Dark and Light pre-orders

Well, the guys who make Dark and Light are doing something interesting. They're making a six month prequel game to both reward the faithful who've followed the game for years, and probably act as a beta-test of the economy and advancement system. Of course, they don't call it that... but while they evolve and beta-test the code in their closed beta, they can use a stable build to "test" the development of player dynamics while calling it a prequel.

They apparently have 8881 pre-order slots (at $60USD a pop) which sold out in two days time. There are an additional 10,000 free slots that will be first-come first-serve on December 8th. That is just shy of $54,000USD... which is not very much when you think about it. When I was an overpaid dot-com employee, I made that much in a year. I'm sure the dev team pays better (being on the coast, not in the midwest), and employs more people.

That tells me that it's a legitimate offer, not a way to suck money for a game that won't ever materialize. Why? Well, if they knew they weren't going live, they'd try to get as many pre-orders as possible.

I'll just have to try and get my browser in there on the 8th to see if I can try the game.