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[MoLAoS]

I'd like to see an actual list of failed vs successful early access games. Everyone always says it works or it doesn't but never has any damn proof either way.

[Trapezohedron]

I suppose there's more successes to Early Access than failures, but it's not really often that media covers successes, and thus the negativity is accentuated as they're almost always covered.

Successes include:
Kerbal Space Program
Minecraft
FTL: Faster Than Light

Truth of the matter here is that if people have a lot of any one piece of economic utility, their incentive to keep working for it gets lowered, resulting in low motivation to continue what was imagined initially. This is the fault of Early Access, imo.

[IronyOwl]

That's a shame. I always did think Towns was a bit wonky, but their stated goal of an "improved Majesty" sounded interesting.

as you may know I decided some months ago that the game was finished. Some of you agreed and a some of you disagreed. My reasons was simple, add new features to the game won't make a difference in it and you always will ask for more, so I took my decision.

Oh dear. That's not a good attitude.


Will be curious to see where things go from here, but from the linked thread(s) it's looking like there's a fair amount of bile to overcome. Then again, I suppose they have to care about the project on some level to want to rant about what an incompetent thief its creator is.

[MoLAoS]

Not really. I only played an early alpha for a few hours and I had a few posts on there before I was banned for saying something on RPS about something non-Towns related.

[burningpet]

I suppose there's more successes to Early Access than failures, but it's not really often that media covers successes, and thus the negativity is accentuated as they're almost always covered.

Successes include:
Kerbal Space Program
Minecraft
FTL: Faster Than Light

Truth of the matter here is that if people have a lot of any one piece of economic utility, their incentive to keep working for it gets lowered, resulting in low motivation to continue what was imagined initially. This is the fault of Early Access, imo.

While there is no doubt truth in that statement, believe it or not, a lot of studios/indies aren't in this just for the money. also, smarter developer than "Us" knows that their reputation in the long run worth more, even financially, than the short term.

i dont think FTL was in early access, but ill add "Legend of dungeons" to that list, "Don't starve", "Prison architect" is making extremely well progress, "Gnomoria", "Project zomboid", "Arma" 3 and  i bet there are many others as well that i just can't think of right now. also, keep in mind that since this model is relatively new and wasn't popular until steam adopted it, many of the games are still in development.

[Aklyon]

FTL was a Kickstarter, I'm fairly sure.

[Anvilfolk]

Which, if anything, is even more risky than Early Access.

[BigD145]

Kickstarters have largely failed. It's only a 1 in 3 success rate. Most if not all of those games have had an early access buy in. A quick google search will find you that data. I forget how to copy paste text on my android tablet so I'll post a link later.

http://evilasahobby.com/2014/01/18/kickstander-only-around-a-third-of-kickstarted-video-game-projects-fully-deliver-to-their-backers/

General rule of thumb if you talk to game devs: Most game ideas don't make it. There are more failures than successes.
This came up in a recent interview by Patrick Klepek at GiantBomb.

[hemmingjay]

Not to derail this too much but the core issue is that most indie devs don't have qualified business administration staff that are empowered to make decisions. Most indie devs are either industry vets who were tired of having to deal with "suits" detracting from their "amazing" ideas or they are young dreamers who think all you need to make a successful game is a good idea and skilled developers. The problem is that this is a business and in order to create a successful game you have to have a solid financial foundation. Planning ahead and utilizing standard business practices will enable a studio to develop the bare minimum viable product to present to the target audience. If the audience appreciates said product it is easy to find funding to produce the game. About half of the developers realize this much. Unfortunately they spend all of the money making the game and have no forethought for the rest of the procedures. They leave no money for marketing(30% of total budget is traditional), no money for support staff, no money for post release development, etc. They assume that the game will sell and they will have tons of money right away but that's not always the case. Steam can hold your money for up to 60 days, any debts will usually have to be paid from the first wave(s) of income. Some debtors will file a lien on accounts if they don't get their payment within a week after launch, even if Steam doesn't pay you for 30 days. There are a host of legal issues that arise with success such as tax and territory disputes, third party rights management, alternative revenue stream agreements and more.

I have made a good living by providing these services mostly to developers who have already made mistakes and lost a lot of money and reputation. The second time around developers usually structure just like the companies they originally spoke out against. They begin to operate like the same jerks they once lamented because it's usually the only way to run a successful business.

There are of course exceptions and flukes where some devs have been incredibly lucky and sold millions of copies of their game while mishandling operations. Dumb luck and tons of money can overcome almost anything, but it's a VERY rare instance.

ON TOPIC:  I don't care what happens to the Towns franchise as long as Burningpet keeps creating! Have you seen his work on Dwelvers?!

[MoLAoS]

Not to derail this too much but the core issue is that most indie devs don't have qualified business administration staff that are empowered to make decisions. Most indie devs are either industry vets who were tired of having to deal with "suits" detracting from their "amazing" ideas or they are young dreamers who think all you need to make a successful game is a good idea and skilled developers. The problem is that this is a business and in order to create a successful game you have to have a solid financial foundation. Planning ahead and utilizing standard business practices will enable a studio to develop the bare minimum viable product to present to the target audience. If the audience appreciates said product it is easy to find funding to produce the game. About half of the developers realize this much. Unfortunately they spend all of the money making the game and have no forethought for the rest of the procedures. They leave no money for marketing(30% of total budget is traditional), no money for support staff, no money for post release development, etc. They assume that the game will sell and they will have tons of money right away but that's not always the case. Steam can hold your money for up to 60 days, any debts will usually have to be paid from the first wave(s) of income. Some debtors will file a lien on accounts if they don't get their payment within a week after launch, even if Steam doesn't pay you for 30 days. There are a host of legal issues that arise with success such as tax and territory disputes, third party rights management, alternative revenue stream agreements and more.

I have made a good living by providing these services mostly to developers who have already made mistakes and lost a lot of money and reputation. The second time around developers usually structure just like the companies they originally spoke out against. They begin to operate like the same jerks they once lamented because it's usually the only way to run a successful business.

There are of course exceptions and flukes where some devs have been incredibly lucky and sold millions of copies of their game while mishandling operations. Dumb luck and tons of money can overcome almost anything, but it's a VERY rare instance.

ON TOPIC:  I don't care what happens to the Towns franchise as long as Burningpet keeps creating! Have you seen his work on Dwelvers?!

More like most people in general lack basic business sense.

Most devs also lack basic design skills. They have a mediocre game idea and maybe average or above average programming skills. They don't understand how design works at all. They aren't aware of how to manipulate players' incentive patterns, so they can't decide when its a good idea and when its exploitative. When they are inspired by games they take that inspiration whole cloth and don't consider why the devs added a given feature and whether it was good or bad. Games like Majesty and Dungeon Keeper succeeded largely because their ambiance was really great. "I'm just... a gnooooome!" They also fail to consider that many games gained success based on little competition or getting a lucky review or lucky word of mouth that gave them success beyond their actual value. Or some forum like SA or B12 or CivFan invested as a community which added value for mods or discussion and built in advertising.

What are also to blame are kickstarter and early access investors. Except they can't help it. They lack the capability to determine what games will deliver because they are even worse than devs at the above mentioned skills and knowledge. Humans do not make rational decisions about the success of a project. They invest based on some nebulous, amorphous emotional attachment to certain features. Standard business practices work not because they are very good, after all publishers run into a lot of failures, too. They are used because everything else is worse. Standard business practices are the worst way to determine the potential success of a game, except all the other ways.

[genmac]

Towns was def. one of the kickstarted/early access failure (from a player/buyer perspective).  I remember impulse buying it, after reading so much praise for it.  Checked out a video to see how building houses would work.  First thing the guy narrating admits is that it took him 9 HOURS to build a couple modest houses.  That's not a game that's a job.

[bQt31]

I enjoyed towns for a while, I don't consider it a failed project. My worst early access game experience to date is castle story

[Aklyon]

I haven't had any problems with castle story. They're taking quite some time to get things done (which can be annoying, but not always avoidable), but they're still working on it at least.

[umiman]

I have made a good living by providing these services mostly to developers who have already made mistakes and lost a lot of money and reputation. The second time around developers usually structure just like the companies they originally spoke out against. They begin to operate like the same jerks they once lamented because it's usually the only way to run a successful business.

I thought you left the gaming world?

I agree with you mostly but I don't really have any problems with it. It's as much the fault of naive people sponsoring this guy without any thought about whether he could actually deliver as it is the devs. A side effect of the current open game market.

I prefer the system we have over how locked-in and insular all the modern consoles are.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah. I honestly don't mind. But, then, I look at Kickstarter/Early Access as paying for potential. I know that the project may or may not reach that potential, and I'm ok with that going in.

I don't agree with the people who go in expecting some giant awesome project at the end and getting upset and bitter when that potential isn't reached. I get that they're dissapointed, I am too, but that's different from getting angry about stuff.