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.
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.
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.
I can always tell that a game has given up when their “updates” are all about what the community had built in the game, rather than what the developers have built.
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 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.
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.
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.
DayZ Standalone for you as well?
I can’t remember, but snow was one of them.
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.
I can always tell that a game has given up when their “updates” are all about what the community had built in the game, rather than what the developers have built.