this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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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.
Yeah, that's an exaggeration. But the point is, you're taking on a debt that you owe to a bunch of ordinary people. Not venture capitalists, who are hedging their bets across multiple industries, and always guaranteeing themselves to be successful, as much as the combined powers of lawyers and insider trading can guarantee.
These are individuals, who won't be getting any return on their investment, other than a product that will eventually, hopefully be worth the price they paid.
As I've mentioned, the reason why people would agree to participate in such a system is to try and free ourselves, at least a little bit, from the clutches of the capitalist investors. Asking for people's money, up front, to fund development of a grassroots, independent product should be seen as something important, to be treated extremely seriously and held in high esteem.