Thoughts On Unfinished Games

[11clock]

This has been bothering me for a while. More and more game developers have been releasing unfinished games, usually labeled alpha, beta, or early access, as commercial titles. Some unfinished games are released as 'free,' but have paid downloadable content despite the unfinished state of these games. I'm completely fine with unfinished games that have "no strings attached," but when they are monetized it really bothers me. I strongly believe that an unfinished product shouldn't be monetized simply because it is unfinished. I admit to buying unfinished products in the past, which were Minecraft Alpha, Scrolls Beta, and Starbound Beta. I bought Minecraft Alpha and Scrolls Beta because later versions were going to have increases in price, and I only own Starbound Beta because I pre-ordered the game so that I wouldn't have to buy it later when it is officially released.

What I don't understand is: Why sell a game that is incomplete? Actually, why sell any complete product? If someone was working on a new type of body wash and releases it in its unfinished state, would you prefer to buy this body wash and be only partially clean (or maybe not clean at all), or would you prefer to buy a body wash that is finished and actually keeps you clean?

[ARTgames]

Passive aggressive Stick Online comment?

[Meiun]

Passive aggressive Stick Online comment?

Not sure how that would apply to Stick Online. V2's was released unfinished completely free, as is the plan for V3.

I definitely do understand what 11 is saying though. I too get a subtle vibe that a lot of developers are using the "early access" thing primarily as a way to cash in early. You also tend to see a lot of people that get upset when things like character wipes or other substantial changes happen, which then encourages some devs to try to avoid these types of things as much as possible, which ultimately may lead to a crappier game in the long run (since they avoid making changes that may have been beneficial in the long run).

[Freeforall]

I don't have any problem with it at all, actually. When you buy games that are early access, it motivates the developers to keep working at it. If tons of people buy their game when it's not even finished, they sure as hell aren't going to abandon the project if they are sane. Buying early access really helps the production of the game, and it always gives me a good feeling when I do it.

I get what you are saying, you think it's wrong to sell unfinished products. But, it's not like they are forcing people to buy it. The people who bought it chose to buy it.

[ARTgames]

If I pay for something I normally do it for what it is today.

[11clock]

I don't have any problem with it at all, actually. When you buy games that are early access, it motivates the developers to keep working at it. If tons of people buy their game when it's not even finished, they sure as hell aren't going to abandon the project if they are sane. Buying early access really helps the production of the game, and it always gives me a good feeling when I do it.

I get what you are saying, you think it's wrong to sell unfinished products. But, it's not like they are forcing people to buy it. The people who bought it chose to buy it.

Actually, from my experience from my team's current free-to-download alpha game, Earth Overclocked, early access HINDERS production, for two reasons.

1. As wrong as it sounds, money is a very good end-goal for developing a game and increases motivation for finishing said game. Early access allows a developer to get the money before the game is even finished, eliminating money as a source of motivation. One of the reasons why I can work on Earth Overclocked for 1.5 years compared to my other projects where I tend to quit after a month or two is because, unlike my other projects, Earth Overclocked will actually get me money at the end of the road.

2. An early access title usually has to be continually updated in order to keep the audience interested in the title's success. This means that a team developing an early access game has to keep creating stable builds for the game so that the audience can play it without many issues. I will go ahead and say that it is a HUGE PAIN to make stable builds. Having a team focus on making stable builds for an audience while the game is still heavy in development drastically slows down production speed. It is one of the reasons why I look forward to making the beta version of Earth Overclocked, because unlike its everyone-can-download alpha version the beta version will be closed source, meaning that the team won't have to worry about making everything stable for an audience.

It is true that they aren't forcing people to buy early access titles, but after seeing these early access titles clogging up store pages on big websites a bazillion times it makes it rather obnoxious for those of us who are not interested in early access titles to find the games that are complete and actually deserve their price tags. I'm basically getting tired of seeing these games everywhere. It makes it harder to find the complete games as these early access titles continue to increase in popularity and clutter store pages. If early access games continue to grow then they should stop being grouped with complete games. It's complete nonsense to have unfinished products alongside finished ones.

[Scotty]

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you.  Welcome to capitalism...  That's as far as I'll take that...

Let's think about what indie games (assuming you're really just angry at the indie market) really are, and what it means to be an "indie developer", or at least a contributor to an individually developed game, void of a large publisher breathing down your neck.  You aren't bound to a contract, you aren't getting paid in peanuts to develop the next buggy Sims game, you aren't going to completely botch the next Dragon Age threequel, no, you're an indie developer!  You work on your schedule, your requirements (which are hopefully heavily influenced by your enthusiastic customer-base), and your vision for your game!  You're pissed at how games are getting released too buggy, too unplayable.  You throw your hands in air and scream at the thought of buying a $60 dollar game that disappoints you.  You don't want to pay $500 for the next console which embraces DRM.  You are downright furious that these markets have monopolized something you are passionate about, and you are willing to fight the man to show them they're wrong.  You, as an indie developer will defy odds.  You'll do The Sims the way it should have been done!  You will make a sandbox game unlike... well shit... that idea's taken...  You'll create the next best zombie survival game because no one has... well shit...  You'll...  Tower Defen... Wait....

All that aside (that's my personal rant towards unoriginal indie developers), you are on your own.  Your salary isn't tied to you completely tasks x, y, and z before Friday, when Electronic Arts will fire you because they're done using and abusing you.  No, you're on your own.  You, the guy next to you, and maybe someone else across the country you met online to handle your graphics or web design.  You're on your own, to fend for yourself.  You need that money!  You will do anything to get on Steam's carousel of new releases!  You'll starve if you don't!  Besides, you went to college for that computer science degree.  You deserve that job right?  You waited two or more years to get accepted into your college's game design class because that's what you wanted to do, along with every other John, Joe, and Sally, right?  Everyone wants to make games these days, and everyone is all dipping into the same pot for money!  Just ask your grandparents about the mechanic shops they ran, or the plumbing business they built from the ground up.... Next to Bill's plumbing (who was their neighbor, complaining about how everyone is sucking up blue collar labor for unfinished work).  I digress...

So you, the consumer are upset.  You're upset because everyone else is stealing the market with unfinished products.  They aren't working at the speed that you, the consumer expect them too.  They are providing a product you aren't obligated to buy into.  You could just not buy into it... Right?  You could click Steam's community reviews page where you see everyone thumbs-down'ing it (7 days to die anyone?) couldn't you?  But this one might be it!  This one might be the game that finally doesn't disappoint you!  Finally you will play a zombie survival game that doesn't disappoint you after all the failed previous attempts from other qualified indie developers.  You hope this developer isn't that one that relies on money to survive this capitalistic world!  There has to be someone out there who can be void of food, water, a social life, and would rather sit in front of computer and not accept money before his work is finished!  There has to be one person out there who got their computer science degree and doesn't have to pay student loans!

You're better than all of them!  You're too good to waste your time on their product.  You got suckered into it.  It wasn't your fault you didn't spend time investigating before you wasted your money on an unfinished product that didn't meet your expectations.  You just spent $30 on the next sandbox game that blows.  You even felt obligated to stick with it to see how it plays out over the next three weeks because you had some hope that the developed...


Oh fok it, just go defy hypocrisy and go work for Electronic Arts.  They'd love to pay you $30k a year on salary with the expectation that you'll work 70 hour weeks.  At least you'll have a finished product to show for it when you lose your job upon delivery.  That's the only way you'll get a finished product out into the market at the speed you're willing to accept as a consumer.

EDIT: Why the fok isn't there a full release client of Earth Overclocked yet!?!  I as the consumer am LIVID that you haven't delivered a product that exceeds my expectation on my schedule!  How rude of you!

[11clock]

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you.  Welcome to capitalism...  That's as far as I'll take that...

Let's think about what indie games (assuming you're really just angry at the indie market) really are, and what it means to be an "indie developer", or at least a contributor to an individually developed game, void of a large publisher breathing down your neck.  You aren't bound to a contract, you aren't getting paid in peanuts to develop the next buggy Sims game, you aren't going to completely botch the next Dragon Age threequel, no, you're an indie developer!  You work on your schedule, your requirements (which are hopefully heavily influenced by your enthusiastic customer-base), and your vision for your game!  You're pissed at how games are getting released too buggy, too unplayable.  You throw your hands in air and scream at the thought of buying a $60 dollar game that disappoints you.  You don't want to pay $500 for the next console which embraces DRM.  You are downright furious that these markets have monopolized something you are passionate about, and you are willing to fight the man to show them they're wrong.  You, as an indie developer will defy odds.  You'll do The Sims the way it should have been done!  You will make a sandbox game unlike... well shit... that idea's taken...  You'll create the next best zombie survival game because no one has... well shit...  You'll...  Tower Defen... Wait....

All that aside (that's my personal rant towards unoriginal indie developers), you are on your own.  Your salary isn't tied to you completely tasks x, y, and z before Friday, when Electronic Arts will fire you because they're done using and abusing you.  No, you're on your own.  You, the guy next to you, and maybe someone else across the country you met online to handle your graphics or web design.  You're on your own, to fend for yourself.  You need that money!  You will do anything to get on Steam's carousel of new releases!  You'll starve if you don't!  Besides, you went to college for that computer science degree.  You deserve that job right?  You waited two or more years to get accepted into your college's game design class because that's what you wanted to do, along with every other John, Joe, and Sally, right?  Everyone wants to make games these days, and everyone is all dipping into the same pot for money!  Just ask your grandparents about the mechanic shops they ran, or the plumbing business they built from the ground up.... Next to Bill's plumbing (who was their neighbor, complaining about how everyone is sucking up blue collar labor for unfinished work).  I digress...

So you, the consumer are upset.  You're upset because everyone else is stealing the market with unfinished products.  They aren't working at the speed that you, the consumer expect them too.  They are providing a product you aren't obligated to buy into.  You could just not buy into it... Right?  You could click Steam's community reviews page where you see everyone thumbs-down'ing it (7 days to die anyone?) couldn't you?  But this one might be it!  This one might be the game that finally doesn't disappoint you!  Finally you will play a zombie survival game that doesn't disappoint you after all the failed previous attempts from other qualified indie developers.  You hope this developer isn't that one that relies on money to survive this capitalistic world!  There has to be someone out there who can be void of food, water, a social life, and would rather sit in front of computer and not accept money before his work is finished!  There has to be one person out there who got their computer science degree and doesn't have to pay student loans!

You're better than all of them!  You're too good to waste your time on their product.  You got suckered into it.  It wasn't your fault you didn't spend time investigating before you wasted your money on an unfinished product that didn't meet your expectations.  You just spent $30 on the next sandbox game that blows.  You even felt obligated to stick with it to see how it plays out over the next three weeks because you had some hope that the developed...


Oh fok it, just go defy hypocrisy and go work for Electronic Arts.  They'd love to pay you $30k a year on salary with the expectation that you'll work 70 hour weeks.  At least you'll have a finished product to show for it when you lose your job upon delivery.  That's the only way you'll get a finished product out into the market at the speed you're willing to accept as a consumer.

EDIT: Why the fok isn't there a full release client of Earth Overclocked yet!?!  I as the consumer am LIVID that you haven't delivered a product that exceeds my expectation on my schedule!  How rude of you!

...I'm honestly confused and don't see where this post was trying to go. (Not sure what to say about the last comment because the degree of sarcasm is very hard to read on the Internet, but I will just go ahead and say that Earth Overclocked doesn't have a price tag, and is therefore not in the market. It will get a price tag when my team sees the game as complete, as it is planned to eventually enter the market.)

EDIT: I think I am having trouble following your argument because you seem to be misinterpreting that I don't like the speed of which games are being produced (either that or I suck at understanding somewhat sarcastic posts), when I really just care about unfinished games unfairly having price tags and cluttering the market. (I do believe that releasing an unfinished title lowers production speed, though.)

EDIT 2: Basically, I think that unfinished games should be free, unavailable to the public, or in their own market away from finished titles.

[Loganvz123]

Whaaa..? The developers don't have to release unfinished games, ya know..and you're complaining you're having to pay for something you get early access to and often get bonus features(like a cheaper price or a special trinket?)....These games have to be paid for...why would you give away something that comes from months of work and costs huge amounts of money to produce for free? That's just silly.

[Scotty]

...I'm honestly confused and don't see where this post was trying to go. (Not sure what to say about the last comment because the degree of sarcasm is very hard to read on the Internet, but I will just go ahead and say that Earth Overclocked doesn't have a price tag, and is therefore not in the market. It will get a price tag when my team sees the game as complete, as it is planned to eventually enter the market.)

EDIT: I think I am having trouble following your argument because you seem to be misinterpreting that I don't like the speed of which games are being produced (either that or I suck at understanding somewhat sarcastic posts), when I really just care about unfinished games unfairly having price tags and cluttering the market. (I do believe that releasing an unfinished title lowers production speed, though.)

EDIT 2: Basically, I think that unfinished games should be free, unavailable to the public, or in their own market away from finished titles.

Yes.

[Meiun]

Didn't realize people would have such strong opinions on this. Just to clarify on my past post, I hardly care 99% of the time. I've bought numerous early access games and enjoyed a number of them. I can certainly see the point of early access for a lot of games, particularly indie. I just find it slightly amusing how quickly so many companies jumped on the early access bandwagon, some of which doing it so early that I sometimes wonder if they may have ended up with a slightly better product if they held off a bit longer. Especially when the term "early access" didn't really exist a few years back (at least not in quite the same sense it does now). Either way, it hardly matters much to me in the long run, and any negative comments I made towards it were mainly targeted at large fat cat publishers.

Basically, I wish that the game industry as a whole had less big decisions based around money. But I realize that this is some extreme wishful thinking, as people need to make a living.

[Freeforall]

I didn't mean to sound rude if I did, 11clock.

[11clock]

Whaaa..? The developers don't have to release unfinished games, ya know..and you're complaining you're having to pay for something you get early access to and often get bonus features(like a cheaper price or a special trinket?)....These games have to be paid for...why would you give away something that comes from months of work and costs huge amounts of money to produce for free? That's just silly.

They don't have to release unfinished games, but they do regardless. And I don't want to pay for early access titles because I would rather buy games that are complete. Look at my thing about the body wash again in the first post.

why would you give away something that comes from months of work and costs huge amounts of money to produce for free?

Your argument here I agree with for complete games. It is precisely why I am completely against things like piracy. However, the subject here is unfinished games. Yeah, when the game is finished then it should be paid for, but while it is still in its incomplete state it doesn't deserve any sort of monetization. When a game is complete is when it should be monetized. My team's game, Earth Overclocked, has been in the works for 1.5 years. Even though we have worked on it for many months, we are still giving away the alpha version for free. We don't want Earth Overclocked to be in the market as an incomplete product, so it won't get a price tag until it is in its complete state, no matter how much we have worked on the game thus far.

EDIT: I am rather aggressive when it comes to arguments, so I apologize if I end up hurting any feelings.

[Loganvz123]

Your argument here I agree with for complete games. It is precisely why I am completely against things like piracy. However, the subject here is unfinished games. Yeah, when the game is finished then it should be paid for, but while it is still in its incomplete state it doesn't deserve any sort of monetization. When a game is complete is when it should be monetized. My team's game, Earth Overclocked, has been in the works for 1.5 years. Even though we have worked on it for many months, we are still giving away the alpha version for free. We don't want Earth Overclocked to be in the market as an incomplete product, so it won't get a price tag until it is in its complete state, no matter how much we have worked on the game thus far.

EDIT: I am rather aggressive when it comes to arguments, so I apologize if I end up hurting any feelings.

That body wash thing bothers me a bit.
First of all, body wash is not a product which takes months of hard labour to complete...also..when you buy an unfinished game..you get the full version too!
You have the opportunity to get part of something you want before it's released, with the promise of getting the full version when it's released for no extra cost? When you buy unfinished body wash, you have unfinished body wash. When you buy the pre-release of a game, you have the prerelease of the game to mess around with, and then you get the full version a few months later.
It's not fair to complain that people are charging for their hard work. People prebuy games months in advance before they come out even without a playable test version!

[ARTgames]

I'm fine with people monetizing their game in any arbitrary state their game may be in.

If people pay for something and are expecting more out of it as sort of an early investor mentality, and then the game company does nothing with its property, than I can feel how the customer feels shafted.  I just always took the safe route of only paying when they had something I liked.

If a buyer is warned before buying into something that this may fall apart or go no ware than I find that ok if nothing comes of the game.