If you don't know what Steam Early Access is, it's a thing where a developer can release their game on Steam basically before it's finished. They allow people to play it to get feedback on their game, improve things, maybe drum up a bit more money to make it even better, that kind of thing.
When Early Access first became a thing I thought it was a kind of neat idea, I didn't mind it, but now it just pisses me the hell off. Right now, half of the games on the "top selling" part of my Steam are fucking early access games. The only reason it's not more than that is because Darksiders is on sale right now and the pack is taking up a spot and the same thing with a Star Wars pack. If those two things weren't on sale, I guarantee there would be early access games clogging up the damn list.
Maybe I wouldn't be so upset about it if the top selling game wasn't fucking DayZ for a whopping £20! TWENTY POUNDS, for an unfinished game, that I've been told by 100% of people I know who have played it is a buggy piece of shit that they want to enjoy but can't! Now I've not played DayZ so I'll hold off on my own judgements but it's not going to get me to shell out £20 on a game that barely fucking works. Until I hear something remotely positive about DayZ being simply playable I might consider it, but right now, based on the feedback I've had from friends, DayZ can go fuck itself.
Worse than that there's a game at the bottom of the list called 7 Days to Die, a game I've heard nothing about really so I suppose I can't say anything about the game itself BUT it's £26.99!!!! That's borderline full fucking price, for an UNFINISHED game, Jesus Christ. Oh, and it's another zombie survival game, so original!
I remember when I bought Minecraft back when it was in it's beta or it's alpha or whatever the fuck stage it was in. Sure, it was an unfinished game but Notch was only charging something like £5 for it AND he had a free browser version working to at least show me what the game was like, so I knew going in that I was getting a playable game for a really cheap price.
If the Steam Early Access games did this, and the prices were a fraction of what they are now, I'd be more forgiving, but they are asking you to pay full price for their game and worst of all there isn't even a guarantee they will finish the damn thing. If the project goes under, well fuck you enjoy your broken ass buggy game.
There is some good in Early Access, I can see why people would WANT to support their favourite upcoming games, but just stop mixing it in with the normal store. I'm so sick of seeing a game that looks sort of interesting, then it having "early access" written on it, turns me RIGHT off.
If you want my money, finish your fucking game first!
completely agree fuck early access games, half the time they dont even finish production and end up releasing the beta version with a fancy update. and you already bought the game sucker, so now you have to live with it. look up the war z, or infestation survivor stories or whatever the fuck they call it now, and you will get the best lol youve had in a while.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment dude, I'm glad that you agree =D
DeleteI'm familiar with the titles you listed, it is insane what's going on. I wouldn't even be so mad about it if it had its own section like Greenlight or something, but instead it's just clogging up the main lists and being really annoying
Simply - steam is a fucking whore of a grredy beggar
ReplyDeleteI cannot stand this golddigging bastards. You actually said everything I wanted to say about it so its swearing now only left
Sadly it's not just Steam, it's pretty much the way the whole industry has gone. I did a whole video about my disgust with the industry money grubbing that goes on nowadays.
DeleteAt the very least, with steam, I can play DotA and sell all the useless cosmetic shit for free games.
I like the idea of early access but it's been pounded into blood and shit by over use and the exposure of games that are far too early in their development, imo, to put up.
ReplyDeletePlus, sometimes it would just be fucking nice to buy a game and just play the fucking thing. Thank my fat tits for retro collecting as i'd have fuck all new to buy and play except for DLC's and the latest COD. COD can fuck off as well...
It completely pisses me off. I mean why can't I at least filter out early access games from my browsing and searches on Steam.
ReplyDeleteyea, those damn stupid pricks who put their money on unfinished game ruin the games. Why would dev make game complete if the money is already mostly got from it? there is no point finishing it unless its multiplayer grind style game like WoT 4 example.. Even that game is so alpha.
ReplyDeleteI think ill start gaming company, i start to sell dream images of nice games that players want. i tell them everything they want to hear, and also that i need few millions to make that game work.
I agree with everything and all they want, just telling that it will take time (on bahamas drinking their money) while they keep pumping it to me. I would do nothing bout the game but just hype it in forum page made for that game which never comes out.
World is so full of idiots who would give me 100 USD just like that, for a fuckin dream. Sure i could make some photoshop 3d images, or whatever, and explain it with imaginary terms that its something special there. Stupid pricks would get hard on right on and open the wallet.
anyone intrested in makin good business?
Agree 100%. The shitty thing about early access games beyond what you already mentioned is that they pick an arbitrary date for release. A date that finds this balance between putting out the game when everyone's patience hasn't completely run out and making it look like a game that is mostly polished. In reality, its a facade and what has really just occurred is the game has moved from advertised early access into deceptive early access where the developers are essentially treating their PAYING customer base as beta testers to fix all the shit that a respectable developer would have done on their own before releasing the game.
ReplyDeleteThen it moves into the next phase where they constantly thank their customer base for finding all this shit that "is helping them improve the game", when, in fact, the bugs and deficiencies are so blatantly obvious that it's fully apparent that they have been fully aware of them since moving it out of advertised early access.
So, not to have a bitch-fest without a solution. What needs to happen (but won't), is an independent quality assurance check from a third-party to say "yes, this game is worthy of release". The caveat is that this check be done from a purely functional perspective, not genre-focused game play. For example, is something fundamental to the game functioning non-existent/inoperable? If the answer is yes, then this game cannot come out of early access.
Back-in-the-day Steam would have done that for us. Greedy-ass-today Steam doesn't care. Hence, the decline in the quality of PC gaming. Everyone just in it to get crowdfunded with minimal effort to a buck and the tell the people who payed to fuck off, already got your money. This is why MMO's that are subscription-based are largely successful still because they have to keep a happy player-base, but that's a different discussion.