Have to remember the developer Agreement says Early Access is for games in a finished state that are just looking for number tweaks
Really, these games should be getting delisted, unless they changed that
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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Frankly, some games like Project Zomboid have for years been way beyond what one would think of as Early Access quality but the devs had such grand objectives for that game that they've kept it in Early Access for ages.
Took ages for factorio to release as well haha
Its why I think all the "Early access bad" people are fucking idiots.
A lot of games abuse EA, no arguments there. A lot of games also just rush to 1.0 so they can do a console release and then abandon the game (the Time at Portia devs did that with like three kickstarters?). And then you have the labors of love like Dwarf Fortress or Caves of Qud or Project Zomboid that basically will always be EA (although Qud hit 1.0, finally).
Not to mention studios like Amplitude who use EA in the best possible way. They have a vertical slice of the game and they work with the community to figure out what features to add or rebalance. It isn't always perfect but it genuinely feels like they are listening and it is great.
People should only be buying EA titles if the current state of the game is worth the price they're paying for it.
This is what a company looks like when it's not funded by venture capitalists that insist the line always go up exponentially.
Good on Steam for taking the time an energy to create a feature that is strictly pro-consumer.
They just know that line going up steadily is more valuable than line going up exponentially until people get sick of your shit.
Not like the shareholders care about long term projects.
I mean they might die before they see the end result
I don't know about this, but only because Steam has a very unique position in their market. Lots of intense loyalists for Steam means long-term projects yield hype and reputation.
For example, the Steam Deck was a high cost high impact long-term project, and it wasn't even in the interest of leading the handheld gaming market. It still brought them a lot of good press, and it also spearheaded the adoption of handheld gaming PCs - whether running SteamOS, Windows, or other linux distros - most of which are using Steam as the primary gaming library.
Good Update oh my god
A great feature. I worry when Valve will stop being consumer friendly as they are the only company that still is.
This might happen if GabeN dies, because it is mostly him and his mentality that leads to consumer friendly decisions inside VALVe
Everyone keeps labelling GabeN as the only one holding VALVe to standards, but by his own admission he's more of the equivalent of a board member now, not deeply involved in the day to day anymore. I think the only ones that truly know his level of involvement would be people at VALVe.
What I'm getting at is that I have the same concerns about what will happen after he passes, but I don't think he's the only person standing in the way of VALVe going full corporate.
That‘s why I said his mentality leads to consumer friendly decisions. VALVe has been a holacratic since decades and GabeN has no special status. It is only because of his mentality and leadership which infects other employees with the same views. This might change if he passes. Hopefully it does not.
might happen if GabeN dies
He won't die before releasing Half Life 3, which means he's immortal.
being consumer friendly has brought them more money than any exploitative behaviour ever could have. Getting rid of that would be like butchering a goose that makes golden eggs just so you can get some extra money from the meat.
Butchering that goose is the common tactic of satisfying shareholders temporarily.
Fortunately, their shareholders are still private and they don't have to go to that level (yet)
if i was shareholder i would be furious about that. Isnt "infinite growth" the very point of all this insanity?
One bad quarter beats any long term growth goals, for some reason
What's interesting to me about this and other features is that they all actually benefit Valve, as long as the EU/Australia require them to issue refunds upon request. Without refunds then these features are simply charity, but presently it's good business.
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This is very good, but I hope devs can't just get around it by releasing a 5kb empty update to reset the counter.
I think most of the games that would be in this position aren't willing or able to do that. It's not like there's a ton of income on stale half-released games with no active development, but people should be aware that's what they're looking at anyway.
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I can always tell that a game has given up when their "updates" are all about what the community has built in the game, rather than what the developers have built.
Jokes on them, I got burned on a couple early access games in like 2012 or something so I quit buying early access. Wait for a release.
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This is just pressure on the business folks, not the devs.
I’m a game dev of 20 years and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a dev with that sort of scammy inclination. On the business side of things though…
I follow lots of early access devs, and it's not uncommon for some devs to blatantly post updates only strategically, fixing some minor thing as the next seasonal Steam sale approaches. Some continue even after leaving early access: serious issues in bug report threads, but some minor fix gets posted as the sale approaches, clearly to make the game look alive, even though none of the big stuff is getting fixed.
Plenty of devs are their own business side, anymore.
Why not stop the sale of games that haven't had an update in more than 3 months or offer extended return windows?
Sometimes the dev wants to push a bigger update and takes more than 3 months? Why full stop the sales? Just warn the people and let them decides.
Okay maybe not 3 months but some sort of time frame and maybe not a full halt but perhaps a more significant warning like an are you sure popup on adding to cart.
Plus maybe require monthly dev posts as to progress for early access so people know it's still actually being worked on., otherwise the warning.
Plus the longer refund times if updates haven't happened in months
Early access titles should have an “expire” time. Either get to market, or don’t early access if you can’t in time.
I feel like all that will happen is games will just release to 1.0 as “finished” when they clearly arent. It also may encourage rushing a game out thats a buggy mess.
Ive known some games to be very rough in early access that become absolutely gems a couple years later in development.
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Thank god, this was well overdue. In my opinion though they should have changed the color to be the red backdrop like what they do when the game is incompatible with your system, because people are going to miss that notice since it doesn't look all that different from the standard Early Access notice
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