Broken Age by Double Fine is out of money, releasing half-complete early on Steam

[digitaldurandal]

How cynical. Sounds to me like he will still deliver the game, but just delayed and with some features removed. That's hardly unusual.

In the meantime, games like Shadowen Returns, Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity are all in production and looking good for release time.

The majority of projects do not turn out this way and Millions of dollars have been lost on products that will never see the light of day.

The biggest issue I have is not that there is a risk but that AAA developers are starting to use it as a crutch so they do not have to risk anything.

Users need to be aware that these investments are risky and may not see any return. Additionally the developers should feel a responsibility to release the product. Some developers have always had issues with project and finance management and they should stay on the development side of the fence period.

I think that stretch goals are a big part of the issue. People like the idea of them but they are costing the developer time and resources that were not planned for and changing the scope of the projects rapidly.

I think that developers should first develop the game as planned and when they see they have the resources remaining they should work on stretch goals. If you try to do everything at once, you risk not having a finished product. There really is absolutely no excuse for making 9x your goal and not being able to release a finished product, and the idea that there is one is laughable.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Stretch goals are fine if they are planned out in advance before the KS starts, with realistic estimates of the effort involved.

InXile, Obsidian, Harebrained Schemes, Larian did fine with their KS. But they were real companies run as a business not just a developer (even an experienced one) trying to learn the business side of making a game on the fly. So I agree with this:

Some developers have always had issues with project and finance management and they should stay on the development side of the fence period.

 

[clok1966]

Isn't this the 2nd Double Fine game released half done now from Kickstarter? Wasn't Spacebase9 like this too? I seem to remember having some interest in it and they released with it half done (if the forums are correct) so I never bought it..

fool me once...

 

[JamesV]

Isn't this the 2nd Double Fine game released half done now from Kickstarter? Wasn't Spacebase9 like this too? I seem to remember having some interest in it and they released with it half done (if the forums are correct) so I never bought it..

fool me once...

Yea, these guys are on my 'never buy from' list.

Steam won't even show reviews of Broken Age, and I bet Spacebase DF9 will soon follow - take a look at the reviews (mostly negative) with the commonly listed 'broken, unfinished, and abandoned' themes.

 

[JTsyo]

Yea, these guys are on my 'never buy from' list.

Steam won't even show reviews of Broken Age, and I bet Spacebase DF9 will soon follow - take a look at the reviews (mostly negative) with the commonly listed 'broken, unfinished, and abandoned' themes.

So I take it the game didn't deliver. Those that backed it, what do you think about the game?

 

[Aikouka]

Isn't this the 2nd Double Fine game released half done now from Kickstarter? Wasn't Spacebase9 like this too? I seem to remember having some interest in it and they released with it half done (if the forums are correct) so I never bought it..

fool me once...

To be fair, Broken Age was just broken into two pieces with all the intention of finishing it, and it did get finished. Spacebase DF9 is a situation that caused a lot of flak, which was probably exacerbated by the negativity from Broken Age. The qualms with Spacebase is that Double Fine promised a bunch of features on the game's Early Access page, and ended up stating that they didn't have the funds to finish the game and they would just release it as-is. The problem is that it didn't have a good portion of what they promised.

If you want to read more about it, you can see a brief synopsis on the Wikipedia page for the game.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I've played a couple of hours of the game so far and I like Broken Age. I think the did a nice job with the interface and graphic style. I like the idea of having 2 different characters to play. Not sure about the puzzles overall since I just started but I do plan on finishing the game whenever I end up with some spare time! I'm thinking that most people who are into these kinds of games would probably enjoy this one.

 

[SharpHawk]

I've heard the second half is of far lower quality than the first. I own the game but haven't played it yet, so I can't give my thoughts on it.