PSA: Do not "invest" into exclusive skins

[Frosty_Mentos]

I believe people are torn by false advertising, or misleading advertisement. In today's age all the 'exclusives' often are either one of a kind or they return for resale because it benefits a company to do so.

I understand the frustration and it's less about that and more that 'you're supposed to feel special' part that annoys people by taking that part away. 

It's not great way to say one thing then do another, it contradicts the 'special' part about those items.

In a way, I feel like with the recent backpack skins we got as resurrected skins that's where the problem lays mostly. It maybe shouldn't have been brought back to keep it as morally gray as possible.

I have exclusive skins that come from like Willow's Witch hat from the funkopop. I wouldn't mind to see people be able to have the skin too, but it does maybe feel a little bit less special. I still like the hat, and I'm not selfish enough not to be sharing skins even when playing with people.

I like this franchise, I like when people get to enjoy skins and build things they like. I'm willing to play around the 'exclusivity' game by pretending that it means anything as long as people get to enjoy skins regardless.

[Zima Blue]

Wanting the skins to be exclusive is so selfish and mean. Why is it less fun for you if everyone has access to a skin? What makes it less enticing if people are enjoying something you also have? It sounds so much like a 5 year old child that doesn't like sharing their toys. Seeking love and recognition on pixels being exclusive is crazy! You don't actually like the skin, you like the fact that it distinguish you from other people, you like the fact that people can't enjoy the same things as you can. That's selfish in my opinion. I am backing the deluxe boardgame and bought all the add-ons, and I urge Klei and GCU to come to an agreement to make the skins available for everyone after the boardgame is shipped. Everyone should be able to have fun with these skins. Klei also needs the revenue and it would benefit them.

[Dr. Safety]

Probably too late to incorporate the recolor idea to "exclusive" skins. Releasing the exact same skin but recolored so the general idea is obtainable by everyone but a certain variant is only accessible to the original owners.

[JazzyGames]

Even aside from the argument that players deserve to have limited-time skins as a way of demonstrating to their online friends how long they've played the game - a philosophy in which I find little value - it also makes zero sense from a marketing perspective. If Klei has an opportunity to sell more desired skins and support the ongoing production of the game I see no reason why they shouldn't. It also ensures that new players won't be permanently locked out of content and experience a terminal FOMO for as long as they play the game.

Promote availability and limit exclusivity. I want the game and all of its content to remain as inclusive as possible. I want every decision made with the intention of attracting new players and keeping seasoned players engaged. Most of Klei's recent choices with this game seem to reinforce this spirit, and I support it wholeheartedly.

[Cheggf]

4 hours ago, Cheggf said:

I was about to spend $130 on the deluxe version until I learned that I missed out on some time-limited thing so if I want everything I need to spend $130 on the project and $10 on one expansion and $40 on another expansion and $100 on other random crap and shipping and handling and tariffs. If I'm spending like 7x the price of a board game before even including S&H I should get everything for the board game, the game shouldn't cost $300+.

I got Western Legends & its expansion for fifty bucks and this is great. Fun game, I recommend it. I can make five more of these purchases with the money I didn't spend on the overpriced Don't Starve board game. $180 + S&H&T for some pieces of paper then if you want things like a mat to play the game on it's another $100 + S&H&T. Ridiculous. 

[Evelo]

54 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I got Western Legends & its expansion for fifty bucks and this is great. Fun game, I recommend it. I can make five more of these purchases with the money I didn't spend on the overpriced Don't Starve board game. $180 + S&H&T for some pieces of paper then if you want things like a mat to play the game on it's another $100 + S&H&T. Ridiculous. 

Yep, I'm waiting for it to come to Tabletop Simulator if I ever decide to play it. 1) because my friends live all over the states so we can never do anything in person. 2) It's expensive.

[Cheggf]

Hopefully someone at Klei sees that I didn't buy the game because it's too expensive so they call up their buddies at Glass Cannon Unplugged and say "Crap, crap, crap! There's only $2,000,000 of sales in the first 24 hours! We're missing out on Cheggf's $130! We gotta do something about this! Without Cheggf our sales are gonna go down by 0.0065%!" and they lower the price for me specifically. 

[lowercase skye]

12 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Releasing the bottomless firepit was a grave misstep by Klei, loyal beta DST supporters that have been with the game from the start have no ingame way to show others this loyalty anymore hence even if fairness is important to gaming communities then it isn't fair to the DST beta player who now have nothing to show for it.

Loyal DST beta supporter here: I like that everyone can have the bottomless firepit and I would be very happy if every other exclusive skin I own (such as loyals, merch skins, old skins from the forge/gorge, etc) were made available to new players.

[Lovens]

Glad I'm boycotting spending money on anything DST-related since Klei ruined game's enjoyment for me. Therefore I have very easy time deciding to not buy the boardgame as well. They don't deserve a single dime of my money after what they've done to poor Pearl. 

[lowercase skye]

28 minutes ago, Lovens said:

They don't deserve a single dime of my money after what they've done to poor Pearl. 

Being upset about the way Hostile Takeover affected Pearl's island is entirely valid, but you've gotta stop presenting it as Klei having done something bad to Pearl the videogame character. What have they "done to poor Pearl," exactly? They allowed her to finally move on from this island that's been trapping her in the past, keeping her tethered to her lost love and clinging onto a false hope that he would one day come back. In reality, her idea of him is long dead, transformed into something that hardly resembles the man she knew. Now that she's moved on from this very-symbolic island, though, she can move in as a neighbor to these new people who are kind and care about her. She's no longer alone living in a pretty dollhouse of traumatic memories that we've constructed for her across miles of ocean, she's in our base and can interact with us every day!

Edited October 2, 2025 by lowercase skye

[Gashzer]

19 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

If you feel in-game content as if your value or social standing, maybe you should touch grass.

Well the overwhelmingly negative responses to me proves how valuable skins are to the DST community. Its also misleading marketing to call these skins exclusives if eventually they become accessible to the general DST players who haven't purchased the boardgame.

Having exclusive skins 100% boosts social standing/value within the world of DST 

14 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Hopefully someone at Klei sees that I didn't buy the game because it's too expensive so they call up their buddies at Glass Cannon Unplugged and say "Crap, crap, crap! There's only $2,000,000 of sales in the first 24 hours! We're missing out on Cheggf's $130! We gotta do something about this! Without Cheggf our sales are gonna go down by 0.0065%!" and they lower the price for me specifically. 

This is really interesting actually, Klei you should add exclusive DST skins to all of your future game releases. When someone purchases one of your games, they get a 6-month code for a exclusive DST skin. 

Jamie Cheng I bet you 100quid that your other game sales will skyrocket.

You should hire me as a sales consultant 

[Edible Coal]

just make the skin buyable in game and the fellows who brought the board game have them for free

[Gashzer]

4 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

just make the skin buyable in game and the fellows who brought the board game have them for free

Its the urgency of these skins potentially becoming rare that is the appeal.

If klei or glass cannon stated this before they opened the kickstarter to public investment, the sales would be no were near as high as right now.

So would be very stupid of them to state this now. Also they shouldn't throw about the word "exclusive" if they aren't going to keep to it.

Edited October 2, 2025 by Gashzer

[Captain_Rage]

Pretty much. It is obvious why the information about the benefits and rewards pertaining to the boardgame crowdfunding campaign are kept so vague. If everything was clearly written to begin with the potential buyers wouldn't keep enticing each other to throw as much money as possible at the project. Of course, the creators of the boardgame will only invest as much in the project as it makes sense depending on how much it gets funded, so they don't know what to expect either, but the way the "free" Pick/Axe skin was presented left a bitter aftertaste already.

[Gashzer]

14 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Pretty much. It is obvious why the information about the benefits and rewards pertaining to the boardgame crowdfunding campaign are kept so vague. If everything was clearly written to begin with the potential buyers wouldn't keep enticing each other to throw as much money as possible at the project. Of course, the creators of the boardgame will only invest as much in the project as it makes sense depending on how much it gets funded, so they don't know what to expect either, but the way the "free" Pick/Axe skin was presented left a bitter aftertaste already.

Exactly why im not investing in the boardgame even though its honestly something I want. I'll wait until it becomes cheaper in shops if it makes it into production (which is certain now, i guess )

But it takes clearer minds to realise that after all the hype, it's still going to take at least over a year before you get the boardgame despatched to your front door. 

Klei fooled me once with the not-exclusive bottomless firepit for beta backers, I won't be fooled twice backing this project.

The tactical vagueness is just cowardice from Klei.

Jamie Cheng my boy, you started the company Klei with the mindset of treating your developers better than the current greedy AAA companies, with that good morality in mind, just be straight with your loyal customers, will these skins become available to non-boardgame owners in the next, say, 3 years?

Edited October 2, 2025 by Gashzer

[Lovens]

11 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

Being upset about the way Hostile Takeover affected Pearl's island is entirely valid, but you've gotta stop presenting it as Klei having done something bad to Pearl the videogame character. What have they "done to poor Pearl," exactly? They allowed her to finally move on from this island that's been trapping her in the past, keeping her tethered to her lost love and clinging onto a false hope that he would one day come back. In reality, her idea of him is long dead, transformed into something that hardly resembles the man she knew. Now that she's moved on from this very-symbolic island, though, she can move in as a neighbor to these new people who are kind and care about her. She's no longer alone living in a pretty dollhouse of traumatic memories that we've constructed for her across miles of ocean, she's in our base and can interact with us every day!

I get your point and I didn't really want to go into detail here since this topic is not the place for it. I wrote a lengthy reply and made it a separate post. Please feel free to continue the discussion there. 

Edited October 2, 2025 by Lovens

[SilverSpoon]

24 分前、Gashzer は次のように述べました:

Well the overwhelmingly negative responses to me proves how valuable skins are to the DST community. Its also misleading marketing to call these skins exclusives if eventually they become accessible to the general DST players who haven't purchased the boardgame.

Having exclusive skins 100% boosts social standing/value within the world of DST 

Even if this wasn't about skin, you would still get overwhelmingly negative responses. They're not responding at your skin, they're responding at your act like angry cock. 

Try to act normal.

12 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Pretty much. It is obvious why the information about the benefits and rewards pertaining to the boardgame crowdfunding campaign are kept so vague. If everything was clearly written to begin with the potential buyers wouldn't keep enticing each other to throw as much money as possible at the project. Of course, the creators of the boardgame will only invest as much in the project as it makes sense depending on how much it gets funded, so they don't know what to expect either, but the way the "free" Pick/Axe skin was presented left a bitter aftertaste already.

If you don’t like the Kickstarter, just don’t back it or cancel your pledge. Klei or anyone else is not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to spend money on it or collect all skin.

[Hollow soul 3]

12 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Even if this wasn't about skin, you would still get overwhelmingly negative responses. They're not responding at your skin, they're responding at your act like angry cock. 

Try to act normal.

If you don’t like the Kickstarter, just don’t back it or cancel your pledge. Klei or anyone else is not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to spend money on it or collect all skin.

That's the thing about FoMO. It preys on a large group, because some suckers will fall for it. It's gross for a company to abuse this relationship for a quick buck. It's one of the reasons we hate blizzard.

[Tigris Nano]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

If klei or glass cannon stated this before they opened the kickstarter to public investment, the sales would be no were near as high as right now.

Just like if temu said their products are low quality and dont match stated parameters in their ads, their sales would also be much lower. But result doesnt really justify the way or means. Its still lie, manipulation and playing on fomo.

[SilverSpoon]

32 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

That's the thing about FoMO. It preys on a large group, because some suckers will fall for it. It's gross for a company to abuse this relationship for a quick buck. It's one of the reasons we hate blizzard.

Um... if this was something that was actually useful in the game, it would be one thing, but this is just a skin, and it can still be cancelled so still no one were cheated after buying it...

If you don't need the look of the skin, there's not need to buy it, so I don't think it has that much power of FOMO...

32 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

some suckers will fall for it

Edited October 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Hollow soul 3]

19 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Um... if this was something that was actually useful in the game, it would be one thing, but this is just a skin, and it can still be cancelled so still no one were cheated after buying it...

If you don't need the look of the skin, there's not need to buy it, so I don't think it has that much power of FOMO...

people can absolutely experience fomo for cosmetic items. If you look, you'll find examples all over the place. Diablo 4 immediately comes to mind. It rotates shop items to capitalize on this.

 

You can post a meme, but we have people on the forums who only backed for the skins. If you're spending tens to hundreds of dollars on a board game, and you don't like board games...

[SilverSpoon]

16 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

people can absolutely experience fomo for cosmetic items. If you look, you'll find examples all over the place. Diablo 4 immediately comes to mind. It rotates shop items to capitalize on this.

I agree. FOMO is FOMO, no matter how large or small, but I don't think this is really bad kind of FOMO.

16 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

You can post a meme, but we have people on the forums who only backed for the skins. If you're spending tens to hundreds of dollars on a board game, and you don't like board games...

Well... I just thought calling them a "sucker" even though they might be watching is SLAMDUNK shouldn't.

Edited October 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Hollow soul 3]

5 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

I agree. FOMO is FOMO, no matter how large or small, but I don't think this is really bad kind of FOMO.

Well... I just thought calling them a "sucker" even though they might be watching is slamdunk shouldn't.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I gotta repeat. I think that if you have no interest in the board game as a game or collectors item, you should not feel compelled into backing a boardgame. It's the toy at the bottom of the cereal box, we use this trick on children.

Everyone's been that sucker at some point. The shame is on the companies that use gimmicky tactics like this, not the people who fall for it.

[Cheggf]

18 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Hopefully someone at Klei sees that I didn't buy the game because it's too expensive so they call up their buddies at Glass Cannon Unplugged and say "Crap, crap, crap! There's only $2,000,000 of sales in the first 24 hours! We're missing out on Cheggf's $130! We gotta do something about this! Without Cheggf our sales are gonna go down by 0.0065%!" and they lower the price for me specifically. 

Bad news, guys. When I told one of my friends about the board game he agreed it was extremely expensive and was surprised about its price, comparing it to a different Kickstarter board game he had bought in the past which was only $80 for everything. But then he bought it anyways even though he just said it was "waaaay too expensive"! So his purchase of it was all it took to peer pressure me into instantly folding, and I bought it too, so now they have both of our money. They were surely about to lower the prices any minute had I not capitulated, but woe and alas, I have. They have doubled their profits by causing me to inadvertently advertise it due to complaining about its price. This was surely their master plan all along. 

[Kaioh]

On 10/1/2025 at 1:29 PM, loopuleasa said:

Historically, the community is really OCD on collecting all skins so there is no way Klei will not add alternative acquisition routes later.

It will take time, but it will happen. People are too frantic with their precious little skins. Just have patience and don't mind it.

 

The current Don't Starve boardgame has marketed the skins as "exclusive", but if you've been around you know that words don't mean much.

Which is a good thing. It's a game. With digital pixels. It doesn't have to be this serious.

Do not FOMO, there is no point.

 

Buy the boardgame for the sake of the boardgame only.

As someone that plays many 6-8 hour long boardgames I can say it is up my alley and I love it a lot from what I've seen. They cooked.

 

Just a PSA

Or how about Klei just stops releasing exclusive skins with merch if they don't want people to hyperfocus on the skins? It's completely useless telling people not to buy the board game if they don't care for the skins when Klei is being deliberately silent on the matter of the skin resurrection to max out the FOMO factor. The practice of selling physical goods with exclusive digital items needs to be condemned. If Klei wants to give people proof of buying authentic products, they should just hand out codes for common skins like with regular winter hats or something along those lines, adding exclusive rewards will just keep fueling the competition for supply between skin collectors and merch enjoyers, ensuring there will be less physical goods for the people who truly want physical goods.

As for the term "exclusive", actually, Klei was pretty hardline in keeping skin exclusivity alive until fairly recently, they even outright stated things like Proof of Purchase skins would only be available with buying physical merch. I wouldn't expect resurrection until Klei's financials start collapsing again, which who knows when that will happen since this kickstarter is a gold mine for them