Submitted 4 months ago by Carighan@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
This really does not sound healthy. The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
But by now gamers have been so trained to expect to endless content treadmills and all their ilk like mtx and battle passes that publishers/developers get egged on if they don’t work on their game 24/7 and forever.
It depends on the game. If I buy a game from a smaller publisher I expect it to be a complete work with full story line. Unfortunately… When I buy from a large publisher I expect to be getting a ¾ complete game that will give me expansion packs.
This isn’t the case with Nintendo games though. I feel like and Nintendo game is just done and any extras are… Extra.
Read back what you just wrote, and go for a walk to let it brew for a bit.
Why the fuck would anyone slave their only life away, for any employer?
I’m not saying anyone should work without pay. I’m saying that with the way publishers release games I expect AAA releases to be unfinished works at this point.
I don’t want the devs to kill themselves for a game, obviously. I don’t think anyone does. People just want content updates for a property they love. In an industry that lays off people after they ship a game or starts work immediately on the franchise yearly $70 sequel, I just want a game developer that does better than that. That’s why the whole world waited patiently for the follow up to the GOTY of 2022 with Shadow of the Erdtree. Elden Ring didn’t get a ton of free content updates in that time, they didn’t make it a live service or offer mtx, and they didn’t pump out their massive expansion in an unreasonable time frame. They built an incredible game and incredible world, and then they continued development on the game they had poured their hearts into for years and spent the time they needed to create the expansion the game deserved, and at a reasonable price.
Weird post. I thought we were all aware of the enshitification in gaming, they had a head start on the rest of the tech industry.
I remember a few games which didn’t require such sacrifices from developers.
Some even commercial. Like NWN, with people making their own campaigns without, you know, any effort spent by the developers of the game itself.
Of course when the business model is milking players and making it problematic (either technically or by paradigm) to satisfy interest with community-made modifications, then all the load is on the devs or else the game becomes irrelevant. Well, guess whose fault that is.
I’m kind of confused about the whole early access thing and why devs do it. Is it to get support and funding to finish the project?
Basically, yeah. If your game is in a playable state, launching in early access allows devs to get feedback from the community, who help shape the game all the way to the full release. Generally EA games are discounted, with the expectation that it isn’t finished or polished, full of bugs, etc.
That makes sense and I hadn’t considered the feedback aspect. I can see how that must be helpful, especially for a solo developer. Thanks!
Adding to the other reply to this: You can get natural growth of fans and wishlists, you can get free media attention so your brand/gamename grows in popularity, you can receive enthusiasm from randoms about work you have been keeping to yourself for a while, which can help motivate. I mean I’m super hyped about my own videogame project, but having other people be hyped about it is very rewarding :-). I used to shun early access until they became 1.0, because I got burnt a couple times. But If the dev(s) are transparent and communication is ok, I don’t really care anymore for the same reason as this dev is pointing out: “It’s done when it’s done” is good enough in 95% of the cases for me.
I’m dabbling in game development myself, and that’s part of why I asked the question originally- I’d be terrified to put something out there for the public if I wasn’t already confident it was ready. Early access seems like a double-edged sword. But you list some good points about the benefits of doing so.
By the way, I am interested to hear about your game project if you would like to share some details.
AFAIK u get a half release before to get some attention and media/youtubers coverage and people to test your game and make suggestions.
Then you get another release when exiting EA (notifies whishlist and steam gives boosts visibility to released games for a short while and it gets extended if it goes well)
The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
Except you don’t find out the devs/publishers released a broken game until after you buy it. Which is like, way too common. You can direct your frustrations to the publishers who insist on pushing out broken games and fixing them later.
Yeah although, within reasonable boundaries this is now on the side of the consumer:
Can still be circumvented by shady publishers, sure, but it’s getting more difficult to trick customers slowly.
How long should they be forced to walk on a treadmill for, then?
PC/Console games take massive amounts of man hours to make and as I see it the point of Early Access is to give smaller Indie Developers the funds to hire more people and get the entire game made.
It’s like Kickstart but for Early Access there needs to be enough of a product to appeal to gamers (and hence time investment already put into, plus a decent idea and an actual game play which is deep enough and has at least a good basis of gameplay design), which also means scams are far less likely because just getting the game all the way to a level that qualifies it for Early Access is already quite the investment in time and possibly money plus worse comes to worse and the developer stops develpment immediattly after caching in with Early Access, buyers still got themselves as small game at a cheap price, just not the “dream” they were promised.
IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Every single aspect of video game development is trash. From executives to absurdly whiney and entitled gamer population.