Stop treating streamers better than your customers.

[rav]

Title says it all, im annoyed with this streamer early access privilige ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
It has become such a plague in this industry.
Most games are already figured out with 1000 guides before they even release.

[Noin Trongaz]

Publicado originalmente por Kyota:

It's pretty stupid if you think about it.

We want to market our game, so we'll ONLY give the game to STREAMERS... and nobody else.

Because if we gave the game to EVERYONE that would be too much marketing, right? Am I right guys?!?

Please fire your marketing head...they are utterly clueless.

I am sure you understand more about marketing than people for whom it's their job lol. You don't understand what the purpose of sponsored streams / giving streamers early access is even for.
The main purpose of streamers getting early copies or paying them for a sponsored stream is so that people find out about the game, NOT to show what the game is like. If you want to show people what the game is like, you can simply release a gameplay video.
Streamers get paid a lot of money to play the video game because big streamers have their own audience and people watch them irrespective of what game they play. So every time for example Asmongold plays a new game, there are tens of thousands of people who are like "wow, this game looks cool, I will wishlist it". I personally found out about the game because of a stream. Releasing a demo doesn't do anything at all if nobody knows about the game in the first place. Every week there are dozens of new games coming out of Steam, for a developer discoverability is one of the biggest problems (their words, not mine).
So the people in this topic are not the target audience for this showcase at all. They know about the game already.

[Spiritos]

Actually I think streaming is a bad thing, they can give off flase positives to enrich a poor game to increase sales.
If they can release it to a steamer they can also release a demo, and let gamers actually decide for themselves instead of relying on one person's perspective, who can influence a person's choice to invest in that game.

[grog]

OP mad because marketing

[Rynastiv]

Its all about marketing for the developers to give the game to creators/streamers so that they can show it to their viewers. I know that its a bummer because man i wanted to play it too, dang i even want to play it now and literally drop more than 20 hours into it, like straight up, but again its an obvious business/marketing strategy to give it as much exposure it can get. On Twitch alone yesterday there were more than 150k watching their streamer play the game and that's a lot of people already, so as much as i can relate to you and sort of understand how it is unfair, there's really nothing you can do about it other than wait for it like the majority of us OR be a streamer and get that privilege too. Be patient, April 18th is not super far!

[Cryptic]

Agreed op. I get tired of devs treating streamers with special treatment

[thomasmahler]

Folks, as much as I'd love all of you to play No Rest for the Wicked already, this build that we showed here is NOT a finished product! We specifically asked Streamers to not show the unfinished content - and finishing that sadly isn't as simple as clicking a button.

This build still contains a bit of stuff that we didn't polish yet and I don't think it'd be good to have players play something that we weren't able to put our stamp of approval on yet.

We're kind of between a rock and a hard place here: If we do release this, you folks will complain that this or that isn't finished yet - if we don't release it, we hear you all say that we should release it. So we picked the former option, so that people would get to see a whole bunch of gameplay right after Wicked Inside. Sounds fair enough?

April 18th isn't that far away and that'll give us enough time to wrap things up. Just hold tight, you'll get your hands on it very soon!

[BOT Cecil]

It's coming out on april 18th. Don't worry about it.

[Deatheye]

Publicado originalmente por thomasmahler:

Folks, as much as I'd love all of you to play No Rest for the Wicked already, this build that we showed here is NOT a finished product! We specifically asked Streamers to not show the unfinished content - and finishing that sadly isn't as simple as clicking a button.

This build still contains a bit of stuff that we didn't polish yet and I don't think it'd be good to have players play something that we weren't able to put our stamp of approval on yet.

We're kind of between a rock and a hard place here: If we do release this, you folks will complain that this or that isn't finished yet - if we don't release it, we hear you all say that we should release it. So we picked the former option, so that people would get to see a whole bunch of gameplay right after Wicked Inside. Sounds fair enough?

April 18th isn't that far away and that'll give us enough time to wrap things up. Just hold tight, you'll get your hands on it very soon!

How about a demo?

Streamer basically got a free demo, even got money for playing a demo.

If people enjoy the demo, they will invest into early access to help you improve the game.

Also, if the version the streamer played is still so unpolished, why even start the marketing at that point and not wait a little longer to announce something halfway polished?

[Cossty]

marketing? I thought that's obvious...

[mesoru]

u have no idea how world works..

[Shakalaka]

I got be honest , only heard about the game because of all the videos on youtube, the number of people following the game is also increasing, if you care about the game you should be happy about it succeeding more then "I did not play and others did"

[Sunny]

I also think it would've been really cool if they dropped the demo for everyone and progress would carry over to the launch date

[Punk Chaz]

From Austria. That Czechs out.


(I hope some one gets this joke, cus I always wanted to say it.)

[themajesticpanther]

Publicado originalmente por thomasmahler:

This build still contains a bit of stuff that we didn't polish yet and I don't think it'd be good to have players play something that we weren't able to put our stamp of approval on yet.

I'm a bit confused by the logic of this statement, in that you have apparently deemed it good enough for us to watch other people play it but not play it ourselves?

I'm not trying to be combative here, just trying to understand why your company decided it is better for your potential customer to watch someone else experience the game instead of letting people experience it for themselves (even in an unfinished state...which it will be when you release it into EA anyway). Seems to me a demo is just another opportunity for more feedback before EA and build excitement for the product launch. Any complaining about a early build demo being incomplete you can frankly just ignore, you are going to get thoughtless feedback with anything you do regardless of the state of it, that is just an inherent risk in asking for feedback. I'd guess you'd find more people even further excited about the product and the opportunity to help shape it along with you, but I could be wrong.

I'm super excited for this game (one of the few I really want to play in 2024) and really looking forward to even EA (something I'm often very hesitant of) as I think Moon Studios has a proven track record with the Ori franchise that they will deliver a high quality product so all in all my "need" for a demo to convince myself is fairly low. All that being said it does give me a bit of a pause about the confidence you have in your product by not letting people test it for themselves free of charge.

Again from my personal experience with your products I'm not too concerned. Ultimately to me the worst thing is this move does reek of corporate marketing and such and personally it would just be refreshing to see a studio not do that kind of stuff especially one that is trying to sell themselves as more independent and artistically focused. I've never cared for streaming as it comes of as a shady marketing practice that translates to me as a bit disingenuous and it's got so bad that even the most minor stuff like this makes me roll my eyes a little.

All this is just meant as constructive feedback from a potential consumer as I do feel this was a missed opportunity. Regardless I'm very excited and can't wait to play this game as it looks gorgeous and a ton of fun to play (especially looking forward to playing co-op) keep up the great work and see you in EA!

[Gyson]

My opinion is this: A younger generation of gamers may not be aware of this, but games sold well relative to the size of the gaming community for dozens of years without relying on streamers.

Whether the methods of advertising during that period were more or less expensive than the current trend of relying on streamers I honestly couldn't say. But I can say this - streamer communities tend to exist in almost a cult-like bubble, as dissenting opinions are usually banned from a streamer's chat until eventually they becomes the echo chamber the streamer can tolerate.

And while streamers can easily encourage their audience to try out a game, they can also easily discourage their audience from liking a game. Time and time again I have watched streamers nitpick and turn molehills into mountains, until a majority of their chat shares their opinion that some inconsequential detail is now a dealbreaker for them, primarily because they want to parrot the streamer's beliefs. So, there is also a risk involved in using streamers, unlike the risk-free methods of controlled advertising, showcases, and interviews of the past.

I personally do not watch streamers demoing games I'm interested in because 1) many streamers tend to do an awful job of presenting them because they struggle to juggle both the game and playing up to their communities at the same time, and 2) I hate spoilers and they actively harm my enjoyment of a game. So, streamer events like this one are lost on me and only serve to annoy me as a potential customer.