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[chaoticag]

Honestly, deciding what should or shouldn't be early access is going to be a headache and a half. Where does the line get drawn? I mean, to drag the biggest example of early sales, Minecraft sold things in it's alpha state, and made buckets of money. And then we also have games like towns, definitely not a great example of things, but it got on steam more feature complete than when minecraft first went on sale.

Or to put it bluntly, many games that end up on steam, early access or not, don't turn a large profit. In that case, it might be worth widening the net in the hopes you catch something pretty exceptional. Grabbing somethings such as rust and divinity had been great boosters, even though one got on as an alpha and the other got on as a beta. The only real problems tend to be when a game that very... questionable manages to be a hit (*cough*infected survivor stories *cough*) That steam's going to take an noticeable hit to pretty much anything.

On the consumer end of things, all we really have to deal with is losing a few dollars to bad investments, which, well, isn't anything new to us. People sold Trespasser well before we thought of selling incomplete games. Only difference now is we can't always be sure how long an incomplete game would stay that way. And to be pretty blunt, this is the only shot games like Prison Architect and Space Base had.

[Sergius]

I think a problem is that, no matter how little it matters in the end on our wallets, the instinct to try to right a perceived wrong is too strong in people. We feel scammed, even if we "waste" something like 10 bucks every month, something must be done.

If we were to take a deep breath and think that this kind of thing is good for creativity as a whole even with a 80% of flops... well, it would be a different story.

I still think $25 pre-purchase for ending up with what amounts to a techdemo is too much tho.

[Knight of Fools]

Or to put it bluntly, many games that end up on steam, early access or not, don't turn a large profit.

Actually, getting on Steam nowadays is make it or break it for 97% of games, if not more. Steam takes a good chunk of the sales, yeah, but I couldn't imagine the headache it would take to make a successful game that was released through every PC medium except Steam. Being able to publish through Steam also takes out the middleman - No longer do you have to find a publishing entity that burns CD's, packages the product, and advertises for it. Steam does all of that just by virtue of its existence. Valve's cagey about the numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if you get more of a cut through Steam than physical publication.

Granted, getting on Steam doesn't guarantee success, but you can bet your last dollar that you'd still make more money through Steam than if you'd published traditionally. It just reaches a wider audience.

[Retropunch]

I just feel there should be a tighter review process. Obviously where to draw the line is difficult, but I don't think it would be impossible to have some sort of better defined criteria and a few more safeguards in place.

Ultimately, it's just that I think it's eventually going to wreck early access (as we can already see in this thread) and as has been pointed out, this is a really great help for developers up the ladder.

[Zangi]

I just feel there should be a tighter review process. Obviously where to draw the line is difficult, but I don't think it would be impossible to have some sort of better defined criteria and a few more safeguards in place.

Ultimately, it's just that I think it's eventually going to wreck early access (as we can already see in this thread) and as has been pointed out, this is a really great help for developers up the ladder.

Fundamentally, a tighter review process would mean having someone from Steam actually knocking on the doors of the 'game company' and observing how the heck the 'company' operates.
At least in the case of early access and making suremaking an arbitrary assumption that they actually can(or cannot) finish the game in the long term from what they see.

[Levi]

Even if there was a better review process, Double Fine would have certainly achieved it.  Its not like they ran out of money or weren't capable of finishing the project, they just decided it wasn't profitable so decided to quit.  Its pretty sleazy in my books, but I have a hard time seeing how to fix it other than dropping the early access feature from steam(which is honestly probably the best option).

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I read the announcement.. Can't even believe the horseshit excuses. Tim Shafer was really going to fund this entire game's development through early access sales, and cuts it off the second it's no longer in the black? Does he even fucking know how game development projects work? Who the fuck would pay for a game with no content?

And yes, Tim Shafer did plan on milking early access money out of people for 5 years. That's gall. Almost as if they weren't ever planning on making it a real game, just string along buyers with 'sales' and updates that aren't really material in any way.



I saw this on steam forums and it is highly appropriate. When you can say "'Bobby Kotick' was right", there's something really fucked up about a situation.

[PrimusRibbus]

Color me unsurprised. I always found it very fishy that Double Fine ran out of money on Broken Age, but suddenly announced 3 new projects.

Double Fine is going under, and they're running the gaming equivalent of a ponzi scheme in order to bring in enough money to finish their older projects.

[LASD]

I read the announcement.. Can't even believe the horseshit excuses. Tim Shafer was really going to fund this entire game's development through early access sales, and cuts it off the second it's no longer in the black? Does he even fucking know how game development projects work? Who the fuck would pay for a game with no content?

And yes, Tim Shafer did plan on milking early access money out of people for 5 years. That's gall. Almost as if they weren't ever planning on making it a real game, just string along buyers with 'sales' and updates that aren't really material in any way.



I saw this on steam forums and it is highly appropriate. When you can say "'Bobby Kotick' was right", there's something really fucked up about a situation.

Tim Schafer is not doing the business/funding decisions at Double Fine, if he did, they wouldn't be here. They have a person who's job is to make sure they make enough money to keep going. Schafer also doesn't have anything to do with SpaceBase, except that his company is making it. Not like his feelings would be hurt or anything, but you should be angry at Double Fine, not Tim Schafer.

I do understand everyone being mad at Double Fine for all the unfilled promises, but there's not much to fix it now. Can't really expect them to be making at a loss in the hopes that 3 years down the line suddenly people start buying it. The only thing to be said about this is that it was a failed experiment. If would have worked, awesome. Now it just kinda sucks for the fans and Double Fine. The only way to fix the situation was that SpaceBase was never even started, which wouldn't have been that much better.

Also, to ask who would pay for a game with no content. We are at the forums of a game that was receiving donations before the game even launched, and it received a substantial amount of them when there was way less content than there is now. So, to answer your questions, some fans of Dwarf Fortress might be the people to pay for the promise of an amazing game instead of a game with tons of content. It is naive and risky, but hey, DF.

I'm sure JP LeBreton, the lead designer of SpaceBase actually wanted to make a great game, not just string people along in hopes of sales. He's probably even less happy than the fans about the plug being pulled on the project.

Color me unsurprised. I always found it very fishy that Double Fine ran out of money on Broken Age, but suddenly announced 3 new projects.

Double Fine is going under, and they're running the gaming equivalent of a ponzi scheme in order to bring in enough money to finish their older projects.

There's dozens of people working at Double Fine. Only 10 or so work on Broken Age. The announcements of the other games were very likely related to the other people needing something to do.


Also, I'd like to point out that Double Fine successfully launched a full version of a game that started on Early Access two and a half weeks ago. So all the talk that Double Fine can't handle Early Access seems slightly silly. SpaceBase met an unfortunate end because of too little interest. Does that make Double Fine an evil money-hungry company? Maybe it does, but I'm not convinced yet.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Also, to ask who would pay for a game with no content. We are at the forums of a game that was receiving donations before the game even launched, and it received a substantial amount of them when there was way less content than there is now. So, to answer your questions, some fans of Dwarf Fortress might be the people to pay for the promise of an amazing game instead of a game with tons of content. It is naive and risky, but hey, DF.

Alright. Go play the first released version of DF. It has more gameplay and content longevity than SBDF139 ever will. Not a comparison between a donation based model and selling people early access to a game you might one day arbitrarily decide to pull the plug on. But hey, there's gotta be an apologist for every scenario.


The only good thing to come of this? I'll not have to see the acronym DF9 ever again once this is forced to 1.0 and squirted onto the marketplace without support forever.

[MasterFancyPants]

Also, to ask who would pay for a game with no content. We are at the forums of a game that was receiving donations before the game even launched, and it received a substantial amount of them when there was way less content than there is now. So, to answer your questions, some fans of Dwarf Fortress might be the people to pay for the promise of an amazing game instead of a game with tons of content. It is naive and risky, but hey, DF.

Alright. Go play the first released version of DF. It has more gameplay and content longevity than SBDF139 ever will. Not a comparison between a donation based model and selling people early access to a game you might one day arbitrarily decide to pull the plug on. But hey, there's gotta be an apologist for every scenario.


The only good thing to come of this? I'll not have to see the acronym DF9 ever again once this is forced to 1.0 and squirted onto the marketplace without support forever.

^^^This^^^

When you sell people something you are obligated to finish it. Toady isn't selling anything.

[LASD]

Also, to ask who would pay for a game with no content. We are at the forums of a game that was receiving donations before the game even launched, and it received a substantial amount of them when there was way less content than there is now. So, to answer your questions, some fans of Dwarf Fortress might be the people to pay for the promise of an amazing game instead of a game with tons of content. It is naive and risky, but hey, DF.

Alright. Go play the first released version of DF. It has more gameplay and content longevity than SBDF139 ever will. Not a comparison between a donation based model and selling people early access to a game you might one day arbitrarily decide to pull the plug on. But hey, there's gotta be an apologist for every scenario.


The only good thing to come of this? I'll not have to see the acronym DF9 ever again once this is forced to 1.0 and squirted onto the marketplace without support forever.

^^^This^^^

When you sell people something you are obligated to finish it. Toady isn't selling anything.

Are you? Doesn't Early Access inform people that there is a lot of risk involved?

Also, a quote from end of last year (Rock, Paper Shotgun):

RPS: If all the stars align and you get everything the way you want it, how long are you hoping to work on new stuff for Spacebase?

LeBreton: [laughs] There’s no specific time in mind because estimating how long it would take to make a game is one of the hardest things to do in the universe, apparently. I think it’s more just, like, you’ll see on our website that we’ll have the full dev plans. And we’re probably gonna add stuff to that and also take some stuff away from that. That’s the most expanded version of the game, so when all of that is in, we could conceivably call it “done.” There’d be no more we could possibly add to the game.

But until then, it’s like we’re just alpha one, alpha two, alpha three – however long we can keep going, based on how much people like it.

So, this was a possibility from the start. No one wanted to end up stopping the project until all the features were in though.

[Majestic7]

Early access seems to promise that the product is going to get finished, you just get access to it on the way. This is definitely a big black mark in my book. Declarations of boycott always seem pointless, but I will definitely never buy anything from the company again. I will likewise always bring this up when they come up with future products, mentioning it to friends and foes online and IRL. The fact I only spent a few dimes on this doesn't matter; it is the principle of promises broken.

[Yolan]

Of all the early access/alpha games I have paid for, I regret this one the most. That's for sure. But then, I didn't pay for Castle Story. Yikes.

I wonder though. They might have shifted more units and improved early word of mouth by offering it for a lower price.

[Neonivek]

I am just lucky this game has always looked so unbelievably ugly as to keep me FAR away from buying it.