Should Indie developers be scrutinised more by steam?

[Sannas]

I grabbed this from Wiki, before you flame I know that many deem wiki as a poor source of information however I'm using the content more as a majority considered definition of Early Access.

"Early access, alphafunding, or paid-alpha is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can pay for a game in the early stages of development and obtain access to playable but unfinished versions of the game, while the developer is able to use those funds to continue work on the game. Those that pay to participate typically help to debug game, provide feedback and suggestions, and may have access to special materials upon release of the game. The early access approach is a common way to obtain funding for indie games and may also be used along other funding mechanisms including crowdfunding."

I recently complained about activity by one of the Indie developers on their steam forum as I don't believe they are full filling what is defined as Early Access, I posted supposition along with this which ultimately through their own interpretation of the forum rules decided that was a breach and banned me for a month. That too me isn't an issue as such as I had already stated I was done with trying to communicate on the thread anyway which meant the ban was a little nil and void.

Through this one particular Indie developers blog videos they stated that the content wasn't applicable to the release version of the game, however some things were going to be stripped from the early access content and used in the final game, these things could be assets or other random things no one knows apart from the developer. I don't consider this Early Access as defined above when your not privy to content that will be in Beta or Release of the game. The content was released on steam after a decision had been made to take the game from campaign to sandbox the content released being a campaign version. The content isn't content that will be part of the game you cannot participate in de-bugging as the content isn't something that will be run with. You can provide feedback and suggestions and it appears that a lot of the feedback that is given is developing the game, but then that isn't something that just those that have early access can participate in.

That is a recent issue that I have had, so I'm interested in a non fanboi open discussion as to what you feel is acceptable for early access releases, when is early access just too early, do you have any issues yourself(Without flaming) about how early access is used. Here are some questions to kick the discussion off.

Early access isn't for everyone as being alpha white box, grey box or black box means content can be unplayable or extremely buggy, so I appreciate those responding have a keen interest in early access or have participated in early access.

Should there be a limit as to when early is too early?
Should steam involve themselves a little more to determine if the content is suitable for early access or if it should be pulled because major development changes have been decided making all previous content bar assets null and void?
Do you think you should be able to early access earlier?
Do you consider yourself as an investor of a game that is early access or just privileged to get access as its evolving?
Should content on Steam forums for the game have independent moderators, or do you feel moderation by the Dev's is a good thing?
Should you have a right to complain about content updates or lack of?
Is enough being done by steam to ensure that the Early access system isn't being exploited?
Do you feel the Indie Early Access is running smoothly and nothing is to be gained by these questions?

These are just a few questions that I am hoping will allow a sensible conversation to take place, I fully support Indie developers in their efforts and I applaud them for gaining funding to allow their dreams to come to fruition, but like most things there are those that will exploit systems put in place if there is a dollar, pound, euro or even some gear to be gained.

[Satoru]

Il Palazzo-sama eredeti hozzászólása:

For instance, when Total Biscuit previewed it, Rust could hardly be called a playable game.

That's incorrect. As you can play rust, it's just feature incomplete. Ergo systems dont jive together or such. But its certainly playable as the number of Lets Play videos can attest to.

” Did I mention that most European laws require sold products to be fit to a specific purpose?

Note that 'fit for purpose' clauses are not 'i can make up any random reason for it and claim a refund'. It ahs to be a very specific problem like if the store page says "Runs on a Mac" and it doesn't then its 'not fit for purpose'. "Buggy" is not a criteria by which you can invoke that clause.

That's not even counting the fact that the no-refund policy is 100% legal in the UK and EU. And that those laws ENFORCE the no-refund policy. Refer to section 3 of the SSA for how this applies. The 2nd paragraph outlines, legally how Steam enforces the expiration of the right of refusal from the second the gaem hits your library.

Decisions can be bad (buyer's fault), decision can be rushed (kinda buyer's fault), decisions can be biased.

It's not anyone's job to protect you from your own stupidity. The INTERENT exists to give people instantaneous information about anything. There's almost no excuse for making 'uninformed' decisions unless somehow you can't type the game's name into Google.

For instance, the first tag for Infestation: Survivor Stories is “scam”.

We need a new Law for invoking WarZ as an example to justify anything. Exceptions do not amke the rule.

Not talking about Early Access in particular, but certain games:
— are advertised on the front page, which I consider to be light endorsement by Valve (currently, 5 out of 14 games are in EA)
— get the spotlight for one day in Steam's seasonal sales, which I consider to be hard endorsement by Valve (only Kerbal Space Program [which I didn't buy, if you're wondering] is in EA, if I recall correctly)

This is confirmation bias and simple matter of supply. There are many more independent games and Steam makes it easy to put games on Steam. AAA studios trickle out games and genearlly dump them in the Oct-Dec timeframe. You're seeing more Early Acces simply because they outnumber AAA games due to the way the typical sales cycle works in retail doesn't jive with how Steam works.

— don't mention 3rd party DRM they are using

No one does this and if they do you can report it to Steam. Some mistakes liek FF7 were quikcly rectified on the store page. This is NOT normal.

The huge problem with Early Access is that normal means to gather information don't work with them. There can't be reviews of EA games (as said in the above-mentioned Total Biscuit video) and the new Steam tagging system is unlikely to be pertinent enough either.

That's absolutely absurd. The idae taht ther is no 'information' avaialble is again utterly laughable. Each game has a community hub. Gamers love posting vidoes of gameplay which is liekly even better than a review. Google aggregates information about a game into a single page you can view. "lack of information"? I'm not waiting for my monthly issue of Nintendo Power to find out if I should buy the next Zelda. Is what we're saying is that because there's no 'score' for a game that people are just dumbfounded and cant make their own decisions? Or that becase said score doesnt exist they should not be held culpable for buying something despite the lack of said score?

And again, if there is no information, then users can NOT BUY said game. If they make a purchase in the face of a lack of information (which in an of itself is an absurd notion) then they bear the responsibility of that decision.

Don't buy it if you don't find the infomration you want. It's really that simple.

[Il Palazzo-sama]

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

Il Palazzo-sama eredeti hozzászólása:

For instance, when Total Biscuit previewed it, Rust could hardly be called a playable game.

That's incorrect.

Yes, it's incorrect, I swapped Rust with 7 Days to Die, and Total Biscuit with Jim Sterling due to not watching their respective videos again. (Total Biscuit talked about 7 Days to Die too, but did call the game “very much lacking in features” and not “almost unplayable” like Jim Sterling did)
The post was edited in consequence, sorry for that.

On an unrelated note, 7 Days to Die was praised by Total Biscuit for providing good information on expected features and degree of completion, which he points out as being lacking with most Early Access games. (or sometimes present but pay-walled)

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

That's not even counting the fact that the no-refund policy is 100% legal in the UK and EU. And that those laws ENFORCE the no-refund policy. Refer to section 3 of the SSA for how this applies.

I didn't see that section before, and am acknowledging it. However, I have yet to hear about any European law enforcing dispositions of contractual engagements over dispositions of consumer laws. (or any law for that matters)

Segment 2:20 to 3:15 and 10:45 to 11:15 of Total Biscuit's video evokes this. My opinion, which I think is close to his', is that it is unclear how current (and future) consumer laws would interact with Steam policies, and that Early Access complicates the matters even more.

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

It's not anyone's job to protect you from your own stupidity. The INTERNET exists to give people instantaneous information about anything. There's almost no excuse for making 'uninformed' decisions unless somehow you can't type the game's name into Google.

Segment 16:05 to 17:05 of TB's video.

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

We need a new Law for invoking WarZ as an example to justify anything.

I do agree that WarZ is the laziest example out there, but there are some others.

We've got Day One : Garry's Incident, which is considered three times more dreadful than WarZ if Metacritic's users scores are to be of any relevance.
We've got the green-lit example Guise of the Wolf, which was recently published to slightly better critical acclaim than WarZ.

There is bound to be Kickstarter-fuelled and Early Access released games examples in due time, be they under our scrutiny already or still awaiting to be invented by good-willed but not competent enough teams.

Problem being, when and how will we be able to distinguish the true WarZs from the ones lagging behind the EA pack but still getting love from their parents?
(TB's video evokes this from 3:45 to 4:10, before moving on with the problems of EA games' coverage)
Does Valve help by enforcing certain conditions on game developers, or not?
(discussed in segment 8:10 to 10:45, 11:20 to 12:15 and 17:30 to 18:05 of TB's video)

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

This is confirmation bias and simple matter of supply.

Point acknowledged, but Valve should either filter out EA games from front page, or give users an option to filter them out (like they did with DLCs once they became omnious) if they don't consider this to be endorsement.
Segment 23:05 to 23:30 of TB's video.

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

No one does this and if they do you can report it to Steam. Some mistakes like FF7 were quickly rectified on the store page. This is NOT normal.

I've missed the “report unfaithful product page” button, probably because it doesn't exist, but here are some examples I recall:
Alone in the Dark is reported by both 3rd party and reviewer to use SecuROM
Dead Space 2 mentions using SolidShield on its product page, under Online Disclaimer, but this information is burrowed under unrelated contents and thus hardly accessible, and its recap box doesn't mention SolidShield in the expected 3rd-party DRM field
nail'd is reported by 3rd party to use TAGES
Postal III is reported by 3rd party to ACTControl
Risen does not require the TAGES DRM to function anymore, thus there is no information about DRM on the product page. However, the game is reported by 3rd party to still be shipping with TAGES files, and installing it at launch on the user's computer if the files are not removed manually by the user.
Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends is reported by 3rd party and reviewer to use GFWL (may be used for social features and not as a DRM scheme, tough, but fact remains that the GFWL EULA has to be accepted and it is not stated anywhere)
(primary source[pcgamingwiki.com])

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

That's absolutely absurd. The idea that there is no 'information' available is again utterly laughable. Each game has a community hub. Gamers love posting videos of gameplay which is likely even better than a review.

Discussed in segments 4:10 to 5:40 and 12:50 to 13:30 of TB's video, re-iterated in segment 25:45 to 26:00.

Satoru eredeti hozzászólása:

Don't buy it if you don't find the information you want. It's really that simple.

Take TB's “if you have any doubts whatsoever about an Early Access title” and Jim Sterling's “now with companies at all levels of developing getting freely able to throw up unfinished rubbish, all I can say is: don't trust anyone”, and you get: “Never ever consider buying Early Access games unless they are providing everything you want already, period.”
Witch is the path a lot of people (including myself) on this topic seem to have taken, and does not seem to be Valve's original intent with Early Access since they publish some EA games that are, as Jim Sterling calls them, “Skeletons without any flesh”.

[Start_Running]

Actually the EU is still debating how digital istribution services like Steam fit into the old laws. Steam is less a store and more just a Library. Sort of like how Books work, when you buy a book or magazine, there's pretty much a no refund policy...you can exchange a deffective book for another copy of the same book or mag but you will not get your money back.

A set amount of time to be completed? yeah, you have no idea what programming and game development is like do you? It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard and takes a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long time. A two year dev turn around would be considered fast in a fully funded AAA studio much less an indie studio.

And as for, the Report Unfaithful product... well lets see, there's a whole section on their support page as well as a steam contact button.

AGain it boils down to. ..is the game unplayable... well you're the one who CHOSE to buy it before it was finished. See this all comes back to a simply fact... you chose to buy it. Now if you don't perform due diligence as is your right and responsibility as a consumer; it's your own fault. As was pointed out.. This is the internet, you can get info on just about anything. It's reached the point where a void of information would actually serve as a red flag.

[Sannas]

I appreciate there are strong points of view in regards to this debate, but I ask that you please keep it civil, just because one person has a different point of view than your own doesn't instantly mean that they are too ignorant to understand your point of view or are too dumb to use the Internet or steam. Such statements could earn a rebuttal statement along the lines of 'If you wasn't so narrow minded that a point of view other than your own has some form of merit then maybe wouldn't find yourself at the bottom of the IQ pool'
So a friendly request I don't believe that anyone genuinely believes they are God or that their intelligence surpasses anothers so please keep to respectful points of view.

[unconnected]

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

Actually the EU is still debating how digital istribution services like Steam fit into the old laws. Steam is less a store and more just a Library. Sort of like how Books work, when you buy a book or magazine, there's pretty much a no refund policy...you can exchange a deffective book for another copy of the same book or mag but you will not get your money back.

A set amount of time to be completed? yeah, you have no idea what programming and game development is like do you? It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard and takes a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long time. A two year dev turn around would be considered fast in a fully funded AAA studio much less an indie studio.

And as for, the Report Unfaithful product... well lets see, there's a whole section on their support page as well as a steam contact button.

AGain it boils down to. ..is the game unplayable... well you're the one who CHOSE to buy it before it was finished. See this all comes back to a simply fact... you chose to buy it. Now if you don't perform due diligence as is your right and responsibility as a consumer; it's your own fault. As was pointed out.. This is the internet, you can get info on just about anything. It's reached the point where a void of information would actually serve as a red flag.

Regarding development time, yes it is hard and maybe 2 years is fast for a AAA title. We are talking about indies which are smaller and usually simpler games. If a indie dev needs to take 3 years to make a game he probably bit off more than he could chew. Fez comes to mind with Fish admitting the idea was too grand for a first title. Then redrawing his art assets 3 times.

Buyer's need protection because sharks exist. People who will lie to you, cheat you to get your money. The Early Alpha can be abused and it is not the customers responsibility to check a dev is legit. That should be Steam's job. All we need here is some Steam guarentee where Gabe sends a couple guys to the dev studio, they saw the timeline etc and went ok this is realistic. Call it Steam approved and then people will be less likely to complain.

[Satoru]

Il Palazzo-sama eredeti hozzászólása:

I didn't see that section before, and am acknowledging it. However, I have yet to hear about any European law enforcing dispositions of contractual engagements over dispositions of consumer laws. (or any law for that matters)

There's no EU law preventing 'incomplete' games from being released. Unless there is something on the store page that is not in the game then no laws are being broken. The only legal obligation Steam or the developer has is to give you what is indicated on the store page in whatever capacity that is. Unless there is something on that page that is not implemented in some kind of rudimentary fashion in the game, then both the developer and Steam are not legally responsible.

Segment 16:05 to 17:05 of TB's video.

Note I kinda wish you'd actually articulate the position rather than making me watch the video. It's somewhat annoying.

However I don't see what the relevant problem is. Again INFORMATION exist. It's early access, that doesn't change the fact that you can google a game and come up with hits. People can still make the reasonable decision of "I will wait till release". That's it. That section doesn't really change that dynamic at all. It's simply fear mongering of devs 'might' do something. But that's not relevant to the fact that information exists on what the game is, how it works, how it plays, etc in the current state of the game.

We've got Day One : Garry's Incident, which is considered three times more dreadful than WarZ if Metacritic's users scores are to be of any relevance.

That's an entirely separate issue concerning astrotufring, youtube monetization policies, that has nothing really to do with the issue around Early Access.

We've got the green-lit example Guise of the Wolf, which was recently published to slightly better critical acclaim than WarZ.

"Bad Games" are not and have never been 'illegal'. If you think they were the first company to invent and distribute a horrible game you'd be wrong. Not to mention that game wasn't even Early Access so isn't even relevant within this context. No one has a monopoly on making terrible games.

There is bound to be Kickstarter-fuelled and Early Access released games examples in due time, be they under our scrutiny already or still awaiting to be invented by good-willed but not competent enough teams.

Kickstarter has FAR more risk than Early Access. Early Access at least has to give you a playable game out of the gate. Kickstarter doesn't even have that.

Problem being, when and how will we be able to distinguish the true WarZs from the ones lagging behind the EA pack but still getting love from their parents?

There's no different than when you pre-order the game. You assume the various risks of doing a pre-order any more than when you participate in Early Access. Nothing is different. If you do not want to assume said risks, don't preorder and dont' buy Early Access. It's that simple.

Does Valve help by enforcing certain conditions on game developers, or not?

Valve will address egregious issues like those with WarZ (which again is a total edge case scenario). Again by and large game developers are not trying to 'run away with your money'. Valve doesn't need to babysit them because they default assumption is that they're going to finish the game in some capacity. Since only one edge case has ever even come up with Early Access there certainly is no need to suddenly start rounding up devs and beating them into submission with rules.

The assumption is that people releasing games on Steam are not out to steal your money, but are honest people trying to make something entertaining. They're not treating developers like thieves and crooks, because 99.999% of them aren't.

Point acknowledged, but Valve should either filter out EA games from front page, or give users an option to filter them out (like they did with DLCs once they became omnious) if they don't consider this to be endorsement.

THe DLC filter was implemented to solve a usabilty problem. Beacuse if a game came out with 1000 pieces of day-0 DLC it basically took over the entire "New Releases" section. If you as a small dev had the misfortune of launching next to another game with a billion DLC your game would fall to 100th place on the list. This lack of visibilty in an important part of the store was why the DLC checkbox was created. So that all devs who get new releases are equally represented in that section.

A filter for Early Access isn't necessary as it doesn't fall under the same usability problems as the DLC did.

I've missed the “report unfaithful product page” button, probably because it doesn't exist, but here are some examples I recall:

If you can verify issues with any particular game submit a ticket to Support. Generally these are rectified if enough people report it.

Take TB's “if you have any doubts whatsoever about an Early Access title” and Jim Sterling's “now with companies at all levels of developing getting freely able to throw up unfinished rubbish, all I can say is: don't trust anyone”, and you get: “Never ever consider buying Early Access games unless they are providing everything you want already, period.”
Witch is the path a lot of people (including myself) on this topic seem to have taken, and does not seem to be Valve's original intent with Early Access since they publish some EA games that are, as Jim Sterling calls them, “Skeletons without any flesh”.

I think people seem to be taking TB's video about 'You might want to think twice about Early Access' and turning that into 'we need to get rid of it outright'. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "Look there are a lot of risks with Early Access, do you REALLY want to get in on this" the reality is most people SHOULD NOT. And that's ok. But that's a far cry from "Lets dump early access all together" which is how 99% of the people are showcasing that video for.

TB had a bit more 'reasonable' thing to say about Early Access, indicating probable risks with Early Access and that people should understand wha those risks are. His main thesis was mostly that "you need to know what the heck you're getting into with Early Access". Which is basically no different than again, ensuring that YOU as the consumer are responsible in the end.

User choice is still in play. Information is available to users. You can make an informed choice about whether the risk/reward for Early Access is a viable choice. I'm ambivalent to the concept that we need to coddle people because they are making poor choices, despite access to all the information.

[=Snappy=]

pfft they should be policing the non-"indie" developers, if anything! police their own damn selves for that matter :P