Am I Stupid To Buy Early?

Its the same as anything else you buy kid. If you are an early adopter (even for a unreleased game now days) you typically will pay more then if you wait. Steam does huge sales during the Summer and Winter. It is not Stardocs fault you chose to be an early adopter. Go look at Civ: Beyond Earth, same thing. People bitching (and yes you were) that the game is 40% off 2 months after release.

Welcome to Steam Winter sales.

I feel your pain but you'll be a happier gamer if you make peace with the market. I've been a pc gamer for nearly as long as pc's have been around and sales and discounts have been a part of it all along. Sure, Steam has accelerated the trend, but I could list hundreds of titles I've purchased over the years only find them on sale soon after release. I like to think that I've saved more money than not over the years, and while I have a list of regrettable purchases (Daikatana? Spore?) GC3 isn't one of them because I know it will be great game that gives me hundreds of hours of fun. I suspect I'll still be playing this game when GC4 is announced. That's a lot of value even at full price, or more.

Ultimately we all have to do a little guesswork about the value we expect to get at the time and price of the sale. Sometimes we guess wrong, but in the case of GC3 in particular, everyone was told in big loud bold text that we were buying an unfinished game early in development and not to expect a finished product. I haven't played a lot of the beta, but I have no regrets and I received exactly what I paid for. I don't feel stupid for supporting Stardock or any company that provides value for my money , even when a sale comes along a few months later.

Stardock is the only company that could get my $100 for a game two years away based on a few screenshots.  I bought early and I'm really glad I did.

I agree charon2112, the way I figure I paid less than 7 cents per hour of fun so far.  Oh, and I still get all new stuff for free to boot.

Personally I'm not a big fan of pre-ordering - especially when all you've seen of a product is trailer videos and carefully crafted dev hype.

It's 'buyer beware' and rightfully so. There are, to be honest, quality issues with many games coming out these days, and you can hardly trust marketing to reveal that ahead of time!

But on occassion I have pre-ordered. Kerbal Space Program for one, because I played the demo and loved it. Gal Civ 3 because I love me a good space 4-x and I'd seen plenty of youtube let's plays and it looked fun. Guild Wars 2 because the beta weekend blew me away.

For me that's the secret: if you have seen enough of a game to actually judge if the gameplay seems fun RIGHT NOW, go ahead. But don't buy on reputation and screenshots, and don't buy a banal product in alpha hoping it's going to be awesome later on.

you know spore while being a bad game the concept is still good that game had so much potential but what we got was crap

Only stupid if you were buying a worthless game. This game is worth the $40 you paid. Sale, or no sale.

Maybe i am writing that post with the anger after saw the huge off-price . I am a steam user only for 6 months so dont know winter sales and Turkey is a muslim country that doesnt have christmas or christmas sale concept . I love 4x space games especially GC series and i will buy whatever the price even i am not rich . The issue is not the price I paid, %50 sale off on a game that even not to be released i am angered . I love Stardock and their no copy-protection policy as we can try and buy it if we like . I like Brad Wardell as well that risked money for the release a game that its genre is I am fan of but also losing ground, there is no MOO or Space Empires new games;  only indie games . GC is the last defender of good 4x space game all around , so I should support it; I will support it . Maybe i should be angry to Steam not to Stardock. If someone offended, i am sorry :') . 

Stardock has a proven track record. I would preorder games from them that I would not preorder from someone else.

GalCiv 2 got many many updates throughout its life time. The devs did listen to much of the feedback given. When Demigod was released, there were 10x the number of pirates trying to play online than there were actual customers trying to play, and there were problems with the bought network software that didn't show itself during the beta. I heard that it was very bad. Stardock, the publisher, did a crunch time for about a month and fixed things. The actual devs for the game claimed that Stardock saved the game. When Stardock released the turd that was Elemental War of Magic, they promised to fix things, but it was so bad that they ended up promising 2 free games when they discovered how bad it was. They did some reorganizing of their company, hired some new talent, and turned 2 DLC planned for Elemental, combined them, and released it as a stand alone game. That game, and the DLC for it was given away for free to those who had supported Elemental from the very start.

How many companies do that. It might suck that you paid full price for something that was sold for much less recently, but I think you still got a good deal. There are games out there that are not worth getting even at 90% off.