Fighting Early Access Disasters
610 words.
Bhagpuss has a post referencing, among other things, the deplorable state of Early Access game releases right now, seen in such recent launch disasters as Fallout 76 (not technically early access but, seriously, it was) and Atlas (which as I write this hasn’t been out more than a day and has already been review-bombed to death on Steam).
I have nothing to add to his observations except that yes, I agree. Game developers are taking advantage of us, big time. I don’t blame them for it, though. We volunteer to be taken advantage of, because we still aren’t very bright, as a collective.
What Bhagpuss didn’t really mention, though, is how we stop it. My personal response to these trends, as a consumer, which I began some two years ago or more-after the Landmark and ArcheAge debacles, and during that long stretch when a new survival game appeared on Steam every week: I strictly avoid buying *any* Early Access title on Steam *unless* it falls to $10 or less in a sale. The only exception I might make is if a game gets rave reviews from many people I trust. The vast majority don’t.
I haven’t been 100% successful, but there have only been a handful of failures in the last two years, and the more I stick to it, the easier it gets. This year I caved on Project: Gorgon for $30 (which was a discount, actually). I don’t feel too bad about that one, given the unique situation surrounding that game. Last year I caved on Conan Exiles, Factorio, and Dark and Light, each around $20. One of those I regret. I didn’t keep track as much in 2016.
Another policy I’ve held for a while now is that I do not pre-order games anymore. Nobody should. I might make an exception for something *really*, *really* special, but it would have to be from a developer and a franchise with a great reputation, and those are basically non-existent anymore. Even then, there’s no need. For games I really want, I’ve been able to buy them on launch day, download, and play the same day without issue every time. Pre-order not required.
It should go without saying that one should never, ever get involved in any “crowdfunded” games anymore. Ever. Period. The End. (I mean, unless maybe you personally know someone involved in making the game.) If the game is good enough, it will get the funding it needs and eventually launch and you can buy it then.
I often hear the sentiment that we consumers are powerless in the face of the greedy, exploitative game companies. But we actually have *all* the power. And we the consumers *have* to make it unprofitable for game companies to release unfinished, ill-conceived products, or else they’ll keep doing it forever. Why wouldn’t they? Why bother spending the money to finish a game when people will pre-order away based on some marketing copy and a flashy trailer, and jump up and down with excitement about it? It will remain that way until we change our buying behavior or a government steps in to regulate developers’ behavior. And *that’s* a different can of worms that’s way beyond the scope of this post.
Yes, it does require willpower and determination, qualities that are often lacking in modern Western civilization. But I would encourage or maybe I should say challenge everyone else to adopt some self-discipline, or we will continue to get train wrecks like Fallout 76 and Atlas and undoubtedly most game releases in 2019 and beyond to the end of our gaming lives.
Archived Comments
Bhagpuss 2018-12-24T16:14:40Z
As I say towards the end of the post, though, I’m by nio means sure I want the current situation to stop. Obviously I’d like it if developers would try to hold off from taking money until they have at least a minimally viable product, but if you offered me the choice of things as they are now or going back to the days when we had no choice but to eait until full and final release, I’d definitely go for the status quo.
My concern isn’t really for the players. As must be all too obvious, players will pay for anything. They don’t care if it works. If it’s really, really bad they might take a refund but mostly they’ll just gripe and complain and move on to the next Big New Thing. The factor people who don’t do this always seem to miss is that what people are paying for is the excitement. A really, really bad launch, like Atlas, is money well spent because what was bought was being part of a moment. Most of those players would never have hung around anyway, even if the game was playable and had content. They’d be off to the next shiny at the earliest opportunity.
My concern is for the developers. Unless they can keep coming up with hypeworthy potential megagames ad infinitum the machine will stop. And since these are online games that have a life potentially leading into years in a service model, and since no matter how bad the launch and the game may be, enough people will always stick around to tie up developer resources for months if not years, over time there will be more and more developers tied up in either fixing or maintaining non-viable online games for a series of small, siloed playerbases.
Landmark is a great example. It should have been closed down long, long before it was. I loved Landmark and as i repeatedly say I got my money’s worth out of it in the first six months, but it was paramountly obvious to anyone playing that it was never going to become a commercial success. One of the best things Daybreak have done since they took over from SOE is close down all the lame duck and vanity projects that were bleeding the company’s limited resources dry. Unfortunately, most Early Access projects are the only thing that developer has going so they either try to limp along with them or they go out of business.
To sum up, I don’t have a problem with Early Access, open development or indeed pre-orders. I just want developers to start taking the money when they have a viable product, not just some concept art and a proprietary engine.
UltrViolet 2018-12-24T17:59:40Z In a sense it doesn’t particularly bother me either, since it’s everyone else getting screwed, and not me. But right now I really don’t see that there’s much incentive for developers not to release and charge money before they have a minimum viable product.
Jeromai 2018-12-26T00:24:40Z
I already have enough games on Steam to last me for the rest of my gaming life, I’m good until Valve closes up shop!
It seems to me though that early access unfinished games are feeding right into a Twitch stream cycle in a self-sustaining loop. The streamers buy the games full price that many sensible or patient people won’t, they play the buggy glitchy games and add entertainment value that enough people seem happy enough to pay for with subs and donations to the streamers, the devs seem to pull enough value in the short term from streamers and some of their audience going for the hype and the thing repeats itself.
So I don’t know if anything can be done about it from a boycott perspective. It may be more of just deciding which part of the cycle individuals are happy enough to buy into for the experience you want. If one actually wants to play a more or less fixed up game, then hang back and be a patient gamer and enter in at the long tail stage. If one gains the most fun experience in the early hype player locust fame and infamy days, then buy in then.
UltrViolet 2018-12-27T12:29:04Z You make a good point.. I hadn’t really factored streamers into the equation. I sort of assumed they would behave more like game consumers than entertainers which now that I think about it is pretty naive.
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