As a dev myself in a team environment I get enough of bugs, meetings, QA, and support issues such that I really don't need to experience painfully in development game code during my down time.  I also have so many games to play, books to read, songs to learn on guitar, and wife to occasionally interact with that I could clone myself and still never have enough time for it all.

So I'm fine with waiting for a more stable product even if this xpac looks pretty amazing and I can't wait to try it out.

I also don't recall beta access to everything ever made as a benefit to being an elite founder, but I'm sure I don't remember it all either.  Elite Founder was a no brainer purchase for me as a Stardock/Galciv fan, and since I knew I'd buy everything released for the game, not because I was looking for future entitlements.

^ Outside of the base game betas of future content wasn't a stated feature of the Founders package. However, Stardock has made promises since then about giving Founders access to the expansions and it is fair enough that they be held account for those promises.

 Explanation ... it is too late.

If you can find a post where this was "promised" please link to it.

An intention is not a promise.  If I wrote "I promise you will have <X>" then I can assure you, it will happen.  However, if I say "We expect founders to have it by date X" isn't a promise.

I think people throw around the word "promise" far too loosely these days, especially online.  

We intended to make the betas available to lifetime founders.  It was never a promise nor was it part of the package.  

I really do appreciate the support from most you guys and gals here.  I've had a good time working again on GalCiv and I think you'll like what we've created.

Apology accepted but I wish you'd have delegated the key giving to another Stardock team member!

Thanks for the explanation Frogboy.  Looking forward to Thursday.

You mention in the preview threat at least twice that Founders "will" get access to the beta. Over on Steam to at least one question on if Founders would get early access you're reply was "Yes". You created the expectation that Founders will get a beta/EA, it might not have been your intention but it happened.

Correct.  It was our intent to get lifetime founders a build earlier than we did.  I suppose as a bit of an old guy, I have a different view on what constitutes a promise.  I even looked up the definition and find it's been watered down to simply "giving the expectation".  

The short version is:  Sometimes we don't get what we want in life.  

Thanks for the explanation, Brad. Have you had a chance to think of how you might handle it next time? It seems like it is getting harder each time to find a safe/reliable way, so you may wish to brainstorm some ideas with your teams. Or even with a few of us Elite Founders.

Barring the ability to see the future, we're going to go with the standard "don't count on beta access" in the future if the title is being distributed via Steam.

Just for curiosity's sake, how difficult was what you wound up doing?