Good on steam for thinking only of covering their asses by leaving their users twisting in the wind while letting devs sell games they don't HAVE to finish developing on valves own system?
The very definition of the average steam user, you are...
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And what do you think Steam can do? Give back the money? That would be stupid because it's NOT Steam's fault. When you buy an Early Access game, you should have that little thought that the developers may screw you around by stopping the development. You technically buy unfinished games, which means that the developers are not even forced to finish the game, because THEY define how the finished game will be. If I want to make an FPS and make everything but not the weapons, I have the right to say it's finished, because it's my game, not anyone else's. Just be careful before you buy, and don't blame Steam for things that are not THEIR fault. They just gave new developers the ability to use an early publish.
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It reinforces that Steam/Valve is only the distributor; building the game, making sure it works etc. is not their responsibility.
Only exception would be if Valve sticks one of their own development projects under the Early Access release.
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It's good business. Early access games are an investment and it is up to us to decide if it is a good one. Early access allows some developers to actually flourish that otherwise would go bankrupt before even creating a public beta. Yes, some developers will abuse this, but that is why you shouldn't be a moron and pay $30 for an early access game. There IS some games that are doing well in progress that NEED this system. Steam is just the middle man, they allow games like Hell Retribution on their store, why the Hell not allow Early Access games where the indie devs actually have a chance in the world?
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Yeah....not that I usually buy them but now I know to stay far far away.
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I agree, it's a good reason to wait and buy games that are actually finished, polished, and ready to play. Like Watch_Dogs.
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Keep in mind, I didn't say all non-Early Access games are great. There is still tons of crap out there to avoid (Steam sells Bad Rats after all).
This is just a warning to Early Access buyers; too often I see stuff like "well, this game is kinda broken but has lots of potential and will be great one day." Well, it turns out that it might not.
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It's true about Early Access. But remember about games like Space Engineers and Planetary Annihilation. :)
You only need to look, what devs are doing, are they disciplined (like in Space Engineers or Robocraft), are they realizing planned features, etc.
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Well, at least Watch Dogs is finished, more polished and ready to play, unlike GTA V.
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Really unfair if you ask me, much worse companies out in the world. Hell Comcast, Monsanto, etcc...
Its more bandwagon then anything those votes.
I mean support is quicker then Steam and for the games they make they do 24 hour refunds, can't say that about steam, you gotta bescially plead to get a refund and support is super slow.
Steam is better in most respects but lets not act like Origin is THAT bad, so exaggerated.
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I understand that you like origin for their service but it has been voted world worst company four years in a row by the people, not chosen by a website or such so I think it was worth mentioning that their interests are certainly not the consumers. This company is releasing half-baked product on a monthly basis and their games rarely get supported more than a few years unlike Valve's games. If their service is good so far it's mainly because they want to gain market shares that Steam is almost monopolizing right now, but they still have this bad reputation made through decades following them so the only option I guess is to suddenly look nice to their customers by offering very fast support so they can gain on territories that Steam is trailing behind such as refunding. To me this is not a company I'd like to be affiliated with but competition is good as long as it stay fair on both side and gamers can profit from it.
I can't argue with the companies you mentioned.. the media should talk more about this.
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"I understand that you like origin for their service but it has been voted world worst company four years in a row by the people"
Well yeah that basically what I meant by bandwagon, I can agree that Ea drops the ball a lot but I feel the company is very disjointed, some good guys, some bad. I think they are trying though, I do hate some of the crap they did in the past, I just can't see how its the worst company ever....I mean look at the world, did we really vote this the worst? Not the people playing god? Not the people hydrofracking? Not the people poisoning the well so to speak? Ehh just seems out of touch is all, people are really out of touch, its sorta sad.
Well thats just my 2 cents, Steam isn't all sunshine and cupcakes if you ask me, as of now, as much as I like the community features the thing is much slower then Uplay and Origin since this was introduced(not unbearable but noticeably worse) and don't get me started on the first couple years of steam, what a mess.
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I'd love for someone to name one company whose interests are really in the consumers. Companies exist to make profit first. The only difference is that some companies make it more obvious than others.
And surprised that HilaryClinton didn't bring up the big pharmaceutical companies. Yeah, the ones mentioned are awful companies, but it doesn't even begin to compare when people actually die or become disabled because someone wanted to make a quick buck.
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"big pharmaceutical companies"
Oh yeah, those guys....not sure who is worse, them or the oil/food companies....its hard to think about sometimes, really depressing.
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CoD could be voted as the best game of the year, every year by kids, but that DOESN'T make it one. The single fact is that EA is NOT the worst company on the world. Who is stupid enough to believe that?
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I once saw someone on the Steam forums say, perfectly seriously and in reply to a Humble Origin bundle thread, that EA was "one of the most evil companies of all time."
I shit you not. Talk about living in a bubble.
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A lot of people, blind ones mostly, many are blind to truth though.
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You'll be happy, EA didn't won it this year but you would have won your bet: http://consumerist.com/2014/04/08/congratulations-to-comcast-your-2014-worst-company-in-america/
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Who did the voting? Apparently, some say Time Warner Cable, at least for the US.
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Why switch to Origin when we can all switch to Desura!!!!! cricket noises in background hahaha..I didn't think so..
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Is that when you lose something and then find it and then you CAN'T find it again because no refounds??
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It was always a given with early access games that they might never be completed. They offer you the possibility of buying the game while it's in beta in the hope that it gets completed someday.
They have spelled it out now because people buy those games expecting a finished product. There will always be risks buying an early access game, like funding a Kickstarter project. If you're not ready to risk your money in something that might never get completed, then wait for the official release.
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Except with kickstarter if they do not reach their goal, they do not get the money... so... yea...
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What does liking a nice slong have to do with this?
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Im into game sales business and let me tell you that the games that appeared on youtube channels from famous tubers have more demand than other games. Games like GMOD, Rust, Outlast, Goat Simulator have more demand than other good games with similar prices during sales.
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Yes, its not a word I find my self using to often.
My mistake, at least he understood it haha...
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Woah I thought you and xXGatumadreXx were the same guy for a min, now I see you were most likely joking and might have lied about your birthday.
Lies are bad man.
Shame.
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Lets look at a few early access games I've bought.
1) Next Car Game. It's good enough right now to have earned my money and I've got enough fun out of it.
2) Kerbal Space Program. It's got enough stuff to be a complete game at this point and other games that have been officially released have had less content.
3) Vertical Drop HD. It's from a flash developer I love and I got it while it was still on greenlight. In his flash games he has got my support in his paid games.
4) Prison Architect: I still need to play this game, but simply from a video I watched months ago it seems good enough to be worth the paid price.
Verdict: When you buy a game that is in alpha or beta, make sure that the price you pay and the current quality is good enough that even if the game is never updated again it will be worth it. If you say yes, you can feel good buying it. If you say maybe, think hard about it and make a decision. If you say no, wait on buying it. If it's worth it, you can buy it later. If they scrap it you will have saved your money.
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You can expect (most of) the established devs (e.g. Bugbear, Introversion) to finish their games eventually, but you shouldn't trust studios that are developing their first game.
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I think that's the exception rather than the rule.
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I bought Doorkickers last year and I like to see the development of the game. This month the first Beta will come out and if I remember right its their first game. Right now I had much fun with it and besides some features and bugs it is already a nice game.
Also in general -> The Early Access Devs sell their Alpha/Beta games as Alpha/Beta not like some big publishers which sell Beta games as finished.
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It actually got through greenlight, and will be on actual steam in the near future. They sale the game on the Humble Bundle Store so you can download the game before the steam keys are given out. (I'm pretty sure the steam keys will be given out when it actually is released on Steam.)
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Valve needs to start offering refunds for Early Access games and preferably also require the devs to finish the game.
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That's because people want to give Phil Fish the least money possible
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I think it's kind of shitty of Steam to do this. The Devs should be required by Valve to at least meet all the features that were promised on the store page. I think that as the store front Valve has an obligation to assure that what they are selling meets the description provided by the store.
I'm on the fence about the merits of early access. There are a lot of examples of how it can help create better games (Kerbal, Prison Architect, etc) but there are also more and more examples of how this can be abused (Towns, Stardrive, Paranautical Activity) which shows that Valve should be taking stronger measures to protect its customers from unscrupulous Devs instead of washing their hands of it saying buyer beware.
I just hope that people will remember the Devs that abused early access and not buy any of their future products.
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What choice do they have? Steam can't force developers to finish the game (and in some cases the developers might not even be able to.) They can't refund everyone because most of the money goes to the devs. They can't force the devs to refund everyone because often, when a game fails, it's because the devs ran ran out of money.
It's like this!
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I never buy early access games anyway (unless they're in bundles), precisely because you can never really tell what will happen. If anything, this addition to the FAQ raises awareness to the danger of buying a game in its alpha state-- but it's still ultimately the player's decision.
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All the more reason to do your research and as the FAQ puts it, only buy if you want the game as it is.
I personally only own one early access game, and that's Unepic. But Unepic is a pretty solid game and the single player part of it is complete. It's one of few that I'd recommend to buy despite early access because it's a solid game now and even if the dev abandons it now, I still have a fun game to play. I am not going to buy an early access game if there isn't a solid enough product that I'll have fun playing even if the developer never truly finishes it.
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So basically, Valve uses it's monopolist position on the market of digitally distributed games as a store to compete with crowd-funding services like Kickstarter to take it's share, sells this stuff via it's store but refuses to take any responsibility as a store.
Rename the whole thing to Too Early Access, state that there's no guarantee whatsoever to see it someday playable/enjoyable/finished in a clear fashion, and make whole new webpage and service with different client for this shit. Otherwise I hope European Comission finally gets on their asses.
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"Early Access" is a fancy way to say "Paid Beta Access". Valve could indeed change the terms of the devs side and make it a requirement that the game has to be finished. Still devs will screw up and sueing them won't get any money back to the customers, but at least it would be clear that Valve takes responsibility for what they sell. Ah well, I didn't plan to buy any early access games anyway.
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From all Early Access games I bought Kerbal Space Program and Space Engineers only. Both are functional, stable and playable as hell, so I don't care really. They can stop developing right now and I'll be still satisfied. Use your brain and look what is done, not what could be done and you won't get screwed.
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Really, this doesn't change anything. Early Access was always a gamble and you were never guaranteed a finished product in the end. I'd like to think that if they could legally require devs to finish their game/include all the promised features, they'd do it. Refunds wouldn't really work unless Valve kept 100% of the profits until release or something, but then that would defeat the entire point of Early Access in the first place; supporting the devs through the development.
If this is such a problem for you, there's an easy fix. Wait until the game's released before spending money on it. Problem solved. Or just do some basic research. Even though I buy few Early Access games myself, I fully support the option to, for people who know the risks involved.
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You're right that the fix for this nonsense is for people to realize what Early Access is.
That said, this is not the fault of the consumers. Vavle is doing pretty good job in blurring the line between an Early Access title and a finished product.
The fact that Early Access titles gets promoted and heavily discounted, just like any other released title makes it seem like very much the same thing. Sure, they have that "warning" on Early Access store pages... but again, it's all very vague.
You have a blue colored box (this should be bright red if you ask me) with the statement "Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.".
That doesn't sound like a warning, that sounds like something positive. Then it's followed by some extremely vague text about how you may want to wait, or not. It's not a clear warning about what Early Access really is.
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Exactly this. Buy an Early Access game and support the developers' efforts, but don't be shocked if the game never gets finished; or if the finished product isn't what you expected. If you want a finished product, wait until the game is finished. If you can be happy with the game as it currently stands for the price you're paying, then go for it.
It'd be nice if all Early Access games get finished and turn out great, but that's just not realistic.
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Nice way to wash off their hands from all the early access trash they let on their store. To quote Jim Sterling: "If Valve put half as much effort into having storefront standards as it does info freeing itself of responsibility, Steam would be a utopia."
I keep hoping that Steam will get their shit together, but they just keep making it worse.
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That's brutal! I realize the only reason is to get away from any potential backlash Steam could face and they can just push it into the developer now.
In reality, this is going to make the bundle and crappy game situation even worse. Now developers don't even have to finish the game to push it into a bundle and cash out!
Make a game, promote it and get through Greenlight, get on Early Access, bundle it and forget it!
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Make it a "survival, open world, zombie, PVP, sandbox" to ensure you get a huge rush of sales while being on the Steam front page as well! People will buy any crappy pre-alpha as long as it ticks those boxes :D
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I will be damn happy the day Valve/Steam decides to shut down that early access crap and remove greenlight for good. Have any of you seen the amount of bullshit games on new releases?? I see new crap every single day, I don't know what the fuck's going on, but it has to stop.
Leave the indie crap to Desura, Steam was never meant for scammer devs
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Valve is going to make Steam a self-publishing platform when Greenlight goes away so the amount of crap will just increase.
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Honestly, a lot of the worst crap being released isn't even going through greenlight. Greenlight can be bypassed by getting a publisher.
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Looks like Steam is covering their backs while at the same time seemingly OK'ing the possibility of devs just up and quitting after raking in that sweet, sweet Early Access cash.
After all, most sales happen in the first month and dry up pretty fast after that. Why bother continuing development if you've already made all the money you were ever going to make, right?
Just another reason to only buy games that are actually finished, polished and ready to play.
Source.
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