The reality of Early Access is that it is too predominatly predatory. It needs to make way for something else.

[Gurgeh]

The below comes out of a discussion under KSP2, but its scope is derived from and goes far beyond just KSP2

I suggest Early Access is more that what Steam originally intended it to be, but also what the publishers make of it.

And that said I think Early Access always 'preys' on the nature of people to 'hope' and 'dream'.

The practical reality of Early Access is that it is a predatory concept.

Perhaps in the beginning Steam had hopes that it would just be used by devs to sell a very early 'release' of a game, where that game says the roadmap is anything could change very soon, and you should expect bugs.
However, the reality is this concept is something that mostly only a 'developer' truly understands or is familiar with. The idea that guarantees with software never exist, there is instead just a huge spectrum of methods you may apply to mitigate risks that the software you put out does not do what you said it does, or to ameliorate the customer sufficiently with an adequate corrective measure when they inevitably finally discover that it doesn't. (find me a modern piece of software that never had any bugs confirmed, for version 1.0.0.0, except for a dev basically going radio silent.)
Early Access now becomes nothing more than a peculiar singling out of what is just an ordinary day in the life of a developer.
But while non dev consumers can easily grasp this concept while they focus on it, it is still a profoundly alien concept to the consumer who still spends most of their life living in a world of, "I buy the thing, it comes with a guarantee and a warranty, it either works, or it's dead-on-arrival, and if it breaks within warranty then I the buyer have certain entitlements
Early Access: no guarantee, no warranty, no entitlements, but take my money.
Frankly now I clarify it like that, I think EA needs banning, because certainly in my country, a purchase always implies a contract, and a contract must have two sides, give and take, take and give. It is required to to be enforceable.
EA does not ever in reality have this. While the dev does have to promise you what you buy at that moment, they can change it and take it 'all' away from you 'literally' tomorrow (not even at earliest next month), and they only have to guarantee tomorrow's replacement, where they can declare that tomorrow's replacement will be a "0".

Now I fully believe that Steam went into this with genuine intentions that people would understand this Dev concept. But look at this discussion, it's clearly not the case, and I suggest it is an inadequate minority only that 'get' Steams truth for EA. The rest are only staying happy because the majority of EA does go on 'later' to match enough of the promises that consumers deluded themselves with. (There are a lot that don't still aren't there?)
However, this has gone on a long time now and Steam 'definitely' are not so naive as to still hold the same perspective as their original intentions.

Early Access is predatory, and it needs to go. Certainly in terms of it's "branding and marketing"
The purchaser is getting "nothing" that doesn't cease to exist the moment they hit buy. The only way this can exist at that point is with an unlimited refund until release (at which you transition to a guaranteed release product if your not exiting). And THAT has now gone.
The consumer understands "Fund Me", they understand they are investing (risking): it should be replaced with that.

This is now up to Steam more than any publisher or dev to put right. And recent EU laws and outlooks on consumer interest, could soon see Steam being "directed to make adjustments" if surprised (confused) consumers continue to be a an ongoing thing.

However we might scoff at people being surprised, being profoundly cynical is actually all that empowered us to be beware, and that just makes us the slightly tragic ones, I'm sure most of us (except the clowns) agree that all the moaners, are genuinely 'surprised' and feel some entitlement they thought they had, is not being delivered upon.

[Supafly]

引用自 Gurgeh：

引用自 Nx Machina：

The reality is in the description...

@ Nx
Then explain why there is constant loud noise about Early Access. And do please explain. If it doesn't have detail its not an explanation.

Simple because users
1. Glaze of the warning and don't take it in
2. Read it but then buy base their decision to buy on other information
3. Read it but then buy based on how it's planned to be finished while not paying attention to the warning

Here is the start of the warning. I've underlined the important part users that complain constantly ignore.

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

[Supafly]

引用自 Gurgeh：

引用自 Mad Scientist：

Because people wont read big warnings before they do the very thing the warnings tend to warn people of. Then after they do such and have regret, they complain or throw around inapplicable words instead of saying "Gee, maybe I should've read that warning sign, I could've avoided this game rated at an extremely low 9%" - so it's more of people hype buying, ignoring the warning box, ignoring the low rating since launch, and ignoring the continued extremely low rating.

Those that get burned by an EAG have usually failed to do any amount of research before buying. People liked KSP1, so they hype-bought KSP2, which is a huge mistake; never hype buy.

Yes so stop expecting people to start reading. Get in touch reality and finally accept its never going to happen. Replace it with fund me which people understand without having to read the print (no mater how small large or otherwise).
Surely you do not believe people even 'might' one day start doing research.
Also they did, to a degree, and for many thats what did them over. Reading about dev promises exhibitions and third party websights.

Nothing wrong with EA titles, just some of the users that buy them

For a while Gamestop had in their terms that if you agreed to them you gave them the rights to your immortal soul. There was a show years ago were someone would get a businesses to change their usual terms for accessing their free wifi. No one read because they just wanted the free wifi. Some agreed that they'd wash all their own dishes after the meal. Anmother couple agreed to adopt a goat, someone lityerally walked the goat to their table and thanked them for adopting it. Plenty more examples of people NOT reading even the simplest of things and agreeing to stuff they are clueless about.


It's better for the ignorant to learn from this that more complex written texts later in life as consequences then can be soo much worse.

[William Shakesman]

I personally have never had a problem with Early Access, outside of maybe one or two games that I regretted buying for reasons unrelated to EA but this discussion and the several other threads about it I feel highlights the weaknesses of this format. If you're being forced to say "You should have read the terms more carefully" to a significant percentage of the buyers, then the problem isn't with the buyers but with the terms. Profit models that rely on tricking people shouldn't exist, period. "But it's all in the terms" is just meaningless word magic when you have a significant portion of the people who having seen the terms come away with the wrong idea. (And considering the amount of people on this very board who read EULAs wrongly, I think "you should have read the terms" has a hint of comedy coming from this board.)

Most people on this forum are just more interested in taking the users money though, hence they say "You should have read the terms, exercise some personal responsibility" for this but shriek at the very idea of providing advanced features to the users that would require the same level of personal responsibility, so the discussion here is unlikely to be fruitful as they do not approach it in good faith.

That having been said, I don't think EA actually rises to the level of a profit model that needs shutting down. It preys on peoples desire to dream as OP says, but at the same, the structure actually encapsulates that desire to dream very well. If you want big ideas funded early, EA kinda has to work like this, and sensible quantifiable limitations just cannot really apply to this model. It's a tough question and while I'd like to see consumers protected more, there is simply no change I can envision that you could apply to EA that wouldn't severely impact or destroy the "magic" of it.

[Crashed]

Is there proof that KSP2 development has halted, or is it just a bunch of Internet trolls trying to kill it?

[Aachen]

引用自 William Shakesman：

I personally have never had a problem with Early Access, outside of maybe one or two games that I regretted buying for reasons unrelated to EA but this discussion and the several other threads about it I feel highlights the weaknesses of this format. If you're being forced to say "You should have read the terms more carefully" to a significant percentage of the buyers, then the problem isn't with the buyers but with the terms. Profit models that rely on tricking people shouldn't exist, period. "But it's all in the terms" is just meaningless word magic when you have a significant portion of the people who having seen the terms come away with the wrong idea. (And considering the amount of people on this very board who read EULAs wrongly, I think "you should have read the terms" has a hint of comedy coming from this board.) ….

How exactly would you bind someone to some set of terms without use of a licensing agreement; what is your alternative?

Moreover, the invocation of the term “word magic” seems more the sort of …. word magic …. against which you rail.

[William Shakesman]

引用自 Aachen：

引用自 William Shakesman：

I personally have never had a problem with Early Access, outside of maybe one or two games that I regretted buying for reasons unrelated to EA but this discussion and the several other threads about it I feel highlights the weaknesses of this format. If you're being forced to say "You should have read the terms more carefully" to a significant percentage of the buyers, then the problem isn't with the buyers but with the terms. Profit models that rely on tricking people shouldn't exist, period. "But it's all in the terms" is just meaningless word magic when you have a significant portion of the people who having seen the terms come away with the wrong idea. (And considering the amount of people on this very board who read EULAs wrongly, I think "you should have read the terms" has a hint of comedy coming from this board.) ….

How exactly would you bind someone to some set of terms without use of a licensing agreement; what is your alternative?

Licensing agreements as they are currently written are utterly ♥♥♥♥ at binding people to specific terms and are just full of clauses to handle all the edge cases in lawsuits. Almost all EULAs include calvinball clauses of being able to terminate service for any reason. The average user, even on this board of people who are huge fans of them, does not ever actually understand them despite having read them in part because of this awful structure. Communicating to normal humans is simply not their goal.

This too is a complicated issue because lawsuits are an outsized cost on a company and as such licensing agreements must be written with them in mind far more than the actual user. Laws and legal disputes are simply not how normal people think and talk ever. That's why you pay the big bucks to attorneys after all.

The needs of communicating things to users and preventing lawsuits are inherently at odds as a result. Convincing, teaching, and communicating to people is tough. It requires effort and understanding, especially as you add in multiple cultures with multiple different assumptions. Simply saying "It's hard and I half-assed tried so I win" shouldn't be acceptable but the gordian knot of dealing with a legal system hostile and alien to all forms of morality outside of contract morality is definitely a gordian knot I cannot unravel without going well beyond the scope of this forum in solutions.

[Supafly]

引用自 William Shakesman：

I personally have never had a problem with Early Access, outside of maybe one or two games that I regretted buying for reasons unrelated to EA but this discussion and the several other threads about it I feel highlights the weaknesses of this format. If you're being forced to say "You should have read the terms more carefully" to a significant percentage of the buyers, then the problem isn't with the buyers but with the terms.

What a load of rubbish. Thats like saying drink drivers aren't at fault when they get behind the wheel drunk. Sorry officer, not my fault, it's all the wqarnings and the fact I CAN both buy alcohol and drive cars thats at fault.

Or how about the warnings about driving cars bald tyres? Plenty of warnings about that and it's illegal. Can I drive with bald tyres and tell the officer it's not my fault, the laws fault, or the warnings fault but it's the ability to drive with bald tyres despite all that at fault? Hell no. If I drove with 4 bald tyres I'd get 3 points on my licence and upto a £1,000 fine per tyre.

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Not reading, agreeing, understand a legal document does NOT mean it does NOT apply. It also doesn't mean the thing the agreement is for needs changing. If you can't grasp the warning that is the most basic of warnings not buried in the 16th page of a 30 page agreement a person should get someone to clarify what it means.

引用自 William Shakesman：

Licensing agreements as they are currently written are utterly ♥♥♥♥ at binding people to specific terms and are just full of clauses to handle all the edge cases in lawsuits. Almost all EULAs include calvinball clauses of being able to terminate service for any reason. The average user, even on this board of people who are huge fans of them, does not ever actually understand them despite having read them in part because of this awful structure. Communicating to normal humans is simply not their goal.

1 sentence, the first sentence is more than enough to show what a user needs to know. It is not a complex document. It's 14 words
This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further.

[William Shakesman]

引用自 Supafly：

引用自 William Shakesman：

I personally have never had a problem with Early Access, outside of maybe one or two games that I regretted buying for reasons unrelated to EA but this discussion and the several other threads about it I feel highlights the weaknesses of this format. If you're being forced to say "You should have read the terms more carefully" to a significant percentage of the buyers, then the problem isn't with the buyers but with the terms.

What a load of rubbish. Thats like saying drink drivers aren't at fault when they get behind the wheel drunk. Sorry officer, not my fault, it's all the wqarnings and the fact I CAN both buy alcohol and drive cars thats at fault.

Or how about the warnings about driving cars bald tyres? Plenty of warnings about that and it's illegal. Can I drive with bald tyres and tell the officer it's not my fault, the laws fault, or the warnings fault but it's the ability to drive with bald tyres despite all that at fault? Hell no. If I drove with 4 bald tyres I'd get 3 points on my licence and upto a £1,000 fine per tyre.

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Not reading, agreeing, understand a legal document does NOT mean it does NOT apply. It also doesn't mean the thing the agreement is for needs changing. If you can't grasp the warning that is the most basic of warnings not buried in the 16th page of a 30 page agreement a person should get someone to clarify what it means.

引用自 William Shakesman：

Licensing agreements as they are currently written are utterly ♥♥♥♥ at binding people to specific terms and are just full of clauses to handle all the edge cases in lawsuits. Almost all EULAs include calvinball clauses of being able to terminate service for any reason. The average user, even on this board of people who are huge fans of them, does not ever actually understand them despite having read them in part because of this awful structure. Communicating to normal humans is simply not their goal.

1 sentence, the first sentence is more than enough to show what a user needs to know. It is not a complex document. It's 14 words
This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further.

Good thing corporations don't write laws. They write agreements as part of taking peoples money. Equating license agreements with literal laws explains not a small part of the discourse here. Lord knows if you had a news story of dozens of people getting tickets for something nobody knew was a law, absolutely NOBODY would hesitate to judge the police department for engaging in a revenue generation stream. Come off it.

That said I could certainly still go find specific examples of certain European court judges (and while I'm not certain, probably a few American courts) showing leniency to people who cannot understand the laws as proof that even addressing your post as written, that postulate isn't universally held.

Also your example of 14 words proves my point more than anything, because that sentence justifies a developer replacing their entire game with 14 gbs of ascii horse wang pictures. If you say "No it doesn't" then, to borrow a phrase, we're just arguing over the price. If you're trying to communicate expectations, vague calvinball clauses are an utterly ridiculous way to do it.