I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered but I am just popping in for a moment between packing boxes and don't have time to read all the posts.

Is the game going to continue to be a special editors addition including the game guide or is this only for a limited time during early launch?

The Developer's Edition of Virtual Villagers: The Tree of Life (along with the extra goodies) will remain available exclusively through Last Day of Work even after the regular version is distributed to other game sites.

Thanks for the answer Xay! Got that gut feeling that this is going to be the best one yet!

Xay I have a problem I downloaded the demo and then as soon as it ended I bought the game and didn't get the guide
I bought the game from LDW from a screen as soon as the free trial ended a bubble popped up and it said buy VV4 and I clicked that and the normal process went on
I will post this in technicval support.

Bluedog, please send me a support form using the link in my signature.

Despite one possible glitch love the game. Thank you Arthur, Carla and everyone else for the best VV game yet. Will have hours of fun while waiting for the next game you launch.

Just to put this in perspective, if you buy the game from us you pay $9.99, and you get the game guide free. We are not intending to make one cent on the game guide, we are trying to give people more reasons to buy the games from us.

Steam has a different model. Their games that continue to receive the free updates are their in-house games and are the vehicles for their portal. They reward you for using their portal (Steam) with the free content updates, and they monetize that by selling hundreds of other games to you. I love Steam, btw...it's just a different model.

Fun fact: When you buy a VV game at a competing portal, in most cases they keep the majority of the money. We receive as little as $2 from some of them. There has been a lot of controversy about this in the last year, and the general result was that many developers decided that they were going to quietly make their casual games smaller and cheaper, to make up for the low revenue coming in from all the distributors (due to the small % we keep, and the crazy price competition).

We really do not want to make the VV games, or any of our games, smaller or cheaper. In fact, we are spending more than ever on the development, so we are moving forward carefully and trying to make good decisions to keep this sustainable for us, and to keep making the games that we believe in.

I will talk more about this going forward as we figure out and announce the rest of our distribution plan for Virtual Villagers 4 - The Tree of Life.

wooooooot

What does it mean by Developer Edition. Does it mean that if I download the Development Edition and play finish the 60 minutes free trial, when the reular edition come out, I can re-download again and play again (full 60 minutes). When will the regular version come out?
If I buy the guide for VV4 developers edition when VV4 guide come out how?
If I buy VV4 developers edition and when VV4 come out or a new version come out how?

The Developer's Edition is the full version of the game that is bundled with special, exclusive content from LDW (the developer of the series). There is no 'development edition' of VV4, since we conduct all testing in private. If you go here, you will see that the Developer's Edition includes the Official Guide, wallpapers for your desktop, and MP3 player compatible soundtracks.

As with all of our games, the Windows version download is a free trial that will allow you to play for 60 minutes. Entering the activation code that you receive when you purchase the game will unlock the game's full features. If you use up your free trial from our site, you will not be able to have another free trial from our site.