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End of september isn't half a year ago. It's just 2 months ago, which is still pretty recent.
Technically we paid for the version we got at the moment of buying (check steam EA rules or even just steam store of any EA game for clarification):
Everything after the moment of buying any game in EA can either happen or not happen. There is no basis for complaining when it is clearly said in store what you are paying for. There is a new (few months old) beta version in the beta branch if I understand it correctly which is already something that wasn't paid for and was delivered after the deal.
The game will be "officially dead" when there will be an actual official announcement that it is dead and isn't being worked at anymore. Until then it is kinda in a limbo. You certainly can call it "dead", just not "officially dead" because to add the word "officially" you need an announcement from the dev about this which we don't have yet.
That being said, I hope the dev is still working on the game, because the game has been a ton of fun. I'm particularly eager to see more rituals, as I think there's still a lot of untapped potential there.
and this is still true, even if the game is in better state than many 'full' release and was cheap one, that provide good amount of content at this half state.
Like I said I am not even talking about this developer because he last updated the game on september, if I am not mistaken, but people should stop advocating for games being abandoned...it's really sad, pathetic and you should stop acting like a developer's lapdog...
That's why I call it investing, gambling on the chance that you'll have your money worth later.
Developer know that there's an ambiguity on the price that you can give to a game and because of that ambiguity there's always peoples that pay exorbitant price for a meagre experience and fall in the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" that make them morally indebted to them.
(even though I think Early Access is an immoral practice for big companies).
I also don't know, which is one of the reasons why I answer initial op's question of "is this officially dead now?" with an answer "no. maybe dead, but not officially".
No. The fact that too many people go into early access thinking they are promised to get the full game eventually and support all devs even the ones that drop trashy projects with high promises is the reason why so many bad developers get away with abandoning their projects in EA. For clarification, this dev isn't one of those and he already delivered a good although unfinished project which is worth investing ~30 hours into. But there are a lot of other projects in EA which are either abandoned or dragged out in EA for too long. And people still buy them and think they are going to get the final version instead of looking at what they are actually buying.
It is simple, if less people buy into EA and leave the decision until the final product then more devs will stay until they can release the final product instead of collecting all early access income and stopping because the rest of the work isn't worth for the minimal amount of cash that people who are waiting for the full release will bring. Which of the plans is more incentifying for devs: "i'll give you 10m now for your current version and 1m for the final one" or "i'll give you 1m now for your current version and 10m for the final one"?
Then they shouldn't have bought it. It's literally written in the store that it may never get finished.
It has nothing to do with being ethical or not. You have an agreement between three sides. Steam required developer to give them a playable version before they can put it in EA. This condition was completed by devs. Steam sells players this version warning them that it may or may not change in the future. Steam also completed their part, it sold the version, it warned the player, it gave them 2 hour window to try the game to see if the current version is what players expect or not and let them refund the game. Players paid for the game, tried it for two hours and were satisfied with the purchase. That's where the contract of EA ends. Anything after that may not happen for different reasons, personal issues, family issues, bad responses, lose of artistic inspiration, whatever. It doesn't matter as it isn't covered by EA agreement between three parties anymore. And what does blaming a developer who can't finish the project does? Making games isn't a job, it is a production of an art. You can't make an artist finish his project if he doesn't feel it anymore. Even if they force themselves and "finish" it the result will be trash. Like right now the dev can just remove all unfinished parts and add "Congratulations, you won" popup at the end of the current content and call it done. Will you be satisfied with this?
Yes, that's why it is called "early" access, because you get access to it before it is finished, but it doesn't mean it will ever get finished. It may stay in unfinished state forever and if you don't understand this you shouldn't participate in EA. EA isn't for people who want to only support the project which is why there is a rule that devs shouldn't use it for crowdfunding their project and can only use it if they already have working version which people will be satisfied with. And if you were satisfied with the version you bought you can't suddenly become unsatisfied with it because it didn't changed, you already completed that part of the agreement when you skipped through refund window.
It isn't advocating for games being abandoned, it is accepting that they can get abandoned when you buy any EA game. I doubt many devs go into EA just to abandon the game later, but situation changes and even though they planned to complete the game, they can't anymore. And there is nothing that can be done about it. Forcing them to complete the game is impossible, punishing them for not completing it is a bad thing as they won't participate in EA because of the risk of punishment which will kill many devs which have good but unfinished games and we lose access to such games. How do you even punish them - take all the money they got back? I am sure there is a period after which transactions are unrefundable. Call them to court? This is why steam clarifies that it only sells you the current version of the game and you should only buy it if you are satisfied with current version instead of expecting some future one.
Stop with insults, really, they add nothing. Apply logic, not feelings.
tldr: if you want a finished game, instead of buying it in EA add it to your Wishlist (this increases incentive for devs to finish the game). Buy EA only if you want to play the current version and don't expect that it will ever be finished.
I don't know why you bark so much to this developer, but like I said...it's pathetic...early access games that are abandoned are bad for everybody...stop creating excuses and advocating for this kind of stuff...if you accept that early access games may never be finished and that's ok, good for you, but doesn't make it less imoral...seriously, this is the first time I have even heard of people deffending this kind of thing, it's completely absurd...
People like you is the reason why so many people don't trust early access and don't want to support small developers who need the early access money to finish their games...if people read all the bullcrap you wrote and think that's how the developer thinks (which I hope it's not) what is going to happen is that they are not going to support this game...you may think you are deffending the developer, but you are giving early access games a bad name
What are you even talking about? I said it's immoral for developers to abandon early access games...I am not even talking about this game or talking about people who enjoy it
Marple hasn't officially announced anywhere that development is canceled, done or ended, just that, for all intents and purposes, the next update will take longer to produce. Personally I'm just wondering what part of the development he's burnt out on.
Steam also makes it clear that a game is not guaranteed to exit early access.
I certainly understand the desire for some nebulous great finished product that we can all think of the possibilities for. But you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you cant get your monies worth from the game when you purchase it.