A Question to all gamers on steam! - Related to Greenlight and Space Corp Tycoon

:D

I wouldn't bother with Early Access unless you had a big game (ie something like DayZ). Unfortunately most people are fucking stupid and will criticise your game as if it's the finished product no matter how much you explain it's still in alpha/beta. If it is your intention to create a good game for the sake of creating a good game, if making money from it is only secondary, then hold off until you have a game that's ready for full release.

Bumpity Bump

Release the game on Full Version. Early access concept sounds decent. Adjusting the game based on the player feedback sounds good. In theory. But bear in mind that for every rational gamer who buys into EA, there's always that brat who uses mommy's credit card and whine when they don't get what they want in the Beta/Alpha.

P/s - Call me old school or old fart but personally I believe that if you want to release a game, do it when it's finished. If it was up to me, I'd restrict Early Access for games that is at least 80% complete - meaning the core mechanics and engine is up and running with minimal bugs.

+1 towards waiting until you are happy/confident enough with your own product, there will still be time to alter it after its release with patches/add-ons, i think that for an indie game the first impression matters a lot and you would gain more by avoiding bad reviews and reputation that would scare away people that might be likely to contribute opinions.

Wait until the game is replayable enough for testers to play it. I have 2 hidden betas in steam but won't release it on early access until it's replayable enough

Speaking as a computer gamer and tester with over 35 years' worth of experience, you want feedback and support, not Early Access. True, EA is an avenue of gaining support, but there is nothing to prevent people from being critical without being helpful. Just look at how Users' Scores have been abused on Steam and Metacritic for an example. Unless you are the type of person who deal's well with such abuse, I suggest you find other avenues of feedback and support. Kickstarter is one option, as people put their money where their mouth is, but there are others. Before there was Kickstarter, there was "open beta." That is where Counter-Strike and DayZ and many other games came from.

TL;DR: Support and feedback are key to shaping a great game, but you want to avoid the trolls.

I'm for the full version too. It's somtimes very tempting to play a game in early access for a gamer. And I'm a developper too, I know that is always good to have feedbacks on what we are doing. But Early access is somthing like a trap for me. A large part of your players will be peoples attract by graphics or concept and will be desapointed to find an unfinished game. For most of them, Early access is access to a fully playable game, but early. And we all know this isn't any realistic. The fact is that they'll spam forums to say that your game isn't good and will slow your work.
For me you should make a full game and then you'll have a fan base to help you improve your game if you plan to make a second volume.

(Sorry for my english, English not my native language)

Learn from the mistake of Sonic '06 and only release a finished product.

While the idea behind early access is technically nice, having users come in into the development phase and giving their input, most people end up judging it as if it was the final product.

While I understand it can bring a stream of revenue earlier on, it can also backfire and create negativity around your product from those who expect a final no matter what warnings you gave them. At the very least, make sure the game is fully playable and mostly requires polish and balance before it's released. Having user input in making the game more enjoyable is critical, but the core mechanics should be present. (As an example, look at the Heartstone beta. It never felt like beta software to me, because the game was all there, yet they issued regular patches to fix problems that crept up and to adjust the balance of the game based on feedback and data collected.)

Like the others I would wait but not necessarily until it's completely finished. It's true there will always be someone who doesn't understand Early Access but from what I have seen so far the average response is still good if done right. If the game has nothing but a main menu reasonable people will stay silent and, of course, haters will hate. But if the devs manage to release the game in a well developed state the reviews will probably reflect what they will be like for the final product. With well developed I mean it can have missing content, bugs and crashes but all in all it can be played for hours with the player enjoying it.

In my opinion a good example of this is Gnomoria. It has only 6% downvotes and many of those (but not all) are rather stupid. The game isn't finished yet but I already put ober 100 hours of gameplay into it. The concept is well and besides a few bugs it could be finished. It's not because the devs are expanding it more and more making it even better and it's fun to replay the game every time there is something new.

With all that said I want to finish with a small step back: While this is my opinion on Early Access games in general I would recommand you to be very careful with this. As far as I know you are quite new to developing games (I am just assuming this, tell me if I am wrong) and depending on how well this game does can influence your future quite much. It is a chance but also a risk. I like the way you are thinking about your game and your (potential) customers and want you to succeed. While I wouldn't recommend releasing your game on Steam until it is almost finished another option could be a closed alpha/beta with chosen people. As far as I know you plan to giving access to all alpha builds for your forum's members anyway. So with a closed beta maybe you can take a step forward by limiting access to paying costumers only and near the end of the beta you could try Steam's Early Access.

Good luck!

I am not very fond of early access honestly. Of course there might be people who will have the brain capacity to understand that they don't get a finished product, but most of them will just whine and give you and your game a bad reputation. Props to you that you care so much about your product and you have my full support for it. What you could do, because getting some feedback from neutral players is always good, is give the game to a few friends or to those who are interested in it. Let them play for a bit and then give you some feedback. I wish you all the best with your game :)

IMO release the game as early access when the game is finished for 90%. You do need players who test and give feedback. Afterall, players tend to find more and well hidden bugs more easily than you as programmer (at least, that's my experience). Also, some feedback from players on how the game progresses while playing is good as well. For instance, you are in doubt if <x> progressing by <y> is okay, but the majority of the players think different, which allows you to tweak the game while it's still in early access.

Why release at 90%? Easy. The game is close to finished and needs a few final touches. While you work on those final touches, you get feedback from the (early access) players. When the feedback and those final touches have been finished, you can release it as full game. My guess is that this would take a month or 2 tops, making your early access an example on how early access should be done for other indie developers.

I have taken the same approach when releasig TetraGems for Android. The game was finished when I released it but I needed feedback from the players while I'm adding final touches (personal & world high-score database). I've had already some feedback and am close to finishing the final touches (could be much further if my PC didn't crash last week :()

I'd go for early access, but make sure it's in a playable state and only have minor bug which is hard to do, thus the reason it's "Early Access". It'll help if it's in beta state and not alpha, as many other games in alpha state would get negative reputation. As many mention before, some would take it as the final build of the game and would bring bad reputation to the game. So the best to avoid any unnecessary or unripe critics, it's better to stay away from early access.

TL;DR : Early access for additional features or minor bugs only.

As i said on FB. The best way to test a game (or anything else) is to find people who have the knowedlege in beta testing, looking for bug &glitch and who really like the game and not the free game... but it's hard to find

I would definitely avoid it with the game design you are going with. There are loads of space empire/trader clones on the market for a variety of devices and while a bit of actual $$$$ is tempting, the rage-hate and bad publicity aren't worth it. If you release Early Access in or near the state you are now, you will receive an avalanche of hate (regardless if it's deserved or not).

I would hold off on going Early Access, mainly because, like other have stated, people are really stupid and don't understand the concept of Early Access and will judge the game as if it were a finished AAA product. If, however, you need the cash later in development, then you might consider releasing it on Early Access. You can always provide your followers with alpha builds on your own website/forum. Most of the people following the game so early who would download it from there will appreciate the ongoing development and understand the current status of the game. Best of luck with the game. I'm excited to see what it becomes.

just my humble opinion:

try to do it like the user "MDuh" told you - with hidden beta tester (if that is really possible)... would be the better choice

Greetings Steamgifters,

Your comments have been wonderful and resonate with my own, i've drawn up a plan and have issued a statement Over at Steam

Once again thank you for your input, To make a great game i must stick with what is right, If that means its harder :) so be it xD