The concept of EA…🤔

[Ramstar]

So.. two points re Early Access

1. Who actually does and does not test for the devs during EA when you buy their game? I try to give some feedback now and then but I’m really buying the game to play it and have fun. I’m quite patient and reasonable so not bothered about the odd bug etc.

2. The concept of paying devs so YOU can QA test THEIR product..? I guess the logic here is small indie teams and how else would they QA test to scale?

I just find it interesting- it’s like someone asking you for a favour then saying to do the favour in addition can you give me £20?

[Pscht]

Nobody forces you to buy into unfinished games, and if others do it that's their decision.

[[N]ebsun]

Publicado originalmente por Ramstar:

So.. two points re Early Access

1. Who actually does and does not test for the devs during EA when you buy their game? I try to give some feedback now and then but I’m really buying the game to play it and have fun. I’m quite patient and reasonable so not bothered about the odd bug etc.

2. The concept of paying devs so YOU can QA test THEIR product..? I guess the logic here is small indie teams and how else would they QA test to scale?

I just find it interesting- it’s like someone asking you for a favour then saying to do the favour in addition can you give me £20?

You are not paying to QA or test their game... you are paying to buy the game.

Early Access is for buying and playing the game earlier than it's intended finished state, there is nothing about giving feedback or testing quality - you are buying it just to play it early.

Publicado originalmente por Steam Early Access:

Early Access Game
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

[Ramstar]

I was just about to post that. Read the part at bottom of expectation it sets for devs and gamers though.

https://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq/?snr=1_200_200_Early+Access

[The nameless Gamer]

A number of early access games release in a better state than you'd imagine. I've bought several of them and they all came in a pretty playable state. You then report bugs and other things which need tweaking. At least the developers of early access games I bought into are rather communicative and diligent when it comes to fixing whatever needs fixing. There is ONE of those where I feel like the progress is too slow for my liking, but one out of six or seven is not really enough to kill my faith in the concept.

At first I was skeptical of early access myself but after giving a few games a go, I can understand more about it. Bug-hunting is actually NOT as easy as people think because bugs don't just pop out left and right, they usually appear under SPECIFIC circumstances (unless it's a rushed AAA game). I've had an experience where I passed an instance of "Frontier Hunter - Erza's wheel of fortune" six times and a bug appeared on my SEVENTH pass because I did something differently. And other players find bugs I never found.

While it sounds ridiculous to pay for "doing bug-hunting and playtesting" at first... when you realize you don't have to do it for 8 hours a day and don't end up VERY saturated with the game due to it by the time it's out... it starts making more sense. (edit, fixed a typo or two)

[Tolkien Book Fan]

My experience of indie games over the last three years is that developers don't consider them finished until version 1.3, both in terms of content they want to add but might not have had the money or time to do so and in terms of their willingness to change the game due to player feedback. I'm getting to the point where I'm either going to buy the game in Early Access because it's so much fun that they can't screw it up, or wait until they are getting ready for DLC because that's the only time I can be sure they have stopped making major changes to the base game. 'Full release' is more an advertising measure now than a statement about the content level of indie games.

[ReBoot]

Publicado originalmente por Ramstar:

So.. two points re Early Access

1. Who actually does and does not test for the devs during EA when you buy their game? I try to give some feedback now and then but I’m really buying the game to play it and have fun. I’m quite patient and reasonable so not bothered about the odd bug etc.

2. The concept of paying devs so YOU can QA test THEIR product..? I guess the logic here is small indie teams and how else would they QA test to scale?

I just find it interesting- it’s like someone asking you for a favour then saying to do the favour in addition can you give me £20?

If you're buying games to simply have fun, then EA is not for you. That's OK, you don't have to like everything there is and, more importantly, you don't have to understand why others like it. You don't have to understand why & how someone else may be so pumped about a game, they want to actively participate in development or maybe they want to play the game ASAP no matter what.

The latter, I don't understand myself. I know there is a substantial populace of gamers who want the thing they want RIGHT ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NOW, I absolutely can't understand this sentiment and it's OK, their money, their nerves, not mine.

[Ramstar]

Interesting and reasonable comments. Just to be clear i actually enjoy EA titles prob more so than i've enjoyed AAA releases. 90% of my games are indie with most being EA. The devs do a great job with the little they have. Not saying they're crap it's more the logic of bug testing via community.

It's the concept of the bug finding and that we "have to" do it coupled with the payment to the devs for the privilege. It was after i saw a dev ask a player to post a bug report was really the thing that got me pondering, but i guess that is the 'price' paid for community contribution and if you want a game that you will continue to enjoy playing, from an indie dev.


I guess it comes down to if you want to report a bug then do it, if not don't and have reasonable expectations when purchasing EA titles?

[The nameless Gamer]

Publicado originalmente por ReBoot:

The latter, I don't understand myself. I know there is a substantial populace of gamers who want the thing they want RIGHT ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NOW, I absolutely can't understand this sentiment and it's OK, their money, their nerves, not mine.

I can't say about others, but sometimes, the game ticks all checkboxes and scratches a very specific itch. And it comes with being able to give feedback which actually matters. Also, as said in a post above, they tend to come in a mostly playable state, not crashing, freezing and bugging out all the time.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Does anybody use the search function? This is not the first thread about this and it isn't even the first recent thread.

Also, nobody reads the damn blue box:


Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development.

That information is on every single early access game that is listed on the Steam Store

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Every developer on Steam asks for your money. Regardless of where other or not the game is in EA. That's what stores do.

YOU always have the choice to buy or not to buy.

EDIT
17-year-old account that just realized what EA is I guess.

[Ramstar]

Your missing the point my friend noone is bashing EA, just a Q. See my last post.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Publicado originalmente por Ramstar:

Your missing the point my friend noone is bashing EA, just a Q. See my last post.

A question that has been answered many times, that you would have found, had you used the search function.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/4031347929697194872/

[[N]ebsun]

Publicado originalmente por C²C^Guyver |NZB|:

Publicado originalmente por Ramstar:

Your missing the point my friend noone is bashing EA, just a Q. See my last post.

A question that has been answered many times, that you would have found, had you used the search function.

The OP was asking how many of us give feedback to the devs during EA... not the same as other threads I have seen..

[ReBoot]

Publicado originalmente por The nameless Commander:

Publicado originalmente por ReBoot:

The latter, I don't understand myself. I know there is a substantial populace of gamers who want the thing they want RIGHT ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NOW, I absolutely can't understand this sentiment and it's OK, their money, their nerves, not mine.

I can't say about others, but sometimes, the game ticks all checkboxes and scratches a very specific itch. And it comes with being able to give feedback which actually matters. Also, as said in a post above, they tend to come in a mostly playable state, not crashing, freezing and bugging out all the time.

Still not quite understandable to me. A game coming in a (mostly) playable state still ist likely to change during the EA phase and the mental effort to follow all those changes is not worth it more often than, as far as I'm concerned. As for scratching that specific itch, it'll still scratch the same itch after 1.0/gold/proper release. I mean, if that works for you, hey, your money, your time. It's just that I still don't understand the advantages of having that itch scratched sooner, than later.