Steam's Early Access failures?

[Elixer]

In this case, it is about this game http://steamcommunity.com/games/221560/announcements/detail/153467963866653546

I have noticed that lots of these "Early Access" games are constantly on 'sale', and, it seems that lots of these authors are using that as a way to fund their project, which is one of the goals of this program.

Problem here is, as can be seen by the thread above, there is no way to get back a refund for a unfinished game, and people are basically screwed. IN this case, it is a $30 easy access game.

I am just curious on how other people view these kinds of gimmicks to fund games?
Should steam limit the pricing to $X max until the game is done, and then, the developers are free to charge what they want?

 

[Man I Suck]

Early Access "sales" are usually meant to benefit early adopters with a discount to encourage more people to adopt early for the typical reasons like to help stress test and to find bugs on a bigger scale that the devs can't test for, etc etc

 

[DaveSimmons]

To me it's like Kickstarter. Do your homework on the team and (for early access) the current state of the game. Realize that you are acting as a patron, and the project has a good chance of failing or at least not meeting their goals.

I've funded a bunch of games through KS, none through EA yet. So far none have failed, though Jagged Alliance Flashback ended up as a 6/10 game. In each case I decided that I wanted to give the game a chance to exist even if they failed.

Edit:

Should steam limit the pricing to $X max until the game is done, and then, the developers are free to charge what they want?

Why? It's up to the buyer to decide if the offered price is worth it to them for an unfinished game that might never be completed. I paid $100 to fund Wasteland 2 back when KS was young and the game's future was uncertain. It was worth $100 to me to give InXile the chance to make it.

 

[XavierMace]

Problem here is, as can be seen by the thread above, there is no way to get back a refund for a unfinished game, and people are basically screwed. IN this case, it is a $30 easy access game.

No, the problem is people are dumb. I've done a handful of early access games and dozens of beta's. Without fail you always get people who buy an unfinished game then complain it's unfinished. Steam makes it abundantly clear when you're buying an early access game and that the game is unfinished. If you don't want an unfinished game, don't buy an early access game. It's that simple. Nobody is forcing you to buy the game nor is the developer obligated to provide it to you at a price point you like.

If you want more opinion on it, read Stardock's responses to why they do $100 early access (Founders). That price point weeds out most of the idiots who don't understand what alpha means and aren't going to provide any useful feedback. Even with the $100 price point they still had people from day one complaining on the forums "THIS ISN'T FINISHED" or "THIS FEATURE DOESN'T WORK, I WANT MY MONEY BACK".

 

[CPA]

Well, scratch that game off my Wishlist.

 

[KentState]

In this case, it is about this game http://steamcommunity.com/games/221560/announcements/detail/153467963866653546

I have noticed that lots of these "Early Access" games are constantly on 'sale', and, it seems that lots of these authors are using that as a way to fund their project, which is one of the goals of this program.

Problem here is, as can be seen by the thread above, there is no way to get back a refund for a unfinished game, and people are basically screwed. IN this case, it is a $30 easy access game.

I am just curious on how other people view these kinds of gimmicks to fund games?
Should steam limit the pricing to $X max until the game is done, and then, the developers are free to charge what they want?

So, should someone have to pay full price if the game turns out to be a hit if they got in early?

 

[Markbnj]

To me it's like Kickstarter. Do your homework on the team and (for early access) the current state of the game. Realize that you are acting as a patron, and the project has a good chance of failing or at least not meeting their goals.

Yeah agreed, that's how you have to look at it.

 

[clok1966]

I'm done, have done maybe 5 of each (kickstarter and Steam EAccess) the early stuff all seemed to be OK (wasteland2, Wings remake). But now it seems big or small they have figured out they can take the money and run, or just get half done (Double Fine I am looking at you) and call it good.

no more for me, no matter how good they look (Star citizen) games should not take years and years to make. If they finsih and people like I will buy from here on out.

 

[Aikouka]

The only Early Access game that I've bought is Trine 3, but I have used Kickstarter for a few games. About half of them are low-budget indie titles with fun mechanics, and some others are bigger titles like Shenmue 3 or Might No. 9. Most of my Kickstarter pledges have been for board games.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Most people don't understand that just because you back / early access something doesn't mean you are entitled to constant updates. This is the biggest issue I've seen. Also, timelines. They get really mad about timelines if they are not met.

I'm not much of a risk taker so I've only actually backed 2 items on Kickstarter, and 2 early access games (that were already very playable). Money isn't cheap. I don't throw it at just anything. Research, be skeptical, and have low expectations and you won't be disappointed.

 

[sweenish]

This thread could be summed up very quickly if we instead focused on the successes.

 

[Aikouka]

Most people don't understand that just because you back / early access something doesn't mean you are entitled to constant updates. This is the biggest issue I've seen. Also, timelines. They get really mad about timelines if they are not met.

I don't really need constant updates on Kickstarter or Early Access, but I think it's definitely good to give people adequate updates over time. People just want to see that their money is doing something.

I do agree that people are probably bit too picky about timelines. Stuff happens and computer program schedules usually slip unless they overestimated their time requirements. Although, why a slip occurred can be important. Slips can occur do to poor planning and/or unrealistic timelines, and those can be some indicators of an unhealthy project. They could end up in a situation like Double Fine with Broken Age.

 

[postmortemIA]

Games are like music bands today... Everybody is in band, making mediocre music and making no money. Becaus it's cheap to make a record or game. But good ones are as expensive as they used to be.

Not everybody was meant to be game programmer or musician.

 

[TheSlamma]

I think people should go into "Early Access" with caution and understand the term "BUYER BEWARE"

Then maybe all the bitching and moaning can stop.

 

[marmasatt]

Early Access "sales" are usually meant to benefit early adopters with a discount to encourage more people to adopt early for the typical reasons like to help stress test and to find bugs on a bigger scale that the devs can't test for, etc etc

This thread reminds me of this game http://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/

When you buy games like this do they ever get done? This has been a year later now. Is there any new material/content? This game looks pretty fun but it seems like it's over when you encounter the inhabitants. So after like a few hours of gameplay (when the island has been discovered/you have a couple of battles with the natives) it's over?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Kickstarter is different for me. I see kickstarter as a place where a well known developer can take a small team and create a game in the spirit of his or her previous work when they have lost the funding of a big publisher. With companies like Konami going under and turning to mobile only development I can see this scenario. Also with games that people really want to see and a producer/developer really wants to do but the publisher won't allow them to create.

Early access I view as paying money to be a beta tester. Maybe it helps funding, but if someone is working on a game already and has it in a playable state then they have some funding from somewhere. This is more risky to me from a consumer standpoint because once the money starts coming in for a game it's not difficult for a developer to just drop out of sight and hope the money keeps flowing. With kickstarter the money doesn't move until the goal is met and while a developer can cite any number of reasons that a project is abandoned or whatnot, I feel like many developers don't want to ask their fans to fund a project unless they have to. At least that's the feeling I get from a couple of them I've followed.

Either way it's a risk on the one paying money.

 

[Elixer]

Maybe it would be better if Steam would just do a better job pointing out the risks of these games.
I know a few people that had no idea that the game could never be finished.

 

[Subyman]

Games fail all the time. The difference is they used to fail in a board room somewhere. No one knew because the game was canned before an announcement. Its common. The ignorant perspective of the buyer funding these projects is the problem IMO. I've never looked at KS or EA as a pre-order. Its a shot at the vision that the developer is pitching. At least with EA you get immediate access to the game to try it out. And now you can even return the game with Valve's new return policy.

There are absolutely games that will fail on EA. I don't think that is a black mark on the EA model, its a fact of game development. Hopefully buyers become more aware of the realities of game development, which I believe they are.

 

[Man I Suck]

This thread reminds me of this game http://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/

When you buy games like this do they ever get done? This has been a year later now. Is there any new material/content? This game looks pretty fun but it seems like it's over when you encounter the inhabitants. So after like a few hours of gameplay (when the island has been discovered/you have a couple of battles with the natives) it's over?

Yes, the whole kickstarter thing has done farm more damage than it has done good. It's pretty rare anymore for early access games to get finished.

The Forest's main storyline is supposed to be about finding a child survivor of the plane crash. He gets dragged away by natives or something and your primary goal is to find him.

Naturally, it'll never happen. It'll never get finished, much like 99% of every other early access game.

Kickstarter was a chemo injection into the gaming culture. With good intentions comes a poison that does quite a lot of damage and will most likely kill the host before the disease that it was intended to combat.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I disagree. KS isn't the issue. THOSE games - assuming they make progress, get completed for the most part (Wasteland 2, Divinity, etc). It is the early access games that never end. They keep getting money, and then change constantly. With KS there is an end goal - now, if they do KS, then make a partial product, THEN go early access (like Broken Age) you get these issues.

KSP and Next Car Game, Prison Architect are good examples of this happening.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I also disagree. Thanks to KS we have Wasteland 2, Pillars, Torment (eventually), Shadowrun Returns, Grim Dawn, Divinity Original Sin, many other successes and some high-profile failures.

These are games that publishers refused to fund, despite the well-known developers involved. Without KS they wouldn't exist. Without KS the corporate suits wouldn't have seen that there are people willing to buy things like classic isometric RPGs.

More choice is good. No one forces anyone to fund EA or KS, so the existence of those games doesn't keep you from buying the latest Madden or Assassin's Creed from the corporations.

Even if half the EA games never do get finished that's not that different from buying a t-shirt or CD from a local unsigned band. So they never get on the radio, so what? You supported something you liked even if it never made it big. If no one tries, none of the games exist instead of half.

 

[Man I Suck]

I disagree. KS isn't the issue. THOSE games - assuming they make progress, get completed for the most part (Wasteland 2, Divinity, etc). It is the early access games that never end. They keep getting money, and then change constantly. With KS there is an end goal - now, if they do KS, then make a partial product, THEN go early access (like Broken Age) you get these issues.

KSP and Next Car Game, Prison Architect are good examples of this happening.

Kickstarter kicked off early access games. Kickstarter was the beginning of it. The number of games unfinished on kickstarter outnumber the number of games actually finished. Yes, there are some kickstarter games that were actually finished, but their number are few.

Kickstarter opened the eyes of the community to show studio executives that they can make millions and don't have to finish the project while showing gamers a little more about themselves that they're just a mindless blob of ever-consuming money-spewing malcontents with the attention span of a gnat.

"Hey look, we can start a project and put it out on kickstarter or steam early access and never finish it! By the time they're done consuming the tiny bit of content we half-assed, we can have another early access game available to sell to start the process all over again!"

"Hey look, I spend $20 to play 20 hours of a broken unfinished game and I move on to the next over and over and as long as I get my dollar-per-hour then I don't care if the gaming industry even finishes any more games ever again."

It's the blind leading the blind.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Early Access "sales" are usually meant to benefit early adopters with a discount to encourage more people to adopt early for the typical reasons like to help stress test and to find bugs on a bigger scale that the devs can't test for, etc etc

I disagree.

This may have been the original intent of the program however if it is still the end goal then Steam has failed at it miserably.

Products that have blatant IP theft are routinely seen on greenlight, sometimes with the theft transparent in the icon or in the first few minutes of the game.

The sales are meant to make profit for Valve period.

They do not police the early access games at all, there are games that are abandonded, are outright theft etc. all up for purchase.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Kickstarter kicked off early access games. Kickstarter was the beginning of it. The number of games unfinished on kickstarter outnumber the number of games actually finished. Yes, there are some kickstarter games that were actually finished, but their number are few.

Kickstarter opened the eyes of the community to show studio executives that they can make millions and don't have to finish the project while showing gamers a little more about themselves that they're just a mindless blob of ever-consuming money-spewing malcontents with the attention span of a gnat.

"Hey look, we can start a project and put it out on kickstarter or steam early access and never finish it! By the time they're done consuming the tiny but of content we half-assed, we can have another early access game available to sell to start the process all over again!"

"Hey look, I spend $20 to play 20 hours of a broken unfinished game and I move on to the next over and over and as long as I get my dollar-per-hour then I don't care if the gaming industry even finishes any more games ever again."

It's the blind leading the blind.

100% agreement.

The original vision of Kickstarter/Early Access was good. It started as a way to get nontraditional funding for developers that had no other option who wanted to create a product that many wanted but studios refused to take a chance on.

Now AAA studios are using it to fund projects.

Stretch goals have gotten so out of control that they sink games.

Some users on Kickstarter have been found to buy obscure Chinese products and Kickstart them as their invention.

It is 90% a cash grab and mitigation reduction tool at this point. 10% legitimate projects IMO. Unfortunately unless the market makes a point it won't stop, and it will be difficult. There is almost no risk in trying to get funding. Even the worst backlash (see Phil Spencer) doesn't seem to matter.

 

[DaveSimmons]

So only fund the 10%.

Yes, KS and Valve should police titles more aggressively, but someone else falling for a shady pitch doesn't mean you do. That same person probably gave their bank account to a Nigerian prince or bought "enhancement" pills online.

The presence of spam doesn't mean email should not be allowed to exist.

You are still free to fund games that would not be created in the absence of KS and EA. Ignore the shady pitches, ignore the corporate mitigation pitches.