Sometimes I forget they even allow this. Finish the fucking thing before adding extra shit. How can an unfinished thing even have extra shit?
It's like buying a tiara for your fetus, before you even buy a crib.
ALSO, MICROTRANSACTIONS = DLC.
Tell us how you feel about Star Citizen.
Actually gotten good recently.
It has DLC?
With my penis.
Because Steven Crowder doesn't deserve to be a meme
Ya know, Calvin really has more in common with Crowder than you might think.
They obviously both childish. They're fundamentally selfish beings. They have incredibly vivid imaginations, but they only ever use them to amuse themselves and reinforce their delusion that they're the most important person. They believe themselves to be rebels against a banal and suffocating system, but in reality they're just irritating little shits, constantly acting upon every rogue impulse of their raging ego and id, with no regard for how they're making life hard for the people who have to live near them.
didn't like crowder show is dick to all the bros at his work tho?
Imo, Calvin at least is an imaginative, creative individual with an imaginary tiger that frequently gives him shit for his flaws. Kids also notably grow through self absorbed phases while Crowder acts a similar way as an adult.
Calvin is also only six years old, so he has an excuse.
Man I really hate how right you are.
I thought we were going to use the Calvin and Hobbes template from now on?
Yeah. It's a shame we still use this asshole for these meme templates out of habit, but he is definitely not ok.
Stop fucking buying fucking early access fucking games. Companies do shit like this because it's profitable
If that was strictly true, I would agree, and I wouldn't bother talking about it.
But it's NOT strictly true. There are Early Access developers who actually use the model to get funds for developing games, within reasonable timescales, and without doing exploitative shit.
It's important for Early Access to exist, because it's a way for independent developers to exist, completely outside of any big business control. A truly independent developer never has to deal with corporate jackals, breathing down their necks, demanding that they add more microtransactions and gambling into the game. They can make games that are truly outside the mainstream genres, without having to justify themselves to traditional investors.
These are GOOD THINGS. If I truly believed every single Early Access developer was just a scammer, I wouldn't bother saying any of this. I think Valve needs to get a handle on the system, rather than just letting it twist in the wind, the way they have been. There needs to be a time limit, before a game has to either be released, or else be cut off from further Early Access sales. They need to disallow DLC and other forms of microtransactions, within Early Access games. They need to establish rules about Early Access developers having connections with outside investors, and what exactly would be considered acceptable, within the system.
The developers who use the Early Access program the way it's supposed to be used are not making massive profits from it. They are paying for the up-front development costs of a game, and hoping that it will turn out to be a big enough success that it will continue to be profitable, after development is complete.
When people do annoying, scam-adjacent shit like selling DLC content for an Early Access game, it fuels opinions like yours. It makes people throw their hands up and say "Early Access is all a scam." And that fucking sucks. Because if it goes away, there's no alternative but for indie developers to sign up with traditional corporate psychos, who always try to make games worse.
As an indie dev myself, I really appreciate this take. Spot on.
Just to piggyback off of this/give an example of good usage of early access: to me BG3 was great usage of early access. It stayed there for a long time and actually used the early access to get player feedback to improve the game. When the game finally released the only dlc they had was given for free to everyone who played early access, and it doesn't really change the gameplay experience at all, it was only stuff like an art book and some references to their older game.
I agree that Steam should regulate early access more. The best buyer's policy in my opinion is to only buy games you know you'll enjoy in their current state. Any future features are a bonus.
I had great success that way with Dave the Diver, Subnautica, and Satisfactory.
I've avoided buying Kerbal Space Program 2 despite 400 hrs on the original because it still feels like a cash grab with not enough content yet.
There have been many truly amazing early access games though that might not have been made without it (rimworld, factorio, etc)
So glad I got Factorio when it was in EA and before it shot up to twice the price! Incredible game though, I would have gladly paid full release price.
Nah there are actually good early access game (Palworld, and predecessor come to mind although predecessor is f2p) but one should use caution when buying Early access games
Holy shit, someone mentioned predecessor on lemmy? Goddamn.
Palworld is pretty good but it is so fucking buggy it actually makes me want to stop playing sometimes and I feel a lot of resentment for having paid for such trash. It will definitely make me more careful to check bug reports and gameplay videos before investing more time and energy into a game in the future.
Bugs I have found so far include:
Controls also suck bigtime. I still keep accidentally throwing pal spheres with Q and I really suck at using 1/3 to switch between pals. They should make it so you have to left click to throw the pal sphere. Should also maybe allow alternative ways of selecting left/right for pals and in menus, other than 1/3. Maybe Ctrl+scroll or something, idk
It also is taking fucking forever to get a gun. I am level 17 and so far do not feel like it's "Pokemon with guns" at all. I have a shitty spear which is the most powerful melee weapon at my level, yet does almost no damage to level 18+, and a semi-shitty crossbow which is super annoying to get the arrows for (arrows don't drop from enemies and the grind to manufacture them is super boring)
Meanwhile, ConcernedApe is out there quietly adding more and more free features to an eight year old game: Stardew Valley. All while working on a completely new title that will release... eh, eventually.
I have no issue with people shipping unfinished products, as long as they're transparent about it. But using it as a way to lower expectations for a buggy "final" product, while charging more for the updates, is just crummy. At least bundle it in, turn off "early access", and raise the price appropriately. If it has DLC, the core game is "done" in my book.
Edit: thanks for the robust conversation on this thread.
I'll add this clarification: clearly there are outliers and exceptions to all this. It's entirely possible to have something incomplete, and still be worth treating like a full release, DLC and all.
To me, I think the key dividing line is determined by the overall "buginess" or "playability" of the product. If something has broken mechanics or is full of game-destroying bugs, and it negatively impacts the overall fun factor, that's the case I'm talking about here. As a game's main job is to package joy for other people, it's pretty easy to see how a developer or publisher is just seeking a payday at your expense.
Same for Wube and Factorio, and Re-Logic and Terraria. I think we're on the 8th "final patch" for Terraria.
Terraria is a truly extreme case, the developers truly just can't stop making updates.
Factorio isn't amazing in this way, but the developers have a lot of integrity - they delivered their plans for 1.0, released some good extra updates, continue fixing bugs, and went to work developing paid DLC. I do suppose the DLC will come with a major update to the base game, but that's also because they found they needed to make changes and additions for the expansion.
Motion Twin are finally wrapping up the updates of Dead Cells after the 35th (!) one. While they're working on a board game and an animated series. Now, granted, they released several paid DLCs, but that didn't stop them from pumping out free updates with content in between them
Minecraft has been going on this model for over a decade, too.
Capitalism makes great games.
I'm so hyped for the new stardew valley update. I'll absolutely be buying the haunted chocalatier as well.
I often play a game called Sailwind. Very relaxing, but impressively deep sailing sim. It's been early access for a couple of years, but the (solo-)dev is active, new features are added all the time. If he would release a paid, cosmetic dlc: I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I think it would be nicer than to "get him a coffee" or sub to his patreon.
What I'm trying to say is: not all early access is bad, not all paid dlc is plain greed. And the combo is not necessarily toxic.
I'll give you that. Someone up the thread mentioned Dead Cells, which is/was in the same category for a while. I'll revise my premise a bit, thank you.
Stop using this fucking idiot for your memes, there's alternatives if you need them, but this dude objectively sucks.
Who is it?
Stephen Crowder.
Y'all keep buyin that shit tho why would they stop
I used to be vehemently against EA games but there are some good ones. Project Zombiod for one. But a big part of the fun of that game is modding it. And the mod scene is expansive and quality, but I understand lots of people not wanting to mod games.
What pisses me off more is "Released" games like RimWorld that are broken as vanilla and require modding to work properly. That shit needs to stay in EA.
Use Calvin and Hobbes template or something like this instead
Like I said before, I forgot who that dipshit even was, especially since the template for the meme is so incredibly low-resolution. Hilariously, his actual dipshit sign looked so stupid that I thought it was a fake, when I saw it in the image search, when I went to get the blank one.
He's a fucking clown, beyond all description.
Fuck that bigot
Someone needs to make a new template with that bigot photoshoped out
Found it on the Internet
Is that Aflleck? 😂
I mean, do that, and they'll just stop labeling the games as early access while still being in the same unfinished state, meaning people can't even decide if they want to avoid a game or not based on that label.
So they'll have to avoid games based on what people say about them, and nobody will be able to hide behind the excuse of "but it's still in Early Access, maaaan."
Steam's refund system is really good. I say get rid of Early Access and let every game stand on an absolutely equal footing, with no excuses anywhere in sight, for anybody. No privileged "oooh, but you don't get to judge this game yet" roped-off section for people to play shell-games with.
Start selling your game any time you want, in any state you want. But beware the wrath of the consumer. That's fair.
EDIT: I realize this could seemingly contradict another comment I just made, where I defended the Early Access program, as a vital means of securing funds for independent developers. To be clear, I think that the function of Early Access should essentially remain, but not be labeled, in any default way.
I think all the games should be on the store, all the time, any time. And it should be up to each developer to make their case, on their own, as to why the customer should be willing to spend money on their product.
For sale: baby tiara, never worn.
Don't call it stillborn, call it vaporware.
You know that would only lead to more games being published as 'a finished product' eventhough they really are not. It would make the problem worse, not better.
Exactly. Like I've said in various comments in this thread, I have complex feelings about how the situation could actually be fixed. Basically, it comes down to two options:
A. Valve should start to actually regulate the Early Access program. Add rules about when and how DLC can be added (basically never, in Early Access), how long a product can stay in Early Access (someone mentioned the possibility of a 'long-term early access' category being established). Add a separate grade system for people to rank how well the game is doing, in terms of customer's satisfaction, in terms of progress toward a finished product. I would also suggest that forced monetary transparency might be a good thing to add, as a requirement for Early Access participation. If the storefront page openly displayed the amount of revenue the game has generated, since coming to Early Access, it would help to instantly make some judgments about the whole product. If the game in question is a dinky 2D platformer, but it has raised $800,000 over 8 years, I'm gonna be questioning why it hasn't just been completed, at this point.
B. Valve could also remove the entire Early Access label, and just let anyone start selling anything, in any state of completion, and simply make their own case for why people should buy it. If the game is basically an Early Access game, but the game's description doesn't make that clear, people will refund the game and shit-talk them, all over the internet. If they make a good case, in their own description and trailers and other media, then people may decide "I will fund this thing, based on those merits." The benefit would be the lack of the "its in beta" label, for people to hide behind. If devs just had to make their own pitch, in their own words, people would be more likely to judge that pitch, with an appropriately critical eye.
I would consider selling something like a soundtrack acceptable but no game content dlc, absolutely.
Fuck that. Why is that acceptable? A soundtrack is a basic part of a game. You're so used to paying for extra shit that you forgot that options like those are part of the game that you paid for from non bullshit companies.
Also also: can we make it that developers have only one Early Access game at a time. Finish the game before moving on to the next one, or abandon it and release it without the EA label.
YES! That's maybe the most important point I could make, but I forgot to make it.
I think thor said it best, horse armor made more money than starcraft 2 expansion. Thus was the beginning of shit DLC cash grabs
horse armor made more money than starcraft 2 expansion. Thus was the beginning of shit DLC cash grabs
The most annoying thing about that aspect of the phenomenon is how it's based completely and entirely on a false premise. When you do some crazy new shit and it takes off like gangbusters, you CAN'T JUST ASSUME THAT IT'S GOING TO BE POPULAR FOREVER.
Sometimes, a new product or service is immediately popular because it's genuinely a hot seller. The day hotcakes were invented, people probably said they were selling like blowjobs. Then they somehow sold even better than blowjobs, so they became the new idiom. But the thing is, that's not a guaranteed thing, for every product, and you shouldn't base the future of your industry on your bullshit assumptions.
The goddamned horse armor sold like crazy because it was a new thing. The potential market for $2.50 worth of micro-content was beyond wide open. Huge numbers of people were ready to go "LOL, I'LL BUY THAT INSTEAD OF A CRUNCHWRAP SUPREME." That should NOT have been an indicator of further success, in and of itself. But big business motherfuckers don't want to use actual logic, or even real intuition. They just said to themselves "I really want this to be the new easy way of printing money," and so they have spent all the following years FORCING that paradigm into existence.
But I think it's a false paradigm. Nobody talks about the money that's being left on the table, when such a huge percentage of the industry has been given over to microtransaction-based nonsense. The Battle Royale, MOBA, and Hero Shooter genres are as saturated as they're going to be. What about people (like myself, for instance) who play absolutely none of those games?
I've never played them. I'm never going to play them. I'm not even refraining from playing them because I hate microtransactions. I just dislike them, as genres. They're not my cup of tea. I play mostly play a mixture of sandbox games, RPGs, single-player action and shooter games, strategy games, and VR games, as well as a few survival/crafting/fighting games, like Terraria/Starbound.
I'm not alone. There are other people like me, who always want more intentional, in-depth content. If anybody doubts the possibility for better games to make money, you only need to look at Baldur's Gate 3. That game has made shitloads of money. Money that corporate advocates of the "we can just print money with skins and stickers" philosophy can never have access to, unless they also pry open their wallets, and invest in real content.
We as gamers who want this are completely outdone by the insane amount of money some people will spend in this market. Change my mind.
PS. I hate the DLC and micro transaction market as they exist today. But they make 1000x the old market so no way anything changes.
war thunder, destiny 2, what other games are there for the sole purpose of milking multiple payments of money out of people over a long period of time
gta 5 online probably counts too
Doesn't even have to be the sole reason to be a money killer. WoW, CS2, LoL, Dota. All free to play because if you milk them for $1 for something small it still makes more money than the base game.
This is actually one of the rare times that I fully agree with the everyday consumer when it comes to Early Access. I absolutely 100% agree with this statement if you are still an early access there should not be paid DLC, perhaps they should be able to have free DLC the workshop but definitely should not be allowed to have paid dlc/expansions
I don't buy early access so I didn't even know :O
This would also incentive devs to actually finish their game instead of getting stuck in early access limbo
Nah, they'd just call it finished and do the same thing.
While I understand the point this meme is making, I can't wholeheartedly agree with condemning games labeled early access. Basically every modern AAA game comes out buggy, undercooked and unfinished, which means it's in early access. Games not being labeled as such doesn't change the fact that it's not finished. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were trash games, buggy as hell and completely unfinished. For all intents and purposes, they should have been labeled Early Access.
The sad reality is that games being released in "Early Access" is not a detriment to 99.9% of consumers, so it's going to keep happening.
But the post isn't negging on Early Access in general, it's pointing out that Early Access games shouldn't have DLC, and I agree. It's Early Access, which means it's unfinished. Why the hell is there paid DLC content? That's essentially expansion content without even finishing and releasing the game.
Honestly it's ridiculous, as even "full release" 1.0 games tend to be unfinished messes until six months after release these days.
I feel pretty meh about cosmetic micro transactions, so if they wanna include cosmetic micro transactions in the early access to test it out, then meh. But they should be free during early access and then reset it when the game is released. EA is for testing.
Exactly. I don't know how a lot of these people have opinions that are so wildly different from this.
When you have people paying you for a game that isn't finished yet, you're making a compact with them. If you take it seriously, you should be saying "I acknowledge that you people have given me the entire purchase price of this software, even though it is absolutely not finished. Every day that I spend working on this software, from then on, is OWED TO YOU PEOPLE. I will not consider a single moment of my time to truly be my own, until I have paid off that debt, and released a fully featured, complete product, as quickly as possible."
If you aren't comfortable with that situation, you shouldn't enter the Early Access program. It's not for profiteering. It's also not for weak people. If you don't absolutely KNOW that you have the ability to pay off the debt you have incurred, you shouldn't take on that debt. Nobody is forced to take on that debt. If you want to spend forever and a day making your game as a little hobby project, you can do it without a shitload of other people's money lying around in your bank account.
And if you want to make microtransaction money, you CERTAINLY shouldn't be doing it on other people's investments. Not unless they're going to get that money back, with an added return.
IDK about "every single moment" being owed. The people working on these games are just employees usually. They didn't make the promises and don't have any control over what's happening. It's not fair to put them through the ringer just because some boss thought that they could make their earnings call look better.
I've never seen a game in early access have dlc, only micro transactions for stuff like cosmetics and boosts. Can you give me an example of dlc on an early access game?
Offhand, I know ARK released paid DLC while still in early access.
Yeah see that's absurd
Star Citezen, right?
Do they sell expansions? Or just ships? I'm on original basic backer and don't even know lol
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1604030/V_Rising/
I guess you could define the DLC for this game as "microtransactions," because it's basically alternate cosmetic stuff, for equipment and housing decorations. But it's sold under the label of "DLC," and I don't care to make a distinction between "microtransactions" and "DLC," myself. One is a subset of the other.
If they have time to be making decorative extra shit, they should be spending that time working on the core game, which IS NOT FINISHED YET.
You called for a more nuanced take from the other comment thread, but you would put cosmetics and expansions under the same label in this one because you "don't care to make a distinction" - do you see the issue?
Yeah that's what I was talking about. I have no problem with this. I mean, I won't buy any of it, but cosmetic artists and riggers aren't the same people who do level design and shit.
If you want to show me someone selling, like, an expansion for $20 on an early access game then I'll be incredulous with you. But that link is just typical bad business. No reason for Valve to get involved banning it or whatever
Early Access can be easily abused. That's why I don't bother with it at all.
As I mentioned to someone else, that's a shame. The only alternative to Early Access = developers having to go hat-in-hand, begging for up-front investments from heartless corporations. They increasingly won't fund anything that isn't fit to be saddled with a games-as-a-service price-gouging model.
When Early Access is abused, it's destroying that necessary system for all of us, developers and consumers alike. If you want games that aren't 100 percent mainstream, money-sucking garbage, you should want Early Access to stick around. That's why I think it should, ya know, suck less, and NOT be abused.
Space engineers had joined the thread
Tower Unite 😒
They need a category for long term alphas 5+ years
That would also be a good option, to reduce some of the problems involved in the category.
Transactions = more money for Steam
Disrupt this incentive loop (somehow) and then we can all have nice things.
What do you imagine would replace Steam/Valve? The Magical Post-Capitalist Game Fairy, who distributes games for free, for no reason?
Do you remember who used to distribute games? Walmart. And Best Buy. And CompUSA. And Circuit City. And Target. And GameStop. And Electronic Boutique. Ya know, retailers.
I deliberately peppered that list with names that most people hate AND names that many people associate with good feelings of nostalgia, or mixed feelings at least. But that's the reality of retail. Capitalism sucks. It literally sucks. It sucks money out of everyone, for itself.
Steam was and is the disruption that you're talking about. Steam disrupted a broken and destructive brick-and-mortar sales mode. If the catalog of products available on Steam had to be sold in physical stores, only about the top 2-5 percent of the currently available catalog would be physically able to be sold. THAT WAS, AND REMAINS, THE MASSIVE DISRUPTION TO THE OLD SYSTEM.
You're talking about disrupting the disruption. Maybe you're talking about some kind of nonsense universe, where everyone distributes open source games for free, maaaaan. Or maybe you think the developers should still get money, but the distribution system should be run as...a charity, I guess? Just, because someone feels like spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a bulletproof, entirely secure, worldwide system of game distribution and sales....for free?
Like I said, that would be some kind of Magical Post-Capitalist Game Fairy. If anyone tells you they are willing to do that shit, I guarantee there is a catch. They'll be getting something that they want, somehow. If they're taking a 30 percent cut of the money, I know that's the catch. If they're supposedly doing everything for free, out of the goodness of their own charitable hearts, I don't know what their angle is, but I know it can't be good.
wonder if steam gets 30% of all that too
I can't understand the hate for Steam/Valve taking 30 percent. Back in the day, when people were forced to rely on traditional brick-and-mortar sales models, developers could consider themselves lucky if they got the 30 percent. When publishers, disc/disk manufacturers, box printers, shippers, and retailers finally got done taking all their cuts, it could amount to more than 70 percent. Easily. The lowly creator of the software was an afterthought, in the payment pecking order.
But noooooo, Valve is eeeevil incarnate, because they take 30 fucking percent. Fuck that. 30 percent is reasonable. And what do they do with that money? Does Gaben flaunt his private jet travel and buy sketchy islands, like a some billionaires? Nah. They pump the money back into weird, tech-focused projects. Modern VR would be ENTIRELY under the control of FACEBOOK AND APPLE, if it wasn't for Valve spending their money stash on the SteamVR systems.
I know I sound like a fanboy. It's not even REALLY about any of the stuff I've said, so far. The biggest reason why it's okay for Valve to take 30 percent is to insure that Steam will always exist, and always be thriving, barring a vast and all-encompassing planet-wide economic catastrophe. Nobody has to worry about their Steam library suddenly vanishing. People might be tempted to praise alternative distributors, like Itch.io, because they take only a 10 percent cut. But you only have to look at their website to realize they're incredibly fragile, by comparison. I don't know if Itch.io will still be around in ten years, twenty years, certainly not thirty years. Steam WILL be around in fifty years, when I'm an old, old man. I'd be SHOCKED if it wasn't around a century from now.
That kind of guaranteed future costs money. That is a stone cold fact, whether you like it or not.
EDIT: I just looked it up, and it seems that Gaben does indeed own an island. Pfft. Whatever. I still don't begrudge Valve existing, exactly the way it exists. If Valve hadn't built Steam, we'd be living in a universe where Google/Alphabet handled the lion's share of PC game distribution. Wouldn't THAT be lovely for everyone?
EDIT 2: the article that I found, implying that Gaben owns an island, appears to be satire. LOL.
Any transaction through steam as far as I understand it.
I wanted to challenge this but I can't think of a single early access that I have that tried it, I can only think of ARK and they got roasted for it, even more so when people discovered that ATLAS was a reskin of ARK.
I think they're talking about emperyon galactic survival. They never finished the game, but took it out of EA, and now they just sold a story based DLC when the main game doesn't even have its story completed yet...
ARK has a whole ass sequel and the base game is STILL horribly unoptimized AFAIK. To be fair, I’m on linux, but that’s hardly an excuse when like 95% of other titles work just fine!
Don't worry, ARK runs like ass anywhere, it's so intrinsic to the game that the remaster also runs like ass.
If people wanna buy dumb shit, let ‘em.
Nah. Not acceptable. That's not the case, here. People had already bought the game, in Early Access, before they started selling this extra shit.
They're betraying the original investors with this shit. It's fucked up.
EDIT: I just checked the dates, and only one of the three DLC packs has been added after the game began its Early Access phase. I guess that's something. At least you'd know the DLC was going on, right when they started to sell the game. It still shouldn't be allowed. Early Access should be a privilege, specifically for developers who intend to be respectful of their users.
No one forced you to buy it. If you know it's bad then just don't buy it. If something is bad then I wouldn't buy it and I don't give a rat's arse about it. Why can't you do the same?
You can't tell people how they must spent their own money.
Then don't buy it. Nothing wrong with it.
I wish I had access to Steam - it won't run in my PC, yet it has all these amazing casual games I want to try!! : ( But I would never buy DLC for a game that hadn't been (and might never be) released yet.
What kind of PC are you running, a 286 Compaq from the early 90s?
Lord knows, I think this PC was made from rocks and twigs 2000 years ago. It's still running Windows 7 (I mean - windows 7!! What is this, 1824???) Anyway - I have a newer PC but for some reason, it won't connect to the internet (!) and this one will, but won't run anything like steam or any other applications. I'm living in the prehistoric ages, man.
Good point, but Crowder can suck a dick.
I'm pretty sure you're threatening him with a good time.
His affinity for homoeroticism and drag is even stronger than your average manosphere chud.
Oh, for sure. I forgot that was even him. In twenty or thirty years, this useful meme template will be the entirety of his legacy. I find that funny, so I'll continue using the template.
We can keep the meme, but give him what he deserves - 30 seconds more in paint with the eraser tool keeps dickheads in the past 👍
Well fuck me. I always thought that was Tom Hanks. No idea who "Crowder" is.