How to identify dubious Kickstarters, EarlyAccess and Crowd funded Projects.

SEANMCAD

ZionBane said:

SEANMCAD said:

ZionBane said:

SEANMCAD said:

regarding feature complete I again fail to see why its so important that it trumps the importance of the game play as it currently stands. your take, (and many here) is 'not complete?' 'full stop not looking at it all whatsoever, its garbage, the developers are from satan'. that very extreme 

And that is Different from your "YOU WILL PLAY EA AND YOU WILL LOVE IT ! EA IS THE BEST STUFF EVAR!" 

How?

Electronic Arts?

look if your going to ignore what the substance of what I said just dont bother to reply.

We are talking about Early Access..if you're that much a slobbering fan-boi of Electronic Arts... It would explain why your so irrational... 

I was making fun of you. Yes I know everyone adopted the WORST acronym for early access one could ever think of, design to cause confusion. I was just helping it along

Octagon7711

If it sounds too good to be true, just remember the presentation is not the game itself.

Jonnyp2

I tend to lose interest when devs spend more time highlighting reward tiers than the game itself.  Maybe it's necessary to get funding these days, but it bothers me to see 15 donation levels loaded with a bunch of random junk.  

SEANMCAD

Jonnyp2 said:

I tend to lose interest when devs spend more time highlighting reward tiers than the game itself.  Maybe it's necessary to get funding these days, but it bothers me to see 15 donation levels loaded with a bunch of random junk.  

I have noticed (at least on forums) an obsession over the developer themselves at an expense of interest in the game itself. I dont understand why but its fairly common to put developer actions or comments MUCH higher on the scale of importance than the game itself and what the game is about, what is offers in feature etc.

I do not understand why but its consistent and loud

cameltosis

SEANMCAD said:

cameltosis said:

SEANMCAD said:

I think what you are saying here is yet another example of being very unfair and making very wide broad generalized statements.

1. Game development takes 3-4 years on average.
2. People complained that KSP would never be released...it did release it took 3 years

so to be frank, unless a game has been in early access for more than 4 years then one should STFU about 'never being released' and start to get some perspective.

4 years is your benchmark?!? Wow! You are one tolerant man!

.......

Kerbal Space Program one of favorite games of all time was in early access for 3 years. So can you think of why I would use 4 years as a benchmark?


regarding feature complete I again fail to see why its so important that it trumps the importance of the game play as it currently stands. your take, (and many here) is 'not complete?' 'full stop not looking at it all whatsoever, its garbage, the developers are from satan'. that very extreme 

1. It doesn't trump gameplay. 

I've said it a few times already in this thread, as well as every other thread about this subject. Gameplay is king. Gameplay is the most important factor for me and, I imagine, most people. It has to be fun moment-to-moment. I've never said that Early Access games can't be fun, nor does fact that they're incomplete mean you can't enjoy them. 

However. 

Ethics. As I've repeatedly said, early access preys on the ignorant. For people like us, we do our research before buying a game. Its why I don't buy early access games: I've done my research, seen that they're in a bad state and refuse to financial support companies that operate this way. 

For the average gamer, that is not the case. A few game play videos, a few screenshots and a feature list is about as far as 90% of people go. For the average gamer, early access means feature complete but buggy. Early Access has a solid english meaning, as well as a specific software development meaning, but the way it is applied to games doesn't match either. 


2. Extreme Views

I don't consider my views extreme. When crowd funding and early access started becoming a thing, I immediately thought they were bad ideas for the industry but I tried to keep an open mind. I investigated games that were being made that I thought looked interesting. I looked into the companies making the games. I followed the development cycles. I spoke to friends who had gotten involved with these schemes. I have continued to follow them (hence my participation in this thread). 

My experience, and that of literally every single friend, was almost entirely negative. For educated purchasers, it was less negative, but still mostly a bad experience. Half the time, the negative experience was due to bugs. I'm glad you don't play games with bugs, but apparently the rest of us all do. The other half of the time, the negative experience was due to lack of features. We would buy a game, play it for 5 to 10 hours and then bam, wall of nothing. Missing features or content would destroy the whole experience and make you feel like you'd completely wasted your time. There was then no guarantee that the features would ever be there or that you'd still be interested in the game when they finally did arrive. 

Weirdly enough, it is the same feeling I have always gotten from Electronic Arts games - you're just starting to get into it and enjoying the features, but all of a sudden you realise there is nothing else left. It feels like you're missing half the game and you feel ripped off and disappointed at such a missed opportunity. (FYI - I do boycott Electronic Arts games for this very reason). 

This is less a problem for sandbox type games like KSP or Prison Architect, but it is a massive problem for nearly all other genres. 

So, I do not consider my view extreme. It is based on years of first, second and third hand observation and participation and is backed up by the fact that governments around the world are having to enact new laws to protect consumers against these unethical business practices. 


3. Feature Complete

A game is more than the sum of its features. Features combine to give an overall experience. So, if a game is not feature complete then you aren't getting the full experience. It is impossible to tell just how far away from the proper experience an EA game is without buying it. 

For example, my brother bought some survival game with dinosaurs (not ark) a few years back. It was in EA and had a good list of features. However, the actual game loop only had about 1-2 hours of actual gameplay before the lack of depth / features kicked in. There was no way to know, in advance, that this was going to be the case. No amount of research could have told him. I know he kept it installed for a year, waiting for the game to have more updates but they never came, so he uninstalled. 

This is why it matters to me, the consumer. 

Imagine, if you would, that SWG pre-cu was being developed using Early Access and had put in every feature except crafting. On the surface, great game because 90% of the features are in. The reality is vastly different. Crafting was such an important part of that game, controlling all gear and driving a lot of the gameplay. Before purchasing the game, you would have no idea that not having crafting would result in a sub-par experience, in the same way that when you purchase any EA game, you have no idea how much impact the missing features will have. 

You may get lucky, like with KSP, in that the missing features don't affect the gameplay much. Or you might get unlucky, like in my brother's case (and almost every other case) in that the missing features ruin the experience. You are gambling with every purchase.

SEANMCAD

cameltosis said:

1. It doesn't trump gameplay. 

I've said it a few times already in this thread, as well as every other thread about this subject. Gameplay is king. Gameplay is the most important factor for me and, I imagine, most people. It has to be fun moment-to-moment. I've never said that Early Access games can't be fun, nor does fact that they're incomplete mean you can't enjoy them. 

However. 

Ethics. As I've repeatedly said, early access preys on the ignorant. For people like us, we do our research before buying a game. Its why I don't buy early access games: I've done my research, seen that they're in a bad state and refuse to financial support companies that operate this way. 

For the average gamer, that is not the case. A few game play videos, a few screenshots and a feature list is about as far as 90% of people go. For the average gamer, early access means feature complete but buggy. Early Access has a solid english meaning, as well as a specific software development meaning, but the way it is applied to games doesn't match either. 


2. Extreme Views

I don't consider my views extreme. When crowd funding and early access started becoming a thing, I immediately thought they were bad ideas for the industry but I tried to keep an open mind. I investigated games that were being made that I thought looked interesting. I looked into the companies making the games. I followed the development cycles. I spoke to friends who had gotten involved with these schemes. I have continued to follow them (hence my participation in this thread). 

My experience, and that of literally every single friend, was almost entirely negative. For educated purchasers, it was less negative, but still mostly a bad experience. Half the time, the negative experience was due to bugs. I'm glad you don't play games with bugs, but apparently the rest of us all do. The other half of the time, the negative experience was due to lack of features. We would buy a game, play it for 5 to 10 hours and then bam, wall of nothing. Missing features or content would destroy the whole experience and make you feel like you'd completely wasted your time. There was then no guarantee that the features would ever be there or that you'd still be interested in the game when they finally did arrive. 

Weirdly enough, it is the same feeling I have always gotten from Electronic Arts games - you're just starting to get into it and enjoying the features, but all of a sudden you realise there is nothing else left. It feels like you're missing half the game and you feel ripped off and disappointed at such a missed opportunity. (FYI - I do boycott Electronic Arts games for this very reason). 

This is less a problem for sandbox type games like KSP or Prison Architect, but it is a massive problem for nearly all other genres. 

So, I do not consider my view extreme. It is based on years of first, second and third hand observation and participation and is backed up by the fact that governments around the world are having to enact new laws to protect consumers against these unethical business practices. 


3. Feature Complete

A game is more than the sum of its features. Features combine to give an overall experience. So, if a game is not feature complete then you aren't getting the full experience. It is impossible to tell just how far away from the proper experience an EA game is without buying it. 

For example, my brother bought some survival game with dinosaurs (not ark) a few years back. It was in EA and had a good list of features. However, the actual game loop only had about 1-2 hours of actual gameplay before the lack of depth / features kicked in. There was no way to know, in advance, that this was going to be the case. No amount of research could have told him. I know he kept it installed for a year, waiting for the game to have more updates but they never came, so he uninstalled. 

This is why it matters to me, the consumer. 

Imagine, if you would, that SWG pre-cu was being developed using Early Access and had put in every feature except crafting. On the surface, great game because 90% of the features are in. The reality is vastly different. Crafting was such an important part of that game, controlling all gear and driving a lot of the gameplay. Before purchasing the game, you would have no idea that not having crafting would result in a sub-par experience, in the same way that when you purchase any EA game, you have no idea how much impact the missing features will have. 

You may get lucky, like with KSP, in that the missing features don't affect the gameplay much. Or you might get unlucky, like in my brother's case (and almost every other case) in that the missing features ruin the experience. You are gambling with every purchase.

1. What many of you are not aware of is that you spend 90% of your time talking about non-game play things in gaming forums and only about 10% of your time talking about game play. So is it any surprise to people like me are left with the impression that there is very little fucks given about game play?

2. my experience has been extremely positive nearly every single time. KSP, The Forest, 7 days to die, Stranded Deep, Subnautica, life is feudal, Wurm Unlimited, Space Engineers just to name a few are all outstanding games in my view and in my view tremendously better than AAA titles (I use that word tremendously intentionally). Early Access very literally saved me from giving up on games completely. that is how displeased I was with the offering in the AAA market.  Now I understand not everyone is going to have the same interests as I do but I would appreciate it people would stop making broad general blanket nuclear war statements about a system that has saved me from quiting gaming completely, been a HUGE improvement on my gaming experience and just step back and try to understand that some people do not like AAA games and diversity in the industry is a good thing and maybe just let them be and stop bitching about games your not going to play anyway and instead just continue to play the games you clearly enjoy which are not early access or indies.. fair enough, have fun because I know I am.

3. sorry but the whole 'I know playing this game appears to be fun with everything that is in it but becasue I know the developers are working on some new content I thus do not like the content that is out now and now the game is crap' is pure 100% unadulterated bullshit that I am never going to buy. Dont even bother trying logical gymanstics on that horseshit I aint buying it

SEANMCAD

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Slapshot1188

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

ZionBane

SEANMCAD said:

ZionBane said:

SEANMCAD said:
2.The VAST MAJORITY of early access games that are still working on features do not any hint of an immersion breaker like you have described. Some have fences or walls in the way but for the love of fuck! how bad is that compared to 'mainstream titles' that even in a 'complete' state barely even let you have 1/4th the freedom a pre-alpha early access title does? I mean sweet mother of god are you fucking joking me? mainstream titles usually give you at best 2 ways to get to the next section, invisible walls everywhere, while an incomplete early access title gives you MORE freedom. anyway...no your complaint here is horseshit. more than 1/2 the time the features being worked on are not even environmental in the first place and has ZERO impact on your current immersion factor, the other 1/2 in which might be enviromental is handled with still more freedom than mainstream games. 

If they are so finely polished, and better then released titles by AAA publishers, why are they still "early access"?

.....

VERY good question, question I ask myself. usually in the inverse though (why are AAA so bad compared to these games) I dont have an answer, its not logical, but it is factual

Oh that's easy enough to answer, they feel them is done to the point that it worth asking money for it.. now.. lets get back to that sham that is early access.

ZionBane

SEANMCAD said:

ZionBane said:

SEANMCAD said:

ZionBane said:

SEANMCAD said:

regarding feature complete I again fail to see why its so important that it trumps the importance of the game play as it currently stands. your take, (and many here) is 'not complete?' 'full stop not looking at it all whatsoever, its garbage, the developers are from satan'. that very extreme 

And that is Different from your "YOU WILL PLAY EA AND YOU WILL LOVE IT ! EA IS THE BEST STUFF EVAR!" 

How?

Electronic Arts?

look if your going to ignore what the substance of what I said just dont bother to reply.

We are talking about Early Access..if you're that much a slobbering fan-boi of Electronic Arts... It would explain why your so irrational... 

I was making fun of you. Yes I know everyone adopted the WORST acronym for early access one could ever think of, design to cause confusion. I was just helping it along

Your idea to making fun of other people is make yourself look like a moron... That.. explains... sooo much.... 

SEANMCAD

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

Slapshot1188

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

I'm not sure how that answers my question.  A simple name change would not prevent anything you posted from happening.

laserit

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

I'm not sure how that answers my question.  A simple name change would not prevent anything you posted from happening.

Its an answer, though not direct.

It gives the developer an excuse as to why the game may have faults that need fixing.

SEANMCAD

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

I'm not sure how that answers my question.  A simple name change would not prevent anything you posted from happening.

so are you trying to suggest all this flame against early access, from Sterling to Forum heros posting about all the evils of early access is because of the fucking title of the system? I call bullshit on that one too

For a group hyper sensitive about fucking semantics one would think they would also have thought that using the term EAG instead of EA as a acronym to reduce confusion would have been painfully obvious but I guess not. anyway I digress.

I DONT CARE WHAT ITS CALLED.

postlarval

 said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

I'm not sure how that answers my question.  A simple name change would not prevent anything you posted from happening.

Its an answer, though not direct.

It gives the developer an excuse as to why the game may have faults that need fixing.

Is it possible for early access developers to fit more excuses into their very busy schedule of making excuses?

Talonsin

I see talk of how 3 of the top 6 games on steam are EA (early access) but no numbers for how many EA games are in the bottom.  For every good game that used EA in its intended way, there are a half dozen games that used it just to get their junk on steam and make a quick buck.  

I purchased Kerbal and love it.  I have over 300 hours in that game.  Those guys did EA right but what about games like:

Kinetic Void
Spacebase DF-9
Colonies Online
Maia
Nether

Some of these developers just grabbed the money, announced "game released" and took off with players money. 

While I love the idea of EA, Steam needs to screen these games much better and change their agreements to require companies to provide refunds if the game does not deliver on its marketing.  Time limits on EA would also be nice.  A friend gifted me Maia back in Jan of 2014 and it is still a shell of a game after 3+ years.  It would have been nice to know on their steam page that the developer was a single person and this project was going to take 6 to 8 years.

postlarval

Talonsin said:

I see talk of how 3 of the top 6 games on steam are EA (early access) but no numbers for how many EA games are in the bottom.  For every good game that used EA in its intended way, there are a half dozen games that used it just to get their junk on steam and make a quick buck.  

I purchased Kerbal and love it.  I have over 300 hours in that game.  Those guys did EA right but what about games like:

Kinetic Void
Spacebase DF-9
Colonies Online
Maia
Nether

Some of these developers just grabbed the money, announced "game released" and took off with players money. 

While I love the idea of EA, Steam needs to screen these games much better and change their agreements to require companies to provide refunds if the game does not deliver on its marketing.  Time limits on EA would also be nice.  A friend gifted me Maia back in Jan of 2014 and it is still a shell of a game after 3+ years.  It would have been nice to know on their steam page that the developer was a single person and this project was going to take 6 to 8 years.

I don't have any concrete numbers (none of us do), but I suspect for every early access done right, there are quite a few scams and/or money grabs. That's what makes investing in early access games not worth it.

SEANMCAD

postlarval said:

Talonsin said:

I see talk of how 3 of the top 6 games on steam are EA (early access) but no numbers for how many EA games are in the bottom.  For every good game that used EA in its intended way, there are a half dozen games that used it just to get their junk on steam and make a quick buck.  

I purchased Kerbal and love it.  I have over 300 hours in that game.  Those guys did EA right but what about games like:

Kinetic Void
Spacebase DF-9
Colonies Online
Maia
Nether

Some of these developers just grabbed the money, announced "game released" and took off with players money. 

While I love the idea of EA, Steam needs to screen these games much better and change their agreements to require companies to provide refunds if the game does not deliver on its marketing.  Time limits on EA would also be nice.  A friend gifted me Maia back in Jan of 2014 and it is still a shell of a game after 3+ years.  It would have been nice to know on their steam page that the developer was a single person and this project was going to take 6 to 8 years.

I don't have any concrete numbers (none of us do), but I suspect for every early access done right, there are quite a few scams and/or money grabs. That's what makes investing in early access games not worth it.

sorry wrong reply

SEANMCAD

Talonsin said:

I see talk of how 3 of the top 6 games on steam are EA (early access) but no numbers for how many EA games are in the bottom.  For every good game that used EA in its intended way, there are a half dozen games that used it just to get their junk on steam and make a quick buck.  

I purchased Kerbal and love it.  I have over 300 hours in that game.  Those guys did EA right but what about games like:

Kinetic Void
Spacebase DF-9
Colonies Online
Maia
Nether

Some of these developers just grabbed the money, announced "game released" and took off with players money. 

While I love the idea of EA, Steam needs to screen these games much better and change their agreements to require companies to provide refunds if the game does not deliver on its marketing.  Time limits on EA would also be nice.  A friend gifted me Maia back in Jan of 2014 and it is still a shell of a game after 3+ years.  It would have been nice to know on their steam page that the developer was a single person and this project was going to take 6 to 8 years.

here is my small list of the good games of which have high sales

http://store.steampowered.com/app/220200/Kerbal_Space_Program/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/251570/7_Days_to_Die/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/Space_Engineers/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/333950/Medieval_Engineers/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/324080/Rising_World/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/268650/From_the_Depths/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/233860/Kenshi/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/242760/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/264710/Subnautica/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/290080/Life_is_Feudal_Your_Own/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/313120/Stranded_Deep/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/516750/agecheck

http://store.steampowered.com/app/521150/Another_Brick_in_the_Mall/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/RimWorld/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/108600/Project_Zomboid/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/244770/StarMade/

http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/242760/

http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/252490/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/313120/Stranded_Deep/

we dont try to change football because some drunk guys play on sunday night in a street dont take it seriously. We look at the more popular football players.

trying to complain about an entire system because of a small handful of games with very few purchases and most of with have been delt with is being very unfair

CrazKanuk

postlarval said:

Talonsin said:

I see talk of how 3 of the top 6 games on steam are EA (early access) but no numbers for how many EA games are in the bottom.  For every good game that used EA in its intended way, there are a half dozen games that used it just to get their junk on steam and make a quick buck.  

I purchased Kerbal and love it.  I have over 300 hours in that game.  Those guys did EA right but what about games like:

Kinetic Void
Spacebase DF-9
Colonies Online
Maia
Nether

Some of these developers just grabbed the money, announced "game released" and took off with players money. 

While I love the idea of EA, Steam needs to screen these games much better and change their agreements to require companies to provide refunds if the game does not deliver on its marketing.  Time limits on EA would also be nice.  A friend gifted me Maia back in Jan of 2014 and it is still a shell of a game after 3+ years.  It would have been nice to know on their steam page that the developer was a single person and this project was going to take 6 to 8 years.

I don't have any concrete numbers (none of us do), but I suspect for every early access done right, there are quite a few scams and/or money grabs. That's what makes investing in early access games not worth it.

Actually, I took all games on Steam tagged with the term Kickstarter and compared that against the remaining steam games and there is, literally zero difference in quality based on Steam thumbs-up/down. I believe it was within a margin of error of 5% 

From a quality perspective I don't think there is any difference. The main issue is that we forget that there are plenty of shitty games being made every day without crowdfunding. They just aren't celebrated. Same goes for KS games. The only time we hear about shifty ones is when some is using it to support an agenda. The fact is that there is little difference based on the Steam ratings.

Kyleran

SEANMCAD said:

Kyleran said:

SEANMCAD said:

Kyleran said:

SEANMCAD said:

btdt said:

goddamit

 there is no such thing as an Steam Early Access MMO to begin with so if your talking about MMOs please be mineful to not randomly throw nuclear hand geradades into the field of Steam Early Access with no fucks given. thanks.

Be clear, on forums I often here a lot of shit talk about Steam Early Access games. when people say 'early access' they are often thinking 'steam early access'.

some asshat developer who releases their game and call it 'early access' does but not within the steam early access system is different. 

Wut? I've told you all along I only play MMOs and isn't Life is Feudal on Steam EA?

So now you add another bar for me to hurdle in this conversation.

First it was I have to focus on single player games, yet MMOs go into EA all of the time.

Point mine.

Next came the request to state how it could matter to me that games vary between EA and launch. I provided you 4 solid reasons why.

Point mine.

Then you said I could not use examples of which I had no experience of. I had previously used a former EA game 2 years past its official launch date that had gameplay annoying bugs still to this date. 

But I pressed forward and provided examples of both an MMO and a single player EA games which illustrated all 4 of my reasons.

Probably should get 2 points for that one.

Now there's a new requirement that I only use Steam EA examples which btw in using Grim Dawn I think I covered it.

Point mine.

In tennis terms, thats 5 points and a game for me.

Shall we go for a set or will you concede the match?

Or is there another bar I need to jump over?

Nuts forgot one. You also want me to wait 3 or 4 years for games to come out of EA, that one is indefensible so my win by default, first point to me in the second set.

Also, no use trying to confuse the argument with strawmen like comparisons to AAA titles, how many people are buying into EA, what EA really stands for, or worst of all, how much "fun" everyone is having.

I'll say it again, progression, accomplishment, satisfaction of achieving my goals is what drives me to play, fun rarely comes into the decision.

Fun is what children have on the playground. 



Yes, I am goading you.

cameltosis

SEANMCAD said:

cameltosis said:

3. sorry but the whole 'I know playing this game appears to be fun with everything that is in it but becasue I know the developers are working on some new content I thus do not like the content that is out now and now the game is crap' is pure 100% unadulterated bullshit that I am never going to buy. Dont even bother trying logical gymanstics on that horseshit I aint buying it

You're just not getting it, so I'll try to use numbers and see if that helps. 

• An average, fully released game provides 1000 fun
• It has 10 features, with a score of 10 on the quality of each feature, with a score of 10 for how these features syncronise together (10x10x10 = 1000)

So, how many features are there (quantity), how good are those features (quality), and how well do they synchronise together (x factor)

In general:

• Early access has less features
• The quality fluctuates wildly
• The missing features result in a lower x factor

Each of us has a threshold for minimum amount of fun and each of us has different opinions on what constitutes quality, which is why each of us needs to make our own choice on a per game basis. 

The only early access game I enjoyed was Prison Architect. When I bought it, it was already feature rich, probably on par with the average management / sim type game. The quality was low in terms of bugs and performance but balanced out by the creativity of the features. The x-factor was slightly lower than average as you clearly noticed game balance or creativity being upset at various points. 

So, whilst the overall score came out lower than the average released game, it still met my criteria for fun and so I bought it. Nothing since has met that criteria because its rare to find an EA game so feature rich AND innovative. 

Slapshot1188

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

I'm not sure how that answers my question.  A simple name change would not prevent anything you posted from happening.

so are you trying to suggest all this flame against early access, from Sterling to Forum heros posting about all the evils of early access is because of the fucking title of the system? I call bullshit on that one too

For a group hyper sensitive about fucking semantics one would think they would also have thought that using the term EAG instead of EA as a acronym to reduce confusion would have been painfully obvious but I guess not. anyway I digress.

I DONT CARE WHAT ITS CALLED.

Not sure why such a simple question is so hard to answer.  Perhaps you misunderstood my point.  Nothing you listed would be precluded by having a game released instead of called Early Access.  So again, WHY call it Early Access and not just the standard release?

Vrika

CrazKanuk said:

postlarval said:

Talonsin said:

I see talk of how 3 of the top 6 games on steam are EA (early access) but no numbers for how many EA games are in the bottom.  For every good game that used EA in its intended way, there are a half dozen games that used it just to get their junk on steam and make a quick buck.  

I purchased Kerbal and love it.  I have over 300 hours in that game.  Those guys did EA right but what about games like:

Kinetic Void
Spacebase DF-9
Colonies Online
Maia
Nether

Some of these developers just grabbed the money, announced "game released" and took off with players money. 

While I love the idea of EA, Steam needs to screen these games much better and change their agreements to require companies to provide refunds if the game does not deliver on its marketing.  Time limits on EA would also be nice.  A friend gifted me Maia back in Jan of 2014 and it is still a shell of a game after 3+ years.  It would have been nice to know on their steam page that the developer was a single person and this project was going to take 6 to 8 years.

I don't have any concrete numbers (none of us do), but I suspect for every early access done right, there are quite a few scams and/or money grabs. That's what makes investing in early access games not worth it.

Actually, I took all games on Steam tagged with the term Kickstarter and compared that against the remaining steam games and there is, literally zero difference in quality based on Steam thumbs-up/down. I believe it was within a margin of error of 5% 

From a quality perspective I don't think there is any difference. The main issue is that we forget that there are plenty of shitty games being made every day without crowdfunding. They just aren't celebrated. Same goes for KS games. The only time we hear about shifty ones is when some is using it to support an agenda. The fact is that there is little difference based on the Steam ratings.

Do you mean you personally took the 15 000+ games on Steam and counted averages of their rankings? Or do you mean to say you used SteamSpy data?

If you're using SteamSpy data please remember to tell your source instead of claiming that you've done it.



Sorry about this post, but it just feels unbelievable that someone on these forums would have personally started counting averages of Steam rankings when the data is already available on SteamSpy.

SEANMCAD

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Slapshot1188 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Also..I am nearly positive if you had never played early access titles I could put you in a room and  have you play a game and after about 30 hours you would still have no idea the game was incomplete.

i can think of several titles I could have done that with.

Then why call it Early Access?  What's the benefit?

I dont give a rats ass what its called but I can tell you the benifit.
Here is three stories Gabe Newel gave (I paraphrase). His story is trying to explain by example to advantage of AGILE programming to laymen.

'we had an Apple app that needed a fix, the fix took us 5 mins, it took us 6 months to get the change approved, if you can deploy something as soon as its done then you can get immediate feedback as to if it works and even if its something the users want'

'Developers would work years perfecting what they felt was ideal game only to find once its deployed people didnt like it' fast iteration of feedback from your customers allows you to adjust quickly.

'Communities have been known to find ways to exploit games within less than 24 hours of deployement despite month of testing' no testing team ever can compete with thousands of players providing implict feedback.

I'm not sure how that answers my question.  A simple name change would not prevent anything you posted from happening.

so are you trying to suggest all this flame against early access, from Sterling to Forum heros posting about all the evils of early access is because of the fucking title of the system? I call bullshit on that one too

For a group hyper sensitive about fucking semantics one would think they would also have thought that using the term EAG instead of EA as a acronym to reduce confusion would have been painfully obvious but I guess not. anyway I digress.

I DONT CARE WHAT ITS CALLED.

Not sure why such a simple question is so hard to answer.  Perhaps you misunderstood my point.  Nothing you listed would be precluded by having a game released instead of called Early Access.  So again, WHY call it Early Access and not just the standard release?

no everything I listed WOULD not be possible with official release as people expect that model to currently exist.

now regarding naming conventions I can not stress how much I dont care what the system is called.

I also fail to see where there is a problem. The games work, they work under the model I have suggested, if they released the same way under regular release then fine, whatever, not sure your material point