Early Access Has Ruined Indie Development

[William Fleming]

Here's one I want to add to the list: the hardest thing about making your first game is finishing it (especially for a deadline)... yes, I'm serious. People get side tracked or other things more important comes up. And multiple developers start making their games can't finish their games and just leave them. Remember a certain game called "Towns"?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/221020/

If it was just small free games there would be no problem but EVERYONE wants a slice of that pie. So they start, put the game up on Early Access for prices as ridiculous as £15 that has nothing functional and barely update it or not even try for months when it gets hard or they steal assets from other games. It gets abandoned unfinished and runaway with everyone's money though thankfully I hear that Early Access and Kickstarter severely declining. I don't hate it but they are being so abused by people who have no idea how to make games.

Edit: I may have been a bit harsh actually but you really have no idea how hard it is to actually finish your first few games before deadlines. When you finish more games you start to learn how to effectively plan out your schedule that will let you finish a game for a deadline.

towns was never an early access game

Sorry, I was using it as an example (even though it technically wasn't early access, its still a relevant example) though it would have been an Early Access title if it was a thing when Towns was released. They released saying it was "finished" and would patch in intended features and content (which they patched some things in but still left unfinished).

 

[gargantual]

Maybe a subtle campaign. (I dont know if Jimquisition-style doxxings) would be in order, but something to make scamware folks worried about flooding steam to make a buck when they see all the rabid hyperaware pitbulls on the other side of the fence. A sort of unofficial community policing of games might be in order.

If YT, Lets Plays and Steam tags (which are being counterpoliced) aren't enough to clear the air about what type of experience people are getting themselves into. Then we may have to find ways as a community to more aggressively spot out potential turds or games that just won't jibe with certain play styles.

They can't just take peoples money. They gotta work for it.

Especially with AAA married to sleazy microtransactions, and paywalls.

 

[The Lunatic]

Early Access has the potential to make great games.


However, it also has the potential to make games like Starbound.


It's down to the developers.

Some developers (Like Chucklefish) will refuse to interact with the community and take every piece of negative feedback as some slight against them as people. Whilst failing to live up to both expectation and promise.

Other developers will produce finished games in a timely fashion which live up to the promises made in the first place.

 

[Elijin]

I think people either werent around for, or just plain forgot about the mid to late nineties shareware age.

Where rubbish and clones were thrown out en masse, and it became an issue to filter through the huge number of small titles to find the gold.

And now we've hit that point again, where small easy developed games are accepted once more, and are flooding into the market. And just like last time, there are some great gems in among it all, but the nature of 'Cheap enough that anyone can try' is once again creating rubbish, clones and unfinished messes.

I'd be hardly shocked if the smaller side of the industry buries itself again and burns all good will, only to pop again in another 5 years.

On the flipside of that negativity though, there really are gems, which would never be made outside these conditions. Viewing the whole thing too harshly results in throwing away the baby with the bath water, or whatever those old sayings are.

 

[Michael Lubker]

That larger developers tire of the AAA ways and go to these ways means they can bury (or have success) themselves just as easily.

 

[Piorn]

I agree, if we can learn anything from Minecraft, KSP, hell even Warframe, is that when a game is released during it's developement, it will never be properly finished.

The approach makes it so the already have a playerbase, so if they want to revamp parts of the game that don't work, they'll have to reset player's progress, remove parts of the game first and possibly render the game unplayable for a while. This would cause a huge outcry from the players and can't be done. This way, a lot of baggage accumulates inside the engine, things that don't have a real place in the game and wouldn't be there if the game was designed as a whole, but are there because they made sense at one point in developement.
It applies to the theme and tone of the game too. Minecraft started with placeholder textures, but soon enough these became so iconic they left them. The dirt block with grass is now their game logo, so any atempt to improve the graphics would betray it's "identity".

And every update needs something shiny for the players or else they leave, so instead of a solid engine, fundamental gameplay aspects or a generally richer experience, we get new weapons, wolves, different parts, new planets, whatever. This, instead of building a coherent experience, creates a clusterfuck of little unrelated features that either make each other obsolete or don't fit together.

And these little updates is all that keeps players interested, because the devs are so busy delivering bite-sized updates regularly that they don't actually develope the game. And once these updates stop and the game is called "complete", the fanbase leaves and it dies.

Not to mention the impulsiveness of indie devs. Remember when Skyrim came out and Notch started adding Dragons to Minecraft even though it made no sense? Or someone modded collectable resources into KSP and then suddenly the devs wanted that too. Then they went on claiming KSP Multiplayer was impossible due to Unity limitations, until a mod proved them wrong again and they ditched Resources for Multiplayer...

 

[Entitled]

Early access is where more up to date developers are getting used to sustaining game developent in an Internet-based society.

We will never go back to a time where video games are products, lining up on shelves, waiting to be picked up for a fix price, like they are cans of food.

That AAA studios are still pretending that they can keep presenting them that way, only digitally, is an archaic tradition. AAA studios are more flexible, more on their feet, so they are more likely to utilize the practical realities of the market.

Yes, we are moving towards a situation where many games don't have "proper" finished versions, they just begin at some point, and keep evolving in the public eye for some time. And where they are not supported by an uniformity of $60 purchases, but by a variety of Kickstarter pitches, highly priced alpha accesses, monthly Patreon payments, pay-what-you-want offers, massive sales, and who knows what other diverse means.

As long as people keep making games, and get paid for it, we will get by. 10 years from now younger gamers will be pretty weirded out that not being able to play the earlier versions of their games before 1.0, and not getting any development after that, is referenced as a matter of pride by older gamers.

 

[Zontar]

Yes, we are moving towards a situation where many games don't have "proper" finished versions, they just begin at some point, and keep evolving in the public eye for some time. And where they are not supported by an uniformity of $60 purchases, but by a variety of Kickstarter pitches, highly priced alpha accesses, monthly Patreon payments, pay-what-you-want offers, massive sales, and who knows what other diverse means.

This is a pretty big negative in the long run when you think about it. Almost all games are still released at 20, 40 or 60$ (50 also being common on PC), and that's a good thing because the price alone gives us several indicators about different things about the game. It's far from perfect, but it is a system that works for the most part (it's why even digital distributors use it, it just works).

Then you get to things like Kickstarter, where you aren't buying anything but large numbers of people seem to think you are. OR the cancer to gaming that is the highly priced alpha access, which is both an insult to customers and to the idea of a product in general (and yes, video games will always be a product), on top of having all the problems that Early Access has in general (ones which have killed games before their time) it only amplifies said problems. I've never herd of the Patreon payments one, but by its own concept that sounds terrible. Pay what you want doesn't seem to have worked out that well given the only place doing it has made 6, 10, 15 and 20$ tiers now. It seems to have been reduced to a simple extension of the massive sales, which is really the only thing digital distribution has going for it.

 

[Michael Lubker]

1) There is the flipside to the "if you don't want a buggy game don't buy this." If no one (publisher or otherwise) supports the game during it's buggy stage it won't get to the good stage (people won't be being paid for it). Yes, there is risk. Why do you think publishers fund so few games? And, does this mean democracy doesn't work? (both in the fact that there are too many games being made, and too many games to curate effectively)

2) Early Access games don't really have a playerbase anymore. It's not just due to the fact that people are fleeing it due to threads like this, but that there are just too many games coming out (20 new games in Early Access just in the last week). That's a huge amount of distraction for any gamer. Quantity and quality of both fans and feedback both matter to the developers and translate directly into quality and quantity of game updates.

3) Impulsiveness applies to any developer. Most AAA devs would be very happy to be indie until they realize all the issues that are attached.

4) Release early, release often and listen to your customers -ESR 1997
This isn't new folks. And at least some of us are listening.

 

[Michael Lubker]

Democratizing development and curation has led to commoditization and saturation. Which leads to "the industry is too big to fail"... hmm sounds familiar, like 7 years ago.

 

[seditary]

Except there's still plenty of competent indie developers continuing on as usual despite the 'fact' that early access destroyed a whole development environment somehow.

 

[Michael Lubker]

I wouldn't really say that either...

 

[Story]

So OP stated a few points that were also mentioned in this video:

I can't really disagree with any of it.

However, Early Access also allows for more experimentation among developers who otherwise wouldn't have the money or resources to fund their games. These are even people with, believe it or not, good intensions and honest ambitions. As with anything else there will always be people who abuse the system or developers that put out a poor product but at the same time no one has to buy those games. And usually the games that play their cards right are the ones that are actually successful. Not many people remember the trash after a few months.

I haven't even been on board with Jim Sterling regarding Steam and Early Access lately. At least ever since I heard the counter argument about more awareness in the press instead of outright censoring by Steam itself. Since apparently there are blurred lines between a good and bad blockbuster of an indie title. I'm looking at Goat Simulator specifically.

 

[Michael Lubker]

Curation is not censoring.

Poor products are often made poorer by poor crowd curation (the vicious/virtuous cycle goes both ways - a product will improve when it has the money needed for that improvement)

Also the press has to be careful on what it promotes as we get stuff like Goat Simulator then being seen as success by devs...

Some trends are just too much to jump on (the Simulator or Flappy trends... ugh)

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Early Access Has Ruined Indie Development.

Hardly. Perhaps it's hurt it a little, but ruined? That's a hell of a stretch.

1) Developers can use it as an excuse to release unfinished, broken products.

And those developers will suffer for being lazy and putting out a terrible product. Consumers are not entirely clueless you know.

2) It can create an entitled fanbase composed of people who think they're venture capitalists.

That sentiment already exists, whether the game is early access or not. You see this on almost any game's forums or comments section. This is a PR problem that sadly a lot of indie developers have trouble with due to limited resources and insufficient training (how many IT/CS majors do you think actually take any courses on marketing or Public Relations?)

3) It can use up all the publicity on an early alpha or unfinished beta so that when the game is actually done everyone has already moved on to the new shiny.

Now this is a possible issue, but a good developer with a solid reputation shouldn't have any issues with this.

4) There's little to no certainty the game will ever be properly "finished"

Once again, developer reputation, and also a developer doesn't HAVE to use/offer early access deals. It's convenient yes, but it isn't a requirement to pull off a successful product.

Now one thing that actually IS an issue with indie development is that some developers aim far too high, which especially risky when it's your first commercial project. This is the actual cause for a lot of those issues you're citing. Eager and brazen ambition without the experience and foresight to effectively complete their product.

Another major issue is oversaturation. Not just a saturation of indie games or Steam releases, but numerous games with similar settings and concepts. It makes it very difficult to make your game stand out if other people are making and showing off the same kind of content you're trying to make. Again, this is the fault of developers if they can't cross this hurdle.

And lastly, alpha/beta testing. Early access isn't just convenient for the financial backing, but it also makes it easier for developers to have a huge number of testers to help them work out the kinks and the bugs throughout development. This is partly a communication and organization issue for developers, but this is also an issue for early access consumers who... maybe just use early access as something of a demo or a preview. Or somehow expect a game to be stable or playable at that stage of development. Which it very well might not be. But at the same time it won't become more stable if those testers the developers were eagerly hoping would help move development along aren't actually.... testing or reporting bugs. Once again, this is largely a communication problem.

So... in conclusion, for a much larger post than I had intended, people are pointing fingers at the symptoms, not the actual cause of some of these issues we're sometimes seeing with indie game development.

 

[briankoontz]

Wouldn't it be better if we didn't take labels such as "early access", "alpha", "beta", and "finished" so seriously?

How about if we judge the quality of a game by how it makes us feel. By how it affects who we are.

So Crypt of the Necrodancer, for example, is a great game already as far as I'm concerned, despite it's "early access". It's far better than most "finished" games, and is a great experience in it's current state.

Do I care that it's labeled "early access"? Not really. They could label it "disgusting and horrible" and it would be the same experience.

It seems like the "early access" trap mostly applies to people who are overly optimistic about what a game can become based on nothing other than hope. People like this are much like addicts - if they don't fall into this trap they'll just fall into something else.

 

[Racecarlock]

I look at this as simply a huge representation of the process of darwinian evolution.

Designs that don't work go extinct, designs that do work survive. Same goes for developers.

 

[josemlopes]

I still havent bought any Early Access game that I didnt enjoy because I only bought about 2 and both of them could have already be sold as full games because they were that content filled and polished.

We have the internet and so many means of knowing the if the game is broken or shit.

 

[Johnny Fake-Name]

Completely Agree. Beta is for the gamers to break the game as much as possible, not play a game with only 3 of 5 mechanics. It does allow for lazy production and indefinite alphas. Cube World is a perfect example. The developer IS working on a patch, but this will have been the first patch since release OVER A YEAR AGO. Most people have given up on the game, and so even if he does release a finished project, it will receive little hype from those who bought the early access. Although, some less reputable developers may count on recieving that early access buy-in and never having to finish the job. It's the new microtransactions craze.

 

[michael87cn]

you are wrong, none of those 'points' (which are flawed, heavily) stop indie devs from making good games. So people are using early access? Good for them! Good games will still come out. Games like Spelunky, Binding of Isaac, etc.

IMO abuse of early access won't last long. When you take advantage of people they tend to not forget, nor forgive. When people hate you, they stop giving you money, and you go out of business. Simple as that. The people that try to 'steal' from people by releasing unfinished games, or simply never finish their job? They won't earn a good reputation (needed to continue to succeed in the MEDIA world, video game or otherwise).