That's interesting, I've never seen a pre-release DLC that expensive. I wonder if they are going for a kickstarter-style 'fund us' approach with that pack.
Those DLC packs are actually more like Kickstarter rewards. The text of the Pirate King DLC is this:
> This DLC gives you the right to enter a name and character backstory into the game, with skills, appearance, and special work requirements. In addition, your character will appear as the leader of another faction!
and follows with a note that says it does not affect game play, only gives you the right to add your desired content to the game.
$30 for a game that's early access, may never be finished.
$30 for a game that already has more content than many AAA games I've played, is still actively developed, is in many ways more advanced than most AAA games (in terms of the simulation and emergent gameplay). If it were abandoned RIGHT NOW, nobody would ever notice that it wasn't "completed".
I've personally got more value out of playing it than I get from most $60 games and I haven't even played the last two updates yet (which were HUGE).
The expensive packs are expensive because they let you add custom stuff to the game (e.g. Characters named after you) and not meant for the average player.
It's more finished than many "properly released" games. There are many games released to early and quite expensively as EA, but Rimworld really isn't in that category.
Early access is a descriptor that isn't too useful except to say the developer doesn't consider the product finished for a 'first' release. Some developers will label a game as completed when it has serious issues that prevent most from having fun. Other developers will label a game incomplete even though there are dozens of hours of enjoyment to be found. A better judgment is to ignore what is promised, and instead ask if the game as it currently exists justifies the price. In the case of Rimworld, that was a yes for me. It may not be a yes for others. That's fine; we all have different preferences.
Take a game with a lot of free updates, such as Terraria. Consider the game the day it was released. What if it had been labeled 'Early Access' and incomplete because it doesn't have all the features that were given in post-release updates? That wouldn't make it worth any less on the day it was released.
The problem, as I see it, is that the nuance you're talking about isn't visible from the Steam store page. When I see a game that's Early Access, there's not a lot to indicate to me:
a) How far through the QC process the game is
b) Whether the game is going to change dramatically in the next 6 months
c) Whether the game is about to be a cancelled project.
d) Whether there are features/portions of the game that will just _not_ work with <insert OS version/hardware/network configuration/...>
Basically, Early Access is too big a tent to be meaningful, except to take as a caution of "you might be paying for vapor."
I think GP is also potentially balking at the $300 DLC pack (what could be worth $300 from a game that isn't finished?)
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