What is the current definition of alpha? I would argue that the definition of alpha is not absolute.
Ten years ago , alphas were distributed only to PAID playtesters and maybe friends and family of the devs. Betas were meant to be small scale public tests, and often time the beta testing would reside solely in the hands of the paid playtesters. Games were meant to be released finished,considering the limited ability to patch even in the early 2000s, so there was a lot more work "behind the scenes" than what we see today.
So, nowadays, consumers PAY to be alpha testers. Alpha can represent anything from a basic mock up tech demo with mock-up everything to a game that is 98% complete (like minecraft was). Any game released nowadays is unfinished - everything gets at least one or two patches after release. So , if a game 95% done is "finished", that means an alpha can be "finished".
Therefore, I choose to think of an alpha as buying a playable portion of a finished game I think it should be priced and judged relative to amount of content it has compared to other games - "finished" or "unfinished" in it's niche.
There were still paid beta clients back in 2000. You'd be talking the late 80s or early 90s to be accurate with that.
Betas-as-carrot has been a tactic long in use. Now, things still have changed. Which you seem totally aware of. So I'm a little confused why you still cleave to an archaic (and patently one-sided) way of judging games given that they're larger and more complicated, our demands are much higher, the delivery of the product is much faster and the turn over is higher, than even 10 years ago.
I feel like if you really had the courage of your convictions, you simply would never buy alpha products ever. Because the only fair way to judge a game would be at release, wouldn't it? Because even technical or framerate problems in beta, were you to see them, would automatically be judged against the final release whether they were fixed or not.
1) Graphics are placeholder quality. GUI is above average but still needs some work. I really doubt they will improve basic graphics beyond where they are now... they've never really said it's much of a priority, at all. There are thousands of games on google play/itunes for <$5 with much better graphics and polish.
Not to mention a lot , lot more indie games for cheap with fantastic graphics. I specifically have Vessel in my mind when I'm thinking of this.
That's the art style. You either like it or you don't. Yes, it's dirt simple, but they have variety and a very nice lighting system that compensates for how kind of boring it is on its face. Lots of splatter textures for blood and filth. There's nothing placeholder about it. It's the art style you don't like, or don't think enough effort went into.
2) The first PA demo was displayed at a gaming convention, and the public was allowed to play it. A casual google search reveals the first gameplay video was in Nov 2011... so what the public is seeing now is a game with a year of development. We can consider the 11/11 version to be the true "alpha" - and I am not impressed by differences between what we currently have , and what is released now.
So, in my estimation of this being a game development cycle of 3 years, this should be worth 1/3 of the final value. I put the final value at around $40 maximum, so this "alpha" should be priced at no more than $13.50. I can tell you one thing - with the current amount of well funded games coming out from the kickstarter frenzies of lately, PA will be irrelevant if they can't launch in a timely manner.
I'm not sure what metrics you're using for your math other than your internal sense of what's fair....but what you're griping about is the split between a paid alpha and crowd-sourcing. The goal is to support the developers in lieu of a publisher. Not nickel and dime them until you get exactly what you want, which is essentially what their publishers do. The best way to achieve that goal for all supporters is just offer the game at release for what they gave at the most basic level.
As for PA being irrelevant....what? Why is their competitiveness an issue? There's already clearly a breakdown among game kickstarters between well-organized and veteran dev houses with name recognition, personal bankrolls, and a long list of things they have done and could do, and virtually everyone else. That's pretty well demonstrated by the funding totals. Introversion's decision to run their own pseudo Kickstarter may have hurt their chances of exposure and therefore funding....but to get to even put the game up for release is ultimately the point. Not "how well did it sell so I can figure out how much not to pay you according to our contract." They're eventually going to offer it on Steam just like everyone else, and the crowd-sourcing thing will largely be forgotten, just like it will with most of these games.
3) There are serious holes in the game play experience. Prisoners with no history, no differentiating personalities, and no release date. Seriously - why hasn't this been prioritized? Why is fog of war more important than this? That's like playing dwarf fortress without the ability to mine. What happened to getting core gameplay in place and working first?
Well, I agree the game is flat in some places. But what you're calling the core of gameplay and what everyone else sees must be very different. To me it's not prisoners being super detailed. There's a whole bunch of mechanical shit like prisoners actually obeying the daily regime, getting them fed, getting enough food out and meeting their needs that's the core of gameplay. And that is pretty solid although there are lots of quirks. This is the first major turn of development and so far they're largely asking backers what they're most concerned with. Fog of War came out of the backers feeling like the guard/threat situation in the prison didn't have enough meat on it, and most of recent development has been on that. So he's fleshing things out and that will continue for at least another year.
4) I think Introversion is getting greedy. 99% of people reading this post is just going to dismiss this claim, but if you want to do your own research, you can start here. Keep in mind it's two people, they've earned several hundred thousand dollars so far off their alpha. http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/31/prison-architect-introversion-console-microsoft-sony/
It's actually more like 4 people iirc, Chris and Mark, an artist and I think a sound guy.
I'm just going to repeat what other people have said. You haven't really read enough about Introversion. They've lived as bare bones as possible for most of their careers. What you see as them being greedy I see as them finally trying to establish themselves as game developers instead of living and dying with every game. And I'm more than happy to help them a little in that.
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Topic: Prison Architect - Version 2.0 Release | It's over! *weeping* (Read 247516 times)