Space Base DF-9 - Dwarf Fortress in Spaaaace?

[Fabricated]

The point is to stop giving DoubleFine money until they hire someone or get brought back under a publisher who can make them finish shit generally on time and on budget.

I watched someone play Broken Age, and hey, it was an alright point and click game and I actually liked the art/music/voice acting/story.

But they only released half of it.

After getting like 8 times what they asked for.

Late.

Because they ran out of money.

[Kail]

Christ, is it tax season or something?  Why are all these updates hitting at the same time?

StarForge goes to version 1.0 today

We will continue to monitor the game, and plan to do another update in the future with bug fixes. Further updates will depend on future sales of the game.

Sigh.  I guess at least this one everyone could see coming.

Honestly, I'm starting to see Early Access as not just a way of offloading risk to the consumer, but also potentially harming the developer.  I initially thought that we'd see more of a blurring effect on the game's income, that the "huge mountain of income over the first week or two of release tailing off to virtually nothing in a month" model would be better spread out, giving the devs a trickle of income before launch, but instead it looks like the same massive spike dropping off in to nothing.  Except here, the massive spike comes when your game is total shit, an unfinished prototype, so your word of mouth is going to be pretty bad, which is a massive problem if you have no marketing budget.  And once you see the sales drop off, why would you send good money after bad by trying to finish it. 

It'll be interesting to see if anything changes in the Early Access model, if I was running Steam I'd definitely be looking pretty hard at implementing some kind of milestone system in to it or something.  They're making bank off of Early Access titles, and if these kinds of failures keep people from buying them, it might be worth it to make developers a bit more accountable.

[Torinak]

Christ, is it tax season or something?  Why are all these updates hitting at the same time?

StarForge goes to version 1.0 today

We will continue to monitor the game, and plan to do another update in the future with bug fixes. Further updates will depend on future sales of the game.

Honestly, I'm starting to see Early Access as not just a way of offloading risk to the consumer, but also potentially harming the developer.  I initially thought that we'd see more of a blurring effect on the game's income, that the "huge mountain of income over the first week or two of release tailing off to virtually nothing in a month" model would be better spread out, giving the devs a trickle of income before launch, but instead it looks like the same massive spike dropping off in to nothing.  Except here, the massive spike comes when your game is total shit, an unfinished prototype, so your word of mouth is going to be pretty bad, which is a massive problem if you have no marketing budget.  And once you see the sales drop off, why would you send good money after bad by trying to finish it. 

How does this "harm" the developer, if they still get a massive spike of money at the start and then don't have to do any more work? If anything, it reinforces the perverse incentive for a developer to market an unfinished game (or even just a prototype!) and then drop it after they've collected a bunch of money.

It does totally screw over the consumer, and poisons the well for other small developers. But hey, getting yours before screwing over everyone else is the American Way!

[Margalis]

"We will continue to monitor the game" is the new "fuck you dumb dumbs we out!"

As far as front-loaded sales - sales of games to core gamers are front-loaded. For a lot of reasons, including buying patterns and marketing patterns. That's just the way it is for the vast majority of games aimed at "gamers." Almost every evergreen title is a title that hits a wider audience - family friendly titles especially.

Even KS funding is the same way, with a bunch of the funding coming in the first 24 hours.

When you offer your game for Early Access that is essentially your release. Your official release becomes a footnote - a version name switched, yay. Most of these big EA success stories well sell far fewer copies once they're finished than they did when they first launched as EA. So the incentive is very much to pump and dump. Come up with an ok alpha, promise big things, get your money for a month then walk away because your best days are behind you.

[Kail]

How does this "harm" the developer, if they still get a massive spike of money at the start and then don't have to do any more work? If anything, it reinforces the perverse incentive for a developer to market an unfinished game (or even just a prototype!) and then drop it after they've collected a bunch of money.

I don't think most of them wanted this outcome.  I think they wanted to put out a good game, but their inability to manage the project sank it.  If they set out to scam people, I guess you could call it a success, but I don't honestly think that's the case here.  If they were out to scam people, they'd blow the money on Mai Tais and blackjack, not paying rent for a year while they continue to work on the game.

It harms the developer in that they're theoretically trading short term sales before release for larger sales at release.  It's nice to have money while you're developing the game, but theoretically a complete, higher quality game would sell better than a half finished alpha.  Getting someone to fund game X to the tune of a couple hundred grand, and getting the studio to put out a complete, finished product, would be better in the long term than getting a couple hundred grand from the consumer and failing in development.  You end with more money, a better reputation, and a better game than you do with a failed Early Access title.

[Megrim]

How are any of ya'll at all surprised by Early Access being unreliable? I would have thought it obvious that giving over money for an unfinished product is nothing but a crapshoot.