Indies, Steam and Early Acces - gamedev revolution or impending crash?

Jason Moyer on 11/2/2014 at 11:11

Quote Posted by Brethren

The thing that kills me is when these devs charge astronomically amounts for Early Access, as if you're so privileged to have the opportunity to see their product through development.

A lot of kickstarted projects do that because they had beta-access in a high pledge tier.

faetal on 11/2/2014 at 11:48

I contribute to kickstarters because I think some ideas are worth voting for with money, whether they work out or not. Even if the idea never reaches fruition, it sends a message, written in money, that an idea is valuable and publishers can detect messages written in money, so I guess I hope (possibly naively) that it might factor into some market research at some point. Though in the first instance, I also hope the game gets made. I'm not the biggest fan of beta / early access gaming in general, since I already have a massive backlog of games and don't want to spend time playing an inferior version of something if I can help it. In fact, exceptions aside (Dark Souls II feau sheau), I prefer to wait a while after a game is released so I can play a patched version if at all possible (hello Dark Souls).

Starker on 11/2/2014 at 18:49

The thing with Kickstarter is that some of these projects would never get made otherwise. It's a chance for ignored niche audiences* to support the making of the games that they want. A risky chance, yes, but it's better than nothing. And on the developer side, it might help some companies stay or become independent. I see it less as pre-ordering and more as being a patron of the arts.

* Sometimes, the niche can be surprisingly big, as it turned out with Star Citizen, currently on its way to its 39th million.

catbarf on 11/2/2014 at 20:10

I haven't been following Star Citizen too closely, but wasn't the first alpha supposed to have been released back in December? So far they've promised the world but don't have much to actually show for it and that makes me a little nervous. If SC flops I think it could kill Kickstarter as a platform entirely, it's really become the poster child for crowdfunding.

Al_B on 11/2/2014 at 22:15

The app flipping article may well be genuine (and considering some of the rubbish on mobile platforms I'd believe it) but I could equally see it as a carefully constructed advert for the code and advertising services discussed in the article over-hyping the potential income.

Renault on 11/2/2014 at 22:22

I saw Rust just passed one million in sales after being on Early Access for only two months. How motivated do you think those guys will be to finish their game?

PigLick on 11/2/2014 at 23:30

Well the lead developer is the guy who made Garys Mod, so I'm pretty sure it wasnt made to make money.

SubJeff on 11/2/2014 at 23:35

The penis brothers thing in Rust is just hilarious. That's emergent stuff going on right there.

Pyrian on 12/2/2014 at 00:10

Quote Posted by Al_B

Yeah, that's how I read it, too. Perhaps a bit of both. "Here's what I did until it stopped working. Now give me money so you can have the same money-makers that have stopped working for me!"

I think it's interesting that "early access" is now premium instead of discounted. Remember Mount&Blade? The earlier you bought in, the less you paid. Betas used to be free. Now, you pay more for the dubious privilege. Coincidence? Something that stems directly from people looking for Kickstarter rewards that won't cost them much to give out? Or is this the market speaking - the demand is really so strong?

I don't play betas. Cripes, I barely ever play new releases, since they're generally more buggy and more expensive than playing previous years' perfectly good games. So I'm clearly not the market for this. But I find it hard to believe it would be spreading so fast if there wasn't a lot of "take my money" going on.

Still. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with it, from where I sit. (Except Flappy Bird. FFS.) Low barrier to entry means some good things get made that would not otherwise have been made. The fact that it also means that many, many more things that should not be made, do get made, is, well, a sorting problem, at most.

PigLick on 12/2/2014 at 01:28

Quote Posted by NuEffect

The penis brothers thing in Rust is just hilarious. That's emergent stuff going on right there.

In churches in Dayz (mod not SA) there is a glitch where you can prone behind this otherwise non-enterable area, and players cant see you. Once I went in there and had some real good fun over direct chat. I had one guy convinced I was an invisible hacker and made him drop all his gear, then told him to RUN FOR HIS LIFE.