Why is it suddenly okay for developers to release unfinished games?

[AdrianCC100]

I'm looking through Steam early access and I see all these potentially good looking games, but they're unfinished and some unplayable (according to what is being said on steam forums). When did it become okay to release games so early in their life? Is it because the developers run out of money and need some way to fund their project?

[wdmshmo]

Because the players expect so much, that developers are afraid to displease them. We've become too involved in the developing process of games, that the games become worse and worse due to the masses input. The developers release Open Betas, which are usually pay to enter betas, then take the Forum trolls suggestions as fact, change the game to please them. In the end, you have a sold-out, dumbed down game that is catered towards casual players. AkA 10 year olds who haven't fully grasped the tact and strategy to fully play a game. But that's the way to make money nowadays. You have to cater towards casuals so you have a larger player base.

[NewOrleansTrolley]

Unfinished games have always been around.. from ET to Red Sabre.

To play devil's advocate, I'll offer an opposite answer to wdmshmo. Video game companies think "a patch will fix it" or "DLC will fix it," is good enough and doesn't respect its customer base. Players don't have too high expectations (not unless your company hypes it too much and promises too much, of course). The problem comes from companies that think video games shouldn't be forced to the same standard of physical goods becuase they want to cut corners. If a company does release unifnished games, you'll know who you should not buy from anymore. The most recent example is Rome: Total War II.

In reality though, it depends. Some developers run out of money or time. Some developers / publishers have no respect for their customers.

[Deleted]

I blame Minecraft for popularising the "make it up as we go along" habit some developers now have. At least they had the decency to charge discounted prices for early alpha access, and not full game prices. I'm looking at you, Prison Architect.

[Wynnyelle]

Good question. I am always really wary of games marked Early Access, and I actively avoid them, even if I want to play the game. There's nothing that says a developer won't simply drop the game midway through development and just leave the people who bought it hanging. If people want to buy games that are in Early Access to support the devs, I don't really have a problem with that. I just wouldn't do it personally. I'm assuming that they are put up because they need more funding.

[Stir]

How about 'They're not released as unfinished games.' They're often betas or 'early access' deals, which spread some mouth-to-mouth advertising, and is great to find out if your game actually holds up when played by a larger audience.

Why do people complain about it? Entitlement.

[Eroginous]

I'm looking through Steam early access and I see all these potentially good looking games, but they're unfinished and some unplayable (according to what is being said on steam forums). When did it become okay to release games so early in their life? Is it because the developers run out of money and need some way to fund their project?

Because of funding and hype. Giving players early access can give the developers the feedback, money, and hype necessary to keep a game moving forward.

[Deleted]

could be because of the competition ? faster release = more buyers.
lets say "superMMO1" is being released in january.
another company is releasing "superMMO2" in april.
Both games are hyped to the skyes - which game would you chose? the one looking the best, or the game that is being released soon?
I see why companys wants to release games as soon as possible, and then fix its on the run.
as a gamer, however, i find it really sad, and thats why no MMO havnt taken the throne from WOW yet..

[Puri]

I'm looking through Steam early access and I see all these potentially good looking games, but they're unfinished and some unplayable (according to what is being said on steam forums). When did it become okay to release games so early in their life? Is it because the developers run out of money and need some way to fund their project?

I was wondering the same. The last game I noticed that was Payday 2 - it was even released earlier than announced, and it had half the promised features. While they indeed were not lazy and released many patches since (yet it is still far away from having the features that were announced), I also wondered that.
Does the company urgently need money? Or did someone from controlling play the game and said "Yes, it starts, we can release it!"?

[Landin55]

There have been unfinished games since forever. Why are there more? Because more people can make video games.

[Deleted]

Actaully I think it is a good move. People show interest, and if they like the game and the general idea of it, they can give valuable feedback and/or ideas. And price point, keeps a lot kids, grievers and trolls away, only so few will buy in to ruin/corrupt a game.

[Deleted]

Also steam early access... Do you actaully understand the premise of it?

[rogueMatthias]

Hmm...

I think there are two separate debates here. Early Access Deals, they player knows full well the game will have issues and isn't finished when they buy it.

BUT that said, there are a lot of games and especially software that are being released as finished software RIDDLED with bugs. This whole "it's ok, a future patch will fix it" mentality is kind of getting to the point where I wonder sometimes if people are testing software at all, or just leaving it to the public at large to find their issues for them.

It's even spread through to Hardware now like games or phones. There will be massive problems with them but then they're practically treated as if they're disposable by the companies that make them now.
When I started uni I got a Powerbook and the DVD writer stopped working withing a week. I got back to them and they said that they couldn't replace it because that was a known issue for all of that range when they were selling them, and that it shoud be fixed in the NEXT Powerbook if I wanted to preorder one. wtf.

[Drithien]

Because, sadly in my opinion, lots of gamers/"gamers" gobble up marketing schemes like "early access" as if they have next to no functional brain activity.

We live in "The Age of Meh." Where boredom, passive interactivity, limited thinking and mindlessness are the norm amongst players, and people in general. A lot of players are just too lazy to think for themselves almost at all; so they are that much more susceptible to marketing ploys.

Companies are trying to trick you, in a good way or not, into buying their stuff; that is what advertisement is. And they are known to be amongst the most high-performing of min-maxers: whatever they can do to sell more, whatever they can push even just a tiny bit more, they will.

At the same time gamers in their haze of laziness just do what they perceive as the "cool" thing to do most of the time. Hence habits form; but ones that don't really reflect people's variety of taste in games, just the mainstream... that in this case is to burn through games, to just devour content; not really paying much attention to the game, just following the dangling carrot ahead; again and again and again and again, in a seemingly never-ending circle of mental masturbation: to "win," as that moronic article that was linked some time ago declared as the reason for gaming. Giving into greed through videogames is what it has all come to be about. And because of that, actual, honest, pure fun is forsaken, almost forgotten.

So, why would companies not take advantage of that? Players are shooting themselves in the foot. In order to devour something, they will play even unfinished games, not to share in the fun of development, but just to play something, anything. And they are willing to compete for it too. Even pay. The result: players paying companies to do activities for which companies usually paid people themselves, may seem as the stupidest of stupid of acts at first glance. But it has its reasons for existing and thriving. It's just that these reasons are so sad...

[rogueMatthias]

Now if you made that same game, people would want to know who is in the spaceship? What's my characters' backstory? Is there a bad guy sending the asteroids? Are the asteroids just rocks, or sentient asteroid-monsters? Why aren't the asteroids rendered in super-realistic 3D superness? Do the asteroids drop loot? Do I get XP for blowing up asteroids, and does my ship level up? What achievements are there for blowing up asteroids? Is there a housing system for my ship so I can build a cool house to fly around in between blowing up asteroids? Do the asteroids have voice-overs? Can I play online? Is there a PvP system so I can blow up other asteroid-blower-uppers in between blowing up asteroids? Are there Aster-Raids where I team up with other players to blow up a REALLY BIG asteroid to get phat lewts?.

I dunno. If the game play is good enough I'm not sure I care about a lot of that in a game. I think most of that is normally there to distract when you DONT have a good game.

[Wynnyelle]

How about 'They're not released as unfinished games.' They're often betas or 'early access' deals, which spread some mouth-to-mouth advertising, and is great to find out if your game actually holds up when played by a larger audience.

Why do people complain about it? Entitlement.

How is it entitlement to want to buy a finished game? Who says that a developer won't just drop the game mid-beta and leave you hanging there with a half-done game? Some games that are considered "in beta" still have a long way to go and are often just slapped with the word "beta" to give the illusion of it being almost done. Quite a few games in Early Access are straight up unplayable or have a very bare minimum of things to do. To be honest, that isn't good advertising at all, anyway. Remember The War Z? That game got such a bad rap for initially having so many bugs and the developers made so many promises that they didn't keep, and they refused to give refunds for their broken game when people couldn't even play it in some cases. That has made me so wary of games in Beta/Early Access that I just will not buy them until they are done. I don't think that's entitlement. That is me being safe with my money.

[blackhammer99]

Why is it suddenly okay for developers to release unfinished games?

Because people buy them.
Even worse, is people ENDORSE them on youtube.
That makes even more people buy them and there is no backlash, because some one they are a fan of told them to do so.

[Deleted]

We live in "The Age of Meh." Where boredom, passive interactivity, limited thinking and mindlessness are the norm amongst players, and people in general. A lot of players are just too lazy to think for themselves almost at all; so they are that much more susceptible to marketing ploys.

Got any evidence for this? Or are you the mindless one, thinking that scams and exploits never existed and '90s game producers and gamers where saints? Please, big market more scams/exploits but also more goodies.

[rogueMatthias]

I agree with that, but it seems like much of the gaming community doesn't.

lol true, who needs actual challenging gameplay when you have lots of cinematics. reminds me of this..

[Deleted]

lol true, who needs actual challenging gameplay when you have lots of cinematics. reminds me of this..

Pretty sure there are more challenging games coming out now, then ever before. That they're in the same sea as all the easy crap is blinding for a lot of people.