When The Updates Stop

[Versesai]

This is both an introspective thing I've been knocking about in my noggin' for a while and a question for the general community for perspective, so here goes.

What exactly do you feel you're entitled to, update wise, when you buy a game on any medium?

I ask this because of two recent things that've popped up on my personal radar, namely Battleforge [http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-closing-battleforge-6414140] getting shut down and Terraria 1.2 [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/18/terraria-patch-1-2-arrives-october-1/] being announced after updates to the game were announced to be ending. These have both had a lot of mixed reactions and I'm rather interested in sampling the ones this site in particular has.

Me personally, I'm in a strange growing stage in regards to my thoughts on it that goes like this; Once upon a time, a few years ago, a much more easily irritated me read the news on Terraria and was devastated because I had assumed it would be in forever updating mode and vowed to never partake in carpet bombing the corruption with dynamite again. I had been spoiled by games like Minecraft and Unreal World being constantly in development status and had forgotten that sometimes games are meant to exist in a singular state at some point. After some growing I had actually gotten back into Terraria so the news thrilled me quite a bit.

That said, I find myself in a similar state to before on Battleforge. Maybe it's EA's attitude of 'Welp this ship is sinking, better throw all your money off before you hit the water with it' that irritates me, or maybe it's because as much as I loved Battleforge I internally understand it was a highly niche game even when it was was popular and it's developers likely stopped caring much about it long ago. By all technical perspective I can absolutely understand why they decided to take it down and it makes logical sense, yet this voice in my head wants to flip a table skyward into orbit around the moon for the decision because, damn it, I loved Battleforge with it's well balanced mechanics and it's interesting world and actual attempts to make a real, living story despite being hampered by writing that let's face it would have been edited out of a middle school dramatics play.

What sort of reactions have you lot had when a game you enjoy playing goes down?

 

[Keoul]

I always expect my games to be given to me "as is" meaning I'm perfectly content with no updates... ever.
Having updates is nice but not something I expect since I haven't exactly paid for the updates in my eyes. I guess it's just the mentality i gained from playing games since my youth, back when updates were impossible, pc gaming was basically limited to windows games and consoles were the undisputed king, portable or otherwise.

 

[BQE]

Poxnora is a game I've played for a few years now. It's a collectible TCG/Tactics game being run by SOE after they subsumed the independent company that created it the game. I had a great time with the game and many fond memories of the great community and games I played.

What's going on with it now is that more and more people are quitting or spending time in the forums discussing the end of the game. It's a shame when you know something you liked is marked for such a slow and yet overt death. SOE is adamant that the game isn't shutting down soon but the players are noticing the signs: Updates aren't really coming (They've gone through several Lead Game Developers), Long time bugs aren't being fixed, and nothing is being said by the company other than "No no, it's not dead yet"

It's a shame really, it's a bittersweet thing now.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well quite simply I feel entitled to what was promised as I was buying the product, pretty much exactly what consumer protection laws state you should get.
Which is why developers should first and foremost sit down to determine what the entire package will entail before selling it, yes it's fun to live on dreams but it's really not fucking fun to pay for shit that isn't getting done, or worse yet in the case of EA loosing the entire fucking game.

And MMO devs should just as well make clear what kind of timetable they are on, because right now on the official Battleforge site they still aren't telling people the game is getting sacked within a month, but will gladly keep selling you their shit.