So many Vaporwares / abandoned games in 2024

[pawelex94]

Let's point out something that is disturbing me since quite a while already

Disclaimer 1: Fully understand that making amazing games is a long ass process, it consumes many years for sure but I notice specific pattern and want to vent it out

Disclaimer 2: Aware of doing some potentially false accusions that can trigger many ppl but I can correct and edit this post when necessary to provide more bright insight

Disclaimer 3: Rarely writing anything on Steam forums and this place is pretty big so im not sure if some other topics like this were already made before (couldn't find them myself) so wrote one myself

Disclaimer 4: My concerns are mostly about indie / AA games, don't care much of AAA's which eventually come out (or usually come quicker than should and then need more heavy patches to iron out issues occuring on release day lol)


List of about 30 pretty obvious vaporwares I highly looked forward to play somewhere this year with potential of being top tier indie games:


!st person platformers:

Run die Run again (oldest, saw first trailers 4 years ago)
AV Runner
Momentum Mod (nvm)


Puzzle platformers:

Fractal Space (same as Run die Run again - played this demo almost 4 years ago)
Bionic Bay


Shooters:

Abyssus
Angerfoot nvm its out in 1 month!
Luna Abyss
Iron Meat (nvm)
Tokyo Underground Killer
Prodeus: Elder Veil DLC


Soulslikes:

AI Limit
First Berserker: Khazan
Vindictus: Defying Fate
DeathBound


Metroidvanias / 2D games:

REPLACED
MOADRA
GRIME 2
VELASTER
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Crowsworn
Vapor World: Over The Mind
Altered Alma
Eden Guardian
Somber Echoes
Mendacium
Constance
Bushiden


Simulator:

Flight Attendant Simulator


3D Hack n slash action games:

Phantom Hellcat
Enenra: Daemon Core

Many of them got 2024 date but as we are halfway through 2024 soon I have no doubt most of these won't come out in 2024 or at all

I've noticed in pretty much all of them got lack of communication, news or even player's posts
It's very exhausting and draining to wait out all these promises that takes far too long without a single hint of progress
Some are definitely fake screens / video footage to lure us into this waiting loop and the more we wait the bigger probability of losing interest into specific awaited title and I've already seen this on some mentioned game's forums


The only games I can reasonably trust somehow are Spirit of the Samurai, Shady Knight and Awaken:Astral Blade which all are comming in Q3 2024 and ARTIFICAL comming Q4 but still annoying


Currently I'm waiting for WH 40K: Boltgun DLC and SELACO (Selaco was actually delayed but is finally soon out) and maybe finally something proper on gamepass that I didnt buy before (although Microsoft is heavily failing to deliver something proper since at least half year - last good stuff I played on there was Lies of P and Spirit of North on December 2023....)

To be brutally honest im tired of all this - my hype got killed and I only really look forward to games that are guaranted releases within recent 1-2 months max

Feel free to share your thoughts and maybe add more abandoned games that are likely never comming out or how to deal with all this wait, let's discussion begin!

[Iron Knights]

Practically any game older than 10 years should be Freeware. But you see, Steam makes profit off selling such. Even games 20yo., if the Devs. sold primarily through Steam, they maintain prices high.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/223430/Miner_Wars_2081/
^ Still the worst scum in history

Before Space Engineers was made, the company made this game and promised to apparently not abandon it like 4 other games they had abandoned prior...literally 4 months later they ceased all work on it, stripped the game for parts without telling anyone and went and made Space Engineer

So its good to know that some games are not abandoned, they were just never finished as the company decided stripping them for parts and moving onto something else without any word was the best idea ever. I wish this was the only game that has done this...but its not, there's plenty on Steam that could be said as, abandoned, but their abandoned in most feral way possible

[Start_Running]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iron Knights:

Practically any game older than 10 years should be Freeware. But you see, Steam makes profit off selling such. Even games 20yo., if the Devs. sold primarily through Steam, they maintain prices high.

Why?
I mean when has that ever been the case m8? You built a house 10 years ago... should it be free ater 10 years.

OP. If the oldest examples you have are 4 years, then brace yourself. thats a year shy of reaching the low end of the average time for game development.

The fact that the pages and such are still up should say that the dev/pubs still have the intent. After all they already spent the $100's.

And Just rememvber how long DN4E took. and then remember that Beyond Good and Evil 2 has officially ttaken DN4E's crown on that front


Just chill m8. Enjoy the literal dozens of games that release everymonth. and let those games take whatever time they need.

[wesnef]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iron Knights:

Practically any game older than 10 years should be Freeware. But you see, Steam makes profit off selling such. Even games 20yo., if the Devs. sold primarily through Steam, they maintain prices high.

That's not just a Steam thing. Or even an online thing. Old console games aren't "free" after 10-20 years, either. Nintendo is still happily going after anyone trying to do emulator files of their old stuff. etc, etc, etc.

[Ben Lubar]

Momentum Mod's last update at the time of this post was 20 days ago. That's not an abandoned game. Never heard of the rest of them.

[Walach]

Ursprungligen skrivet av ❤ Sly Succubus ❤:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/223430/Miner_Wars_2081/
^ Still the worst scum in history

Before Space Engineers was made, the company made this game and promised to apparently not abandon it like 4 other games they had abandoned prior...literally 4 months later they ceased all work on it, stripped the game for parts without telling anyone and went and made Space Engineer

So its good to know that some games are not abandoned, they were just never finished as the company decided stripping them for parts and moving onto something else without any word was the best idea ever. I wish this was the only game that has done this...but its not, there's plenty on Steam that could be said as, abandoned, but their abandoned in most feral way possible

Didn't they also make, and abandon, some sort of "medieval siege simulator" game? I have a very vague memory of that. :P

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Walach:

Ursprungligen skrivet av ❤ Sly Succubus ❤:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/223430/Miner_Wars_2081/
^ Still the worst scum in history

Before Space Engineers was made, the company made this game and promised to apparently not abandon it like 4 other games they had abandoned prior...literally 4 months later they ceased all work on it, stripped the game for parts without telling anyone and went and made Space Engineer

So its good to know that some games are not abandoned, they were just never finished as the company decided stripping them for parts and moving onto something else without any word was the best idea ever. I wish this was the only game that has done this...but its not, there's plenty on Steam that could be said as, abandoned, but their abandoned in most feral way possible

Didn't they also make, and abandon, some sort of "medieval siege simulator" game? I have a very vague memory of that. :P

https://store.steampowered.com/app/333950/Medieval_Engineers/?curator_clanid=32984337
Yes, they did that as well, the irony in the community praising Space Engineers is all brought down by the fact that the developers are known abandoners of games, for those that dont know that, thats fine, sadly I bought Miner Wars before they made Space Engineers and as such hold that against the entire studio and refuse to buy their crap.

[pawelex94]

Thanks for so far answers

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ben Lubar:

Momentum Mod's last update at the time of this post was 20 days ago. That's not an abandoned game. Never heard of the rest of them.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Princess Luna:

Iron Meat abandoned? Please try harder next time because last news was may 21

Ah nevermind then, hard to keep a track on everything but cool they are still working on them

on the other hand Portal:Revolution mod been in development for 7 years too and it eventually came out this january

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

OP. If the oldest examples you have are 4 years [...] average time for game development.

True, 4-6 years are the oldest I have and most being entirely silent all this time

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:4328601129274979445:

The fact that the pages and such are still up should say that the dev/pubs still have the intent. After all they already spent the $100's.

Ye that's whole point of this post - it's both loss for players and them
Any trace or at least word from devs would definitely soften this issue or sort of Steam mechanism that prevents 100% fake games that are never comming out (it's hard or impossible to verify that though)

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:4328601129274979445:

Just chill m8. Enjoy the literal dozens of games that release everymonth. and let those games take whatever time they need.

I overreacted a bit indeed, I still look forward for other player's opinions especially from the metroidvania genre as there is most of them on my list and there are some super obvious examples too
perhaps we will find out something valid or interesting in some other further comments too, thanks for tip though again, very helpful

[ReBoot]

Ursprungligen skrivet av pawelex94:

It's very exhausting and draining to wait out all these promises that takes far too long without a single hint of progress

Don't wait, problem solved. There's a virtually endless stream of already-released games on Steam at any given time. Don't wait for unfinished games to finish, play those that are finished.

[Kargor]

Still, while Early Access games being sold and cancelled further down the line is a valid concern, there is also a simple solution: don't buy them until they are done.

These threads are completely pointless, whether it's in 2024, 2023, 2022... It's a you-thing. There's a reason Steam puts a warning on the store pages.

[Callahan420]

Just wanted to weigh in on Crowsworn. It's only been around 2 years since the Kickstarter ended. We get Backer Only updates every 3 months. Next update should be in June (Right around the corner).

They are working on it but are tight lipped sometimes and don't want to spoil the game much even for backers. Hopefully in the next update we will get a bit more info on release date and such but could be unlikely.

Until then I guess I should finish the demo .

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1614330/Crowsworn/

[Crazy Tiger]

Just wishlist the games. You'll get notified when they get their 1.0 release and can then buy them.

[意味のない人生]

Dead Pixels 2 is looking pretty dead after years of no updates. The release date was supposed to be like 2017 or something, but it clearly missed the mark.

[Rin]

EA, Ubisoft and ABK post steam made their games abandonware pretty much yet that is somehow okay. Plenty of them can even null your purchase as was the case when the latter two moved to a new service and even before that when they would delete dormant accounts.

[Ben Lubar]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

OP. If the oldest examples you have are 4 years, then brace yourself. thats a year shy of reaching the low end of the average time for game development.

Alien Swarm (2004 Unreal Tournament mod) -> Alien Swarm (2010 Source Engine remake) = 6 years
Alien Swarm -> Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop (Steam Greenlight) = 7 years
Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop (Steam Greenlight) -> Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop (now) = 7 years

yep