan went up by $5, the Cutlass Black by $10, and the Vanguard Hoplite rose by $5. These price changes were once more confirmed by CIG based on findings from regular value reviews by the studio, but the studio also says it’ll revert the changes until June 27th.
It’s important to note here that these changes weren’t widely communicated and that the reversion was initiated only after players called attention to the issue, despite CIG claiming it would “certainly prefer providing advance notice,” while the whole matter has players asking a variety of valid questions about CIG’s intentions and decisions.
