SNOW doesn't even have sound yet. I know its early access but COME ON!
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1) Developers/Publishers that take money from people but then never finish the game
2) Developers/Publishers that take money from people but then never finish the game
3) Developers/Publishers that take money from people but then never finish the game
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I think only the 3rd is true, but it's your opinion.
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here are mine:1.early access 2.its early access and 3.what you said under 3.
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I'd change the first one into "People defending games for "being Early Access" which leads to developers never really fixing those problems". I think that the developers should update their games regularly and NEVER put them on sale if it's still early access (I like the point that Rust didn't go on sale).
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Yeah I think there's some truth to that. Early Access titles on-sale leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also there really should be rules in-place for developers who take-on that title. I read somewhere that people think that there should be punishments enforced by Valve corporation for who violate these "rules", which they should, and this should happen. Especially after games like Nether, Towns, Earth: 2066. There should be some rules in-place.
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Your number 1, I agree with completely, however it's a problem with the people not the system itself.
It's called Early Access for a reason.
Yeah, I also agree that it sucks that some games may be put on Steam and going through early access just to be abandoned... But... Abandoned games happen pretty often, whether they make it to Steam or not, Early Access just makes them more accessible and noticeable.
Other than those two I can't really think of anything too important or bothersome, other than maybe the prices for a lot of Early Access Titles.
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Just choose wisely what you buy with that prefix. So far have only been kind of sad about sales. Basically you're low-balling your game before it's even released.
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"Ignoring of player feedback which defeats the whole purpose of Early Access."
I thought the purpose of Early Access was... to give people earlier access...
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Well, that was probably the intended purpose of it all, but likelihood is that only about 25% (if that) of people paying for Early Access actually treat it as a testing process to improve it through development.
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Yeah honestly I only have one or maybe two early access games but like Mozi says without regular updates I feel like I got ripped off.
Starbound hasn't updated since the day I bought it, to be fair they were moving their offices to another country or something, I believe that move has been finished for months now and the 'teased' update they had planned is still 'on its way'
I believe the promised update was in February.
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Well no they're not scumbags. They've made a really fun game and I enjoyed the crap out of it. So much so that I've done everything in about 20 hours of game play. Hell I still play the game (up to like 30ish hours) but the infrequency of information scares me, makes me feel like I've been bamboozled even though I'd put money on they're working hard and doing the best they can.
Its just that early access and the horror stories from other games that have just straight hosed their customers, it scares me.
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You can get into the beta (well, beta of beta i guess) with daily updates. Those can be really buggy though and i agree they really should put out a stable build once in a while
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Instead of complaining I make 3 suggestions:
1) There should be a time limit for a game being on Early Access status. (1 year)
If the game is not finished then, there should be a refund.
2) Games shouldnt be available to buy the whole time. There should be a limited amount of players (by having a certain period of time to enter/buy) so devs can focus on people supporting them on the whole progress until release.
3) A minimum price for Early Access games and they shouldn't be able to get on sale.
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@1 A refund? No. If anything it'll stay in the libraries of people who bought it, but get removed from the Steam Store without any refunds. But I really don't think it should be removed from the Steam Store unless it's fully abandoned, and confirmed by the developers that it will be worked on no further.
@2 I don't even fully understand what you're trying to say with this one, but limits would not be a good thing, if someone wants to support a game's developement I think they should be allowed to buy the game, even if it is in an unfinished state.
@3 Minimum Price? What's that supposed to even mean?
If anything they should probably limit the Maximum Price.
And why shouldn't they be able to go on sale? Some of them are just as good as finished products.
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I guess, but you pay for the games "As is", as well as for future updates and such.
It would make no sense to give refunds and let the user keep the product in their library.
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Time limit wouldn't work very well because the games are in very different states of development and the devs have different amounts of time they can spend on it or some things may take longer than expected. A time limit is impractical because its imposing a one size fits all standard on a rather various set of games and devs. Heck, I know a few games that are beyond the year point and the dev is still actively working on them.
I'd rather see more of a removal from the store if no updates in X amount of time (I'd suggest 6 months) and if removed from the store for that reason refunds can happen on request and be judged as being needed on a case by case basis because some players may find the game fun as it is and others may not even be able to run it still. Again, putting a one size fits all solution doesn't work and refunds being offered when not needed screws Steam over for no good reason. On top of that it gets complex when you consider that some of these are bundled games or can be bought elsewhere too.
And also once a game has been abandoned by the dev, they lose their ability to ever do early access again with another game. If they start updating again they can petition to put it back in the store, but would need some very good reasons why abandoned, pretty much the sort of things that will allow you extended leave from a job without losing your job, like illness. I could definitely understand a dev not being able to work on a game if they got diagnosed with cancer, to give one example.
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I read a comment about that sort of thing suggesting that there should be an update every 3 months. And if the game goes one-year without an update it should be removed. Which I don't have that much of an issue with, cause you're not telling me you can't just quickly throw up a little patch note of some bugs you fixed over the past 3 months.
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Yeah, it has to have an actual update posted plus the notes outlining what was actually fixed in my opinion, pretty much something that actually improves the playability of the game or adds significant content, not something like changing the color of a character's clothes. Mostly I'm all for the idea of allowances for very legit reasons to need more time like a very pesky bug, emergencies happening in their lives that make it impossible to work on the game, etc. but giving some limit that is more than fair to expect something done in so the players aren't screwed over.
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1) StarForge
2) Nether
3) Space Engineers
Those three games are effectively my argument for what's wrong with the Early Access program - where it's jacked, imo, but functional at all...
People that just put "games" up, took money, and then never updated at all are the goddamn scum of the Earth and don't even deserve acknowledgement as actually being a part of the Early Access system imo. They should, instead, be caught, captured, and treated the same as any other brand of thieving con man out there, prosecuted as criminals, and forced to repay the money they stole.
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Space Engineers? Are you kidding? They update every week on Thursday. That's about as good as you're going to get - while there are some continuing bugs (especially with multiplayer netcode) it isn't like they aren't working to fix bugs in addition to adding in bits of content in a steady stream.
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How's that game coming along anyway? I've heard things about it, not planning on buying it ever. I'm just hoping it's an enjoyable game and a lot of people like it. Also can that game actually safely support workshop already? I mean. Isn't it a little bit too early for that?
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That's the thing... Every time I mention that I dislike that game, someone tries to throw down "Well they update all the time!" as if that somehow makes it better.
The game is basically devoid of any significant content, the artificial speed limitation drives me goddamn insane, there is nothing even reasonably approaching an actual physics system in there, such that the only things you can actually do are horribly unsatisfying because it functions poorly an unnaturally.
IMO, Space Engineers is loathsome, based solely on the fact that it released on Early Access with literally nothing but building working, so there was a like 3 month period there was nothing to even do with the game but build ships and crash them together in unsatisfying ways.
My picks for reasons to hate Early Access aren't somehow specifically related to the speed with which they update. I've owned Space Engineers since I think October, maybe early November, and as near as I have kept up with the changes, all they've done is make the "game" have 'survival mode', add in some lackluster weapons and explosions, and still put together nothing that even remotely approaches an actual game worthy of the price tag. That is my own opinion, and I hold nothing against the people that find it enjoyable.
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I am not saying that the consistency of updates makes it a better game in any way, but that it simply /is/ updated on a weekly basis; You wrote "[p]eople that just put "games" up, took money, and then never updated at all..." which implied that KHS don't update Space Engineers. That's all.
It does have some issues certainly, but the game is solely about building stuff and you can't quite fault it for doing exactly what it was made to be. There aren't any aliens or enemy engineers trying to knock your stuff down because that isn't the way things are intentioned to go- it's just about putting together some cool spaceships or asteroid bases or whatever. Now it has multiplayer and some other little things (more advanced sector generation, stray ships, etc. etc.) which is certainly 'content'.
It's cool to not like a game. It's not cool to call is 'loathsome' because it is made exactly as advertized.
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That... Doesn't imply what you think it implies at all. That was obviously not related to the list given. It quite specifically states that. I literally said that I see those as problems with Early Access and that the people that just fleece money off people don't even deserve to be included as being a part of Early Access at all. That doesn't imply that I consider Space Engineers to be that at all.
And, no, the game is NOT solely about building stuff, and that's NOT what it was advertised to be. The advertising they did, at least early on, back when I got it, talked about being a space sim you could build your own ships in, mine materials from asteroids, and so on. NONE of that was in place except a bare bones building system that was actually about as bad as StarForge (Technically worse in some ways, better in others, so I'm just averaging it out to call it roughly even), with absolutely nothing else working.
It only very recently started to have even the most basic of advertised functionality, some 8 months later.
The only thing I've implied here is what I am outright stating: Space Engineers was in every way as big an issue and disappointment as StarForge was. Both of which have been the subject of a considerable amount of rage against the idea of Early Access that I rather support, since both got to sell a pre-alpha for almost a year before finally delivering even the most bare bones versions of the actual game they promised the whole time, and as someone else here pointed out rightly, got people PAYING THEM to work as testers instead of having to pay for the jobs being done.
Regardless, both are turning that around some and adding improvements now, and are starting to seem more worth having purchased if what I've been reading is to be believed. I am not trying to detract from the games direction or improvements, I merely am including it in a list denoting games that serve as specific examples for how I think Early Access should NOT work... And each for a different reason.
StarForge: Initially delivered none of what it promised, there was virtually no communication to the customers, and updates were generally mediocre at best and very few and far between.
Space Engineers: Initially delivered none of what it promised either. There was a fair amount of communication, but it was exceedingly shallow. Updates have always come regularly, but they have generally been just as hollow as a lot of the communication. It's taken half a year of continued updates to actually get to a point where there's finally been something approaching significant changes to the game.
Nether: Basically the polar opposite of how development practices should work. They took a game that generally most people I saw play it on streams or talk about it seemed to kinda like, and then continued changing stuff in ways that less and less people liked until basically I don't see any of the original player base touching the game anymore. Two different promo giveaways that could net you full copies of the game, and some major discounts in the Steam Summer sale, and I finally hear there are actually some people playing it again, but honestly I expect that to be short lived because the devs seem set on doing the opposite of what everyone has wanted to see.
So there... I hope that eliminates any possible implications that it seemed may have been there in my original statements. And you're probably accurate that loathsome was a little overly harsh regarding Space Engineers. Regarding that, that was just a little bit of person feelings leaking out because I have a friend that spent months grating on my nerves about Space Engineers, so it sometimes makes me a little more angry than is entirely appropriate based on the game's merits alone.
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Well said, but it's easy enough to simply not buy Early Access titles.
Some will eventually come out in a "finished" version.
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I agree with most of what you said, but not quite with the first point. If I pay fucking 15 $ for a game, I fucking expect it to be decent and playable, not utterly broken, early access or not. So most people that complain have a right to do so. Of course, one could say that if you're stupid enough to buy a game in early access, you got duped and you deserve your fate. That might be true, but it's up to debate and it's a different story. Bottom line is a developer should NEVER charge money for a game if it's not in a decent state of playability. You have a broken game that still needs tons of time in development before being ready, but you really want to put it in early access to hear people's opinion? Then, don't be an ass-hole, do the sensible thing and put it out for free.
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You cant frickin play game, they keep updating, each update requires new world/character (some games)
Because its in early access, it doesnt get much discounts because of its alpha, beta, teta process
Developers keeps promising things, cant make them happen or does it late, players gets cold from the game in this waiting process
Because its in Early Access they say price will go higher for the game, game is already expensive, if early access lasts 1 year, 1 year later you get a game with few added updates for double price (I'm sorry, but if im waiting and buying Bioshock Infinite for 1 year and ending up purchasing for 5 dollars in sales, i'm not gonna buy your content limited game for 4x of that price)
I love indie games, most played games at my library are indie ones, but i cant deny some devs are so greedy.They use kickstarter to get money from players (which is not bad, but you are getting that money for development, if you are gonna release your game as non finished product, at least you shouldnt do that. Because you are just trying every opportunity to get money.
I rather purchasing a cheap game with limited content with future DLCs, rather than a game which "promises updates" (god knows the content) for high price and uncertain future.
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It really does worth it. But i dont pay full price for games anymore without knowing if it will worth it, not every game provides demo etc for players to check and spending and wasting money really makes you feel angry. Even on bundles today complain about prices of them 5-6 games for 1 dollar thing (we all do), in this kind of situation if you are trying to milk players, you are no different than EA etc, just same character different size.
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.1 has effectively killed my KSP interest. I'm tired of my game being broke and losing progress.
I might start playing again once we get a 1.0 build, but this (and coughnethercouth) has me cold on Early Access. Enough that while I love introversion's other games, I won't be picking up Prison Architect.
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It really kills, you start a game, excited learning about stuff, progressing, a crash happens, all your save gets deleted or not saved at all, you dont feel like start over, you end up rage quit.
PA is very expensive, even on sale i didnt buy it, 30 dollars for an indie game is a lot, also will it be even more expensive on rlease, any info?
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Your first reason is not you saying why you hate early access, It's you saying you hate those people that complain about early access being unfinished when its in alpha or beta.
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I don't even understand the goal of early access. There used to be this era when people got into a beta, often through careful selection, so the designers could polish the game with that limited player pool so the general population could enjoy their game. Early access isn't that at all, it just allows people to play unfinished games. And I think this actually kills the game, because a lot of people expect them to be in a near completed state, while most developers actually use it as an alpha stage, and that is a stage no players should be allowed in. So what happens is that even the hardcore fanbase eventually leaves the game because they exhausted their energy on an unfinished game that might never be "release-ready", or at least, not to their full potential.
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1) Free work. Getting buyers to pay to do playtesting work, which is work they should be getting paid for, not work that they should be paying to do. Dealing with an Alpha is work.
2) Investment without return. Turning buyers into investors by getting money from buyers for development, and thus those buyers assume the risk of a potentially failed development. But unlike a normal investor, there is no chance of a return on that investment.
3) Lack of incentive. Once the devs have payments, there is less incentive for them to finish the game. Because, they got your money now, and they won't get any from you when they do finish, so the only incentive to finish is pride in their work.
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"Because, they got your money now, and they won't get any from you when they do finish, so the only incentive to finish is pride in their work."
In addition they don't have to fear anything for not finishing except bad publicity. While this is of course bad if they plan to release another game they can also just take the money and do something else. No loss for them.
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The main objection I have to it is the fact that beta testing a game used to be a privilege you got for free and got the benefit of being able to play the game before everyone else in exchange for testing for bugs.
Beta testing is definitely valuable and some early access titles have benefited from it on both the developer and player's ends. The overall issue is that the model isn't working in far more cases.
So another idea to add to the below/above one is to do a preorder type of model. Players instead are paying for a preorder of the full game and get access to help beta test in the meantime as a benefit of preordering. The developer gets a smaller percentage of their money, the rest is put on hold for the full release of the game. Purchasers of the game can cancel their order of the game for a full refund up until release (of course, Valve will likely have to add some limit to this to prevent abuse) and game is removed from library when that happens.
What that does is give incentive to the devs to finish, in fact it may boost their incentive because they can see some actual projected sales and an amount that would be made once they finish. It also gives a way for upset customers to get refunds without Valve having to foot the whole loss because the developer doesn't have all their money yet. The only major con I can think of is that it may push for developers to end early access before the game is ready which would lead to yet another buggy "finished" game up for sale.
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This one sentence, courtesy of the EA FAQ, and which trumps every other reason:
You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game.
AKA "Thanks for the cash, but fuck you." Why anyone still buys stuff in this program after they added that is beyond me.
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Well, you ask what I didn't like about it. If you had asked what I did like about it, I could have written something more original.
See, those things are the only three I could come up with, since they basically sums up what I don't like about Early Access. What I like, however, is totally up to the relationship between the developer and their gamers. Then it gets more complicated. Now, Early Access is for many "developers" just a means to promote a game. Is that Valve's fault for implementing Early Access? No. The real questions, for me, would be:
Will the Early Access benefit the development of the game itself?
Will the developers use their customers/gamers as a way to improve their game?
Will they listen to feedback or will they Big Brother everything and ignore all the "bad feedback" (read: constructive feedback) that are reported from the Early Access testers?
Or ..is it just a way to gain money?
Asking me to list 3 things that I dislike about Early Access is just as unoriginal as my answer.
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1) Overpriced. These games should actually be free. We are paying a lot of money for games that are unfinished. Alphas should be 100% free.
2) The game is unfinished (and maybe broken) and they are charging money for it. (Credit to DayZ for saying its a unfinished pile of shit and you shouldn't buy it.)
3) Too many of them. I am sure developers saw that people were making money off Early Access and though "Easy money" (Like people making Rock Simulator and Box Simulator saw Goat Simulator). Only the ones that didn't care about their games would put it on Early Access and not finish it as soon as possible.
Bonus Reason) My friends say DayZ is better than Dota 2 and say Dota 2 is unfinished...
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I personally think Rock simulator is a way of people trying to legitimately force Steam to fix their greenlight system. Cause if a stupid bad-looking game where you can do nothing but stare at fucking rocks gets onto the market. Steam's going to have some issues on their hands me-thinks.
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...What would they be?
Mine would be
People complaining about a game that's in alpha/beta, like it's a finished product.
Developers abusing the early access title (looks harshly at Nether) and using it to get da moneys out of the customers and never finishing their game.
I guess on-top of that you could add dumb-ass developers who don't listen to their customers for suggestions and ideas for their game.
Also cause I love all of you, I decided to add a Key Drop
Edit: I decided to add Chambers comment up here because I thought it was pretty awesome and legit.
1) Free work. Getting buyers to pay to do playtesting work, which is work they should be getting paid for, not work that they should be paying to do. Dealing with an Alpha is work.
2) Investment without return. Turning buyers into investors by getting money from buyers for development, and thus those buyers assume the risk of a potentially failed development. But unlike a normal investor, there is no chance of a return on that investment.
3) Lack of incentive. Once the devs have payments, there is less incentive for them to finish the game. Because, they got your money now, and they won't get any from you when they do finish, so the only incentive to finish is pride in their work.
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