TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
The biggest, issue I have is with devs releasing games for full price in early access then to never finish it (like ksp2) or just spam it with new content instead of fixing bugs (like Ark). In most cases it’s not the player base treating it like it’s a finished game, it’s the devs selling it as a nearly finished game then to move on onto a new project as soon as sales drop leaving it unfinished, scamming the players.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, IMO they should either be priced cheaply because anyone who buys is essentially testing the game. Then it’s an ok gamble IMO, cheap game that might never get better and could be full of bugs.
Or they should be priced higher to attract people who specifically want to support the idea and avoid review boms from people who expect a full game even though it says “early access”. But this model then puts a requirement for communication and transparency with those who did support it, as well as a commitment to release what they did produce as open source if they end up abandoning the project.
Though I think there should be some buyer beware involved. Read reviews before you buy, especially negative ones, and look for trends (to avoid being overly influenced by one reviewer’s bias). It’s impossible to predict which will continue being developed and which will fail (and out of those that fail, which ones intended it from the start and which ones were trying to make a great game in good faith but it just didn’t work out), so buy early access games for what they currently are rather than what you hope they’ll be. Even if they do get finished, that final product might not be what you’re hoping for.
Other than banning the account after it happens, I can’t really see any way to punish the bad faith actors without catching people with low resources just trying to make a game despite the system being stacked against them.