Surgeon General's Warning: Early Access May be a Scam

[Jesar]

I was just browsing my steam "queue", that thing Gabe Newell decided to make in order to remind us that he knows us better than we know ourselves.

The games creativerse, robocraft, blockscape, ort online, edge of space, flix, grav, fortresscraft, and salt were among the titles shown to me. That's a lot of early access titles for one queue (and the first one of a second queue), and half of these are Minecraft wannabes. And the worst offender, creativerse, is selling itself for 20 bucks, even though they say in the description that the game is going to be free to play when it launches. The developer acknowledges that they are charging the player the same price Minecraft retails for to alpha test their game.

I'm not even making that up. It's there on their steam page.

I decided to scroll through several more queues to see what else steam threw at me. Half of them were early access, as to be expected with the high volume of them being made and how often I succumb to the beast and buy them. But I noticed something scary when looking through them. Only one of the non-early access games had actually been early access when it was released (don't starve.) So, on average, out of ten games in my queues, five were early access, and one was a early access success story. This made me realize the harrowing truth that fifty percent of the time, early access never delivers. It's simply a scam half of the time.

This wouldn't be a problem if Valve put a warning up stating that early access game are financially dangerous products. And they kinda do. However, this warning is in the form of a light blue box with the same text in it for every early access game that is released. So the only measure steam has to prevent potential scamming is a surgeon general's warning sticker that is so mundane that it simply becomes a decoration on the side of the box.

TL;DR: Early access is going to crash the game industry.

I think small, dedicated communities are much better at funding and nurturing a game than releasing said game to the masses on a storefront for finished games, but with a sticker on the side that says, "warning, this game is nowhere near complete and you should only give it money if you love it and don't care if it never releases."

[FlowerChild]

This made me realize the harrowing truth that fifty percent of the time, early access never delivers. It's simply a scam half of the time.

I think it would be far more productive to look at this as "Fifty percent of the games I personally buy into as early access never deliver" and adjust your spending/gambling habits accordingly.

It takes two to tango, and a con game (or simply an overly ambitious developer not capable of delivering on their own promises) is no exception to that. Steam has warning labels plastered all over ea games already...people just don't listen to them. More warning labels aren't going to help if people aren't going to take personal responsibility when the warning comes true.

Don't forget, part of the process for selecting early access games is voting through greenlight, and that's bound to lead to overly optimistic developers by intent or naivety that promise the world getting the thumbs up from the wide eyed masses. It's basically an environment that financially rewards the exact opposite of the kind of design principles I often go on about on these forums in terms of bang for the buck and other related concepts.

And btw: this isn't exclusive to early access. Tons of games die during development, you just normally aren't aware of that on the consumer end for non early access titles.

TL;DR: Early access is going to crash the game industry.

No it won't. You're just flipping out because you personally got had like a guy ranting about how the game must be fixed because he just lost a big hand of poker. Nobody wants to blame themselves when they leave the casino with an empty wallet.

IMO, early access is one of the best things that's happened to the game industry, opening up the door for innovative indie developers that wouldn't have a chance in hell of successfully pitching their concepts to mainstream commercial studios (who are notoriously risk adverse, and generally are run by people that wouldn't know a good innovative idea if it hit them upside the head which is why they keep rehashing the same old tired game concepts year after year), of actually getting their games made. These kinds of games are pretty much the only kind that I'm interested in playing these days, and I'd say it's only maybe 10% of the time that I'm not satisfied with the games I personally choose to buy into, which to me, is an entirely acceptable loss given all the joy I get out of the rest of them.

Seriously man: I strongly suspect if Notch had pitched Minecraft to the major game mega-studios like Ubisoft or EA back in the day, he probably would have gotten laughed out of the room.

So my advice is to either admit that you're a poor judge of which games are likely to go the distance and stop buying into early access, or to take a good hard look at what indicates a game is more likely to succeed and become a more informed consumer as a result. I'd say the same thing if you were a millionaire throwing investment capital into more traditional game companies, because believe me, plenty of those have been burnt in the same way in the past as well.

[Jesar]

I can definitely see that I haven't been particular wise with picking the good ones, but I'm not ranting because I've been burned. I'm doing so because I'm watching people just like me do the same thing, then come to the same conclusion. People are getting burned out on early access, man. This is another example of how the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.

I've noticed another trend where all the good games I've bought early access are from developers who shy away from the early access title. Hell, rimworld is already greenlit, but the developers aren't in any hurry to actually release on steam, and rimworld would be a fantastic example of the system working. Many good games are rushing to release, like star bound and ksp just to get out from under the toxic early access title they are a part of.

Also, I've bought more good early access games than bad, including Minecraft, ksp, Skullgirls, factorio, infinifactory, and rimworld. I've only been burned by damned, space engineers, and medieval engineers.

I think that early access has great potential, but so does virtual reality and nano bots. All that potential is useless if we fail to commercialize it responsibly, and the "it's the buyers fault for buying into it" mentality is just delusional thinking.

[devak]

I think that what few people realize is that Early Access is pretty much Investing. You put in money with the hopes that you hit the jackpot, but there's absolutely no guarantee. Most people seem to see it as a "buy future awesome game now" system. I do think the tides are changing with new stories of scams and unfinished products. But this is pretty much the anything-goes golden age right here.

[FlowerChild]

I think that what few people realize is that Early Access is pretty much Investing. You put in money with the hopes that you hit the jackpot, but there's absolutely no guarantee. Most people seem to see it as a "buy future awesome game now" system. I do think the tides are changing with new stories of scams and unfinished products. But this is pretty much the anything-goes golden age right here.

I think that portion of it has already come and gone and the realization of what people are actually doing here is setting in.

And yes, investing is another good way of putting it, which itself shares many things in common with gambling as well. It's all a matter of managing risk and ensuring that your good bets end up outweighing your bad.

Hell, rimworld is already greenlit, but the developers aren't in any hurry to actually release on steam, and rimworld would be a fantastic example of the system working.

I strongly suspect the only reason that's only the case with RimWorld because they have sufficient funds to keep going, and don't want to have to deal with a larger scale community which can be a real pain in the ass for an early access title.

I think that early access has great potential, but so does virtual reality and nano bots. All that potential is useless if we fail to commercialize it responsibly, and the "it's the buyers fault for buying into it" mentality is just delusional thinking.

There is no "we" with any of this man. It's a bunch of individuals and individual organizations working on their own and doing their own thing. Some are legit. Some are naive. Some are exploitive. So good luck with trying to convince the sum total of humanity in all its various shades to behave in a more noble fashion.

People are buying into incomplete products, with blatant warnings attached, and getting burned in the process. There's absolutely no surprise in any of that, and there's a massive amount of historical precedent for it. I've been warning people off of what I view to be high risk early access games for ages here and that's based almost entirely on my experiences with commercial game development, and stuff like having to decide which companies to work for in the past and on what projects as my own personal version of that kind of risk management. I've been exceedingly lucky (and/or smart) that over the course of my career I only had the plug pulled on a single project I was working on, as that's a heart breaking experience after investing a whole lot of time and effort into a project, and it's one that's extremely common.

What's delusional is thinking this is any different than how it's always been with the game industry, yet the game industry has just gotten bigger with time. The only real difference now is that it's a large number of vocal people getting screwed for small amounts of cash rather than a small number getting screwed for big amounts.

Should people be more careful which games they invest in? Absolutely. Should fewer games get funded as a result? Definitely. But again: it's always been that way. It's just a side of the industry that the general public wasn't exposed to in the past.

[ScubaPlays]

I don't think there's a problem with the current early access system, I think some individuals have the problem of not doing the appropriate amount of research before making a purchase.

If the current state of the game is not worth the cost to the consumer, then that consumer should not purchase the game, regardless of possible future content. This is stated in the Steam warning and is applicable to any game...ever.

There are definitely situations where someone might buy an early access game from a certain developer because they trust the developer and wants to support them not really caring what the current state of the game is, but that's not the case with the games that randomly pop up in your queue on Steam. The games you find on Steam should be taken at face value. Ignore the promises, don't think about what the price could eventually get you, your only concern should be: Is the enjoyment you're going to get from the game once it's done downloading worth the price tag? If not, it's probably a good idea to pass on it, or put it in your wishlist to check on it again sometime in the future. You always have the option to buy later if it eventually gets to the point where it is worth the money.

[Dralnalak]

For me, the concept of Early Access on Steam is a good one. Then again, I already knew that a significant number of the video game projects which are started never get finished, whether through failure of those producing it or because the financing gets pulled by higher ups or investors. I sincerely hope that the creators of an Early Access game will put their best efforts into completing it, but I expect that many will eventually fail.

I include in "fail" those games which get "released" but with a fraction of the promised content. There have been some examples on Steam where the developers basically said, "We're done. Here's what we have so far. Bye." I also include those which are abandoned and left hanging in Early Access limbo. (Such as Stomping Ground has been accused of doing.)

I have been really lucky in that I have only gotten really burned by one Early Access game, and I only paid $5 for that. I have helped that luck along by being conservative about buying anything Early Access.

So, I ultimately do not think it is a situation where more warnings are needed. As was already stated, people aren't reading the warnings that exist now. Instead, it is about consumers needing to actually understand that Early Access is a gamble.


Though I really would love an option on the Steam recommendation queue that let me mark a game not to be recommended for a good period of time. Basically so I can say, "There's not enough content in this game to even consider buying this game yet, but I don't want to put it on ignore because it's kind of interesting. Please don't suggest it again for at least three months." Not that that much text would fit well on a button... :)

[Rob]

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call toll free 1-800-GAMBLER

I really feel Early Access brings games, that may have never seen the light of day, to fruition. It has it's flaws, just like everything else, but without it, our gaming choices would have been limited to the crap the big guns shove in our face(Wooo, Call of Duty 57). Buying a game on Steam EA(or any EA), is just like funding a project on Kickstarter. Do your research first. If you throw money at every opportunity, then I have this bridge I'd like to sell you. PM me. ;-P

[william711]

I think early access is great thing for developers but can also be harmful in the sense that it can be difficult to get players to come back to the game after it updates. I get excited about early access games but I avoid buying them unless I hear a lot of good things about them from sources I trust (sources being Flowerchild). I agree with Flowerchild, people just need to be more cautious about buying into early access.

[FlowerChild]

I think early access is great thing for developers but can also be harmful in the sense that it can be difficult to get players to come back to the game after it updates. I get excited about early access games but I avoid buying them unless I hear a lot of good things about them from sources I trust (sources being Flowerchild). I agree with Flowerchild, people just need to be more cautious about buying into early access.

I've got it wrong a couple of times too, so don't trust me too much :)

Spacebase DF-9 was a good example, and one I still feel bad about going on about. Concept seemed solid and very reasonable in scope. Early versions of the game seemed solid with high production values (maybe too high). Developer seemed to have a solid track record. Turns out they were also developing in a very high cost locale (I think they were in silicon valley of all places) and likely paying exorbitant salaries which caused them to burn through their money in no time resulting in one of the more notorious early access belly flops.

Other than that, I've pretty much been satisfied with the money I've spent on early access games and have gotten sufficient entertainment value out of them not to consider them a waste, even for stuff like Space Engineers or Starbound where I may not be satisfied with the direction the game has taken, but don't feel I was ripped off either as I had a fair amount of fun with them already.

One thing to keep in mind with me though, is that I often times buy into early access games not because of what I think they will become, but because as a game developer I really want to see how they're handling certain things, especially if they're trying an innovative new concept. Generally I try to avoid recommending games that I know I'm buying into on that basis, but every once and awhile one slips through the cracks.

Just glad I never bought Planetary Annihilation as I'm still embarrassed about having that one in my Steam library. Was gifted to me out of the blue by an old friend that I share a common love of TA and SC with, but after playing a couple of games against each other I think our mutual opinion was "meh" :)

[Jesar]

Just glad I never bought Planetary Annihilation as I'm still embarrassed about having that one in my Steam library. Was gifted to me out of the blue by an old friend that I share a common love of TA and SC with, but after playing a couple of games against each other I think our mutual opinion was "meh" :)

I remember staring at PA longingly when it first hit steam, just to have it first launch at 90 bucks. I feel that launching at that high price did wonders for preventing mindless consumers from buying the game untill it's ready. I had a great "Yeah I want it, but fuck that price" moment when I first saw it. Unfortunately, it left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that I never bought it.

Seems kinda sad that it turned out to be "meh" though. I lusted after that game harder than Star Citizen (which is also a joke nowadays if you ask me.)

[FlowerChild]

I remember staring at PA longingly when it first hit steam, just to have it first launch at 90 bucks. I feel that launching at that high price did wonders for preventing mindless consumers from buying the game untill it's ready. I had a great "Yeah I want it, but fuck that price" moment when I first saw it. Unfortunately, it left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that I never bought it.

Seems kinda sad that it turned out to be "meh" though. I lusted after that game harder than Star Citizen (which is also a joke nowadays if you ask me.)

I was much the same in that I probably would have bought into it had it been cheaper. In the end it turned out to be to buggy when me and my friend tried it, and I think ultimately the game is way too rush-centric for it to be interesting to either of us. I'm more of a TA guy where I prefer very slow defensive games, while he's more of an SC guy that prefer things slightly more fast and aggressive, but I think PA pushed things so far towards rushing that he wasn't really that interested in it either. Plus, despite having some cool money-shot features, there just isn't very much depth to it in comparison to either of those two games.

I think that one may really be another case of commercial developers trying to do indie, much like Spacebase DF-9, and now that I'm thinking about it more, I think I'll be considering that one of the early access warning signs in the future, as I think it's not just a matter of landing the money through a funding campaign, but also being capable of developing things on the cheap so you can go the long haul. For people habituated to collecting big pay checks and maintaining a certain overall quality of life in terms of facilities and perks and such, it may be too much to expect them to be able to pull it off. At the time, it was of course great to experience, but when I think back to the excess of some of the studios I worked with, they were truly obscene in terms of how much money was being blown on frivolities. On the other hand, that was also what it took a lot of times to attract the limited pool of talented people that you needed. It's all well and good to pay someone a big salary, but it's much easier to attract, hold onto them, and get them to work insane hours, if they're also having a good time in the process.

Despite the "OMG! Look at all the monies you have!" factor when the general public looks at the funding some of these games get and use their own pay in working at Burger King as a messed up basis of comparison, a lot of times it's a pittance in relation to what you would expect a typical commercial game to cost. As a result the people involved really need to be doing it as a labor of love and be willing to live relatively lean in comparison to what they could be getting elsewhere with the same skill set.

As for Star Citizen, it never really interested me, and I haven't been paying much attention to it. While I have many fond memories of Chris Roberts' games from the past, I think I've been far too Kerbalized to go back to "World War II fighter planes...in space!" anytime soon :)

[Jesar]

I think I've been far too Kerbalized to go back to "World War II fighter planes...in space!" anytime soon :)

I'm in exactly the same space-boat. Back in... 2012, I think? I started wanting for star citizen hard. Then, elite dangerous started it's beta shenanigans and I wanted that harder. While waiting for these games to release (first big release for ED was this past december or january, so really recent), I got into ksp with better than starting manned. Now, building rockets is far more fun than space dogfighting and trading. To be honest, you can probably have a compelling game with the same gameplay as ED and SC and have them be cloud cities on a gas giant world with planes instead of spacecraft, and the game would be significantly more interesting imo.

[devak]

Just glad I never bought Planetary Annihilation as I'm still embarrassed about having that one in my Steam library. Was gifted to me out of the blue by an old friend that I share a common love of TA and SC with, but after playing a couple of games against each other I think our mutual opinion was "meh" :)

Having followed that entire campaign, the main problem was that a few featured they promised turned out to be orders of magnitude harder than they expected, eating up a crapton of time they could've spent better.

One of them was supporting Mac and Linux. fully 3D worlds is still haunting them. Trying to pioneer something is fine, but they tried to pioneer a few too many things

[Katalliaan]

One of them was supporting Mac and Linux. fully 3D worlds is still haunting them. Trying to pioneer something is fine, but they tried to pioneer a few too many things

I'm not so sure that supporting Mac and Linux was such a terrible thing. There's plenty of indie games that didn't use pre-existing engines and supported multiple platforms (Prison Architect comes to mind); in Uber's case, they were not only building an engine for their game, but one that they could use in future ones, and supporting all desktop platforms means that it's not just limited to the folks on Windows. In fact, most games that run on non-Windows OSes aren't from big studios - looking at a list of games on SteamDB of games that run on Linux, most of the games from big studios are from Valve, running on the Source engine.

[FlowerChild]

I'm not so sure that supporting Mac and Linux was such a terrible thing. There's plenty of indie games that didn't use pre-existing engines and supported multiple platforms (Prison Architect comes to mind); in Uber's case, they were not only building an engine for their game, but one that they could use in future ones, and supporting all desktop platforms means that it's not just limited to the folks on Windows.

I think you just essentially said that making your game run on other platforms allows people to play it on other platforms, which isn't really much of a statement at all :)

Ultimately, the important bit is whether that increases sales to a sufficient amount to justify the cost, and I suspect that many times it does not. I know everyone loves to wave compatibility and cross platform development around as an ideal, but ideals like that often make for poor business decisions.

[Katalliaan]

I think you just essentially said that making your game run on other platforms allows people to play it on other platforms, which isn't really much of a statement at all :)

It was more that cross-platform support expands your potential audience to users who don't have a Windows system. Not as important for a big company whose titles are well-known (especially given that Steam's hardware surveys show 95% of users are on Windows), but a small company could see benefits from casting a wider net.

Ultimately, the important bit is whether that increases sales to a sufficient amount to justify the cost, and I suspect that many times it does not. I know everyone loves to wave compatibility and cross platform development around as an ideal, but ideals like that often make for poor business decisions.

As far as this one goes: I guess it really depends on the situation. If it's in an engine that already has cross-platform support, the opportunity cost of porting it might be low enough that it makes sense to do so.