Stats on Early Access: Success/Fail rate

[General Zod]

I am very interested in the following stats

1. % of greenlight games which fail/succeed (this could be tricky since some devs just say..oi were done)

2. average capital raised per game

3. average development cycle

4. Total capital invested in projects that outright failed (Meaning they were delisted from steam or developers admit they ran out of money and went 1.0.)

It is my opinion, that Steam has a responsibility to furnish its clients with such data so they might be able to make an informed choice when purchasing early access.

Lastly, I will add that my own experience has been mixed with solid finished games and rushed to 1.0 bugware. I recognize it is a buyer beware situation, but at some point the chickens will come home to roost.

A statistical record would bring to light some concerns about increasingly customer satisfaction or disappointments resulting from double talk, revisions to goals, mis management of funds. Again, this is just me, but I am not likely to buy early access titles unless there is a little more transparency.

Steam would likely be a material witness or worse if some money hungry lawyer feels there is a class action suit to be made. That said, gamers can be a ones worst enemy if they feel they have been cheated. Steam may want to consider volunteering some statistical information at least to dispell any allegations of complicity.

IF such stats are available, here or elseware, please pardon my ignorance.

edited for mispell (some words may still be mispelled)

[supertrooper225]

It isn't your business to know the financial details of a developers earnings. If a dev wants you to know something...they can tell you. That is their choice. As far as failures vs successes...that is totally subjective isn't it? Or do you mean financially? In that case, what does it matter to the consumer? There are reviews on every game page for informed consumer decisions.

Game development cycles rarely stay within the initial time frame conceived by developers. That is extremely rare...so that stat wouldn't mean much at all.

We already have tools consumers can use to make informed decisions. They don't need this data. It has nothing to do with whether or not a game is fun and worth buying. These tools are called reviews.

[Strygald]

If you're worried about early access then you should probably not bother buying early access titles.

For myself, I rarely buy any early access now.. usually only when they are very near to completion and have glowing reviews/feedback.

I already have/had some interesting early access titles on my wishlist that either accumulated a horrendous amount of negative reviews/feedback or just delisted from Steam altogether..

Just to reiterate, if you have doubts about early access then just don't bother to spend any money on early access games.

[General Zod]

I am speaking about aggregate losses. Not individual earnings or details pertaining to donut and redull consuption. Come on man - You do know what an average is?

引用自 supertrooper225：

It isn't your business to know the financial details of a developers earnings. If a dev wants you to know something...they can tell you. That is their choice. As far as failures vs successes...that is totally subjective isn't it? Or do you mean financially? In that case, what does it matter to the consumer? There are reviews on every game page for informed consumer decisions.

Game development cycles rarely stay within the initial time frame conceived by developers. That is extremely rare...so that stat wouldn't mean much at all.

We already have tools consumers can use to make informed decisions. They don't need this data. It has nothing to do with whether or not a game is fun and worth buying. These tools are called reviews.

You sound upset...perhaps your cash cow model of cloning shovelware and intentionally failing after 4 months of willful neglect, only to restart the process again is threatened.

Also, if I am a backer then it is my business to know how many times a dev or individual has failed in the past - remember The War Z.

Reviews are opinions, and therefore limited in usefulness. I would like to see actaul statistics. Sorry if your are offended by math.

Certain laws are already in place because boundries are being pushed and unethical precedents are running amok. I dont want to ban early access, but the herd needs culing. How many devs or actual gamers or even respect the genre? Here are a few things to think about. Every indy dev will tell you about the evils of big software....but how many of these guys are simply unemployable or incompetent?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/11/study-most-steam-early-access-games-have-yet-to-see-full-release/

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/05/02/state-of-washington-sues-deadbeat-kickstarter-manager.aspx

http://kotaku.com/controversial-game-highlights-flaws-in-steams-system-1565768119

I could go on,,,but it may not be necessary, as your contribution here is at best inflamatory and you do not seem to grasp what is at stake. True, that my opinions will be unpopular, but at least i know they are not for personal gain. How long will it be until Steam has as much shovelware as other appstores?

[Zefar]

Games might need some years before they are done. So any lists that tries to compare on how many have been released vs how many that hasn't doesn't take in all the new ones that come in. Because those might need some years but they are still counted in into the total list.

Maybe some people need even more years. It's not uncommon for that to happen.

If Early Access bothers you so much don't buy it until it's done because all I see now is someone desperately wanting to buy the games but can't wait.

[General Zod]

引用自 cloven0angel：

If you're worried about early access then you should probably not bother buying early access titles.

For myself, I rarely buy any early access now.. usually only when they are very near to completion and have glowing reviews/feedback.

I already have/had some interesting early access titles on my wishlist that either accumulated a horrendous amount of negative reviews/feedback or just delisted from Steam altogether..

Just to reiterate, if you have doubts about early access then just don't bother to spend any money on early access games.

Hi Cloven,

Thank you for your thoughts. They would be well heeded if this was simply about me. I am concerned about the community and the genre. I have seen the greedy merchandisers trample over girls and children at Comic Con and E3 so they could push there way through to grinchingly grab up promotions to sell on E-Bay. This behaviour has degraded the experience of the true fan, which will then be ripped of by the same entreprenuers that trampled them. In a sense, this is now happening here...while the means are different the result is the same - degradation and fraud.

If it is not fixed...it will get ugly and then the lawyers will make it worse.

[HLCinSC]

To be fair, War z was not an EAG and Steam took action against it. Also, the EAG completion rate should be judged on games that were released around 1.5-2 years ago as games take a lot of time to make and more EAG come out every month further skewing the compketion rate. That or they should be judged based on an estimated completion time given at launch, but even then there will be delays. Think of how much big budget/resource AAA games get delayed. I'm sure most people would rather a delay than having release build 1.0 slapped on a build to meet some time frame requirement.

You can always see games a dev or pub has released on steam, but outside of that tracking them becomes difficult. Say Dev X makes a spectacular EAG failure. They then decide to disolve their dev studio and create a new one with the same people but different name and put a different or new employee's name as the head/owner so no one is any the wiser.

The EAG system does need to be reformed a bit, but it's already proven popular with both customers and devs as consumers have seen the systems highs (games like Kerbal Space Program) and lows (The Stomping Land)over the past 2 years andcontinue to throw large amounts of money into these projects despite the potential pitfalls and clear warnings which of course then in turn encourages more developers to utilize the system.

[General Zod]

引用自 Zefar：

Games might need some years before they are done. So any lists that tries to compare on how many have been released vs how many that hasn't doesn't take in all the new ones that come in. Because those might need some years but they are still counted in into the total list.

Maybe some people need even more years. It's not uncommon for that to happen.

If Early Access bothers you so much don't buy it until it's done because all I see now is someone desperately wanting to buy the games but can't wait.

Hi Zefar,

All good points. Early Access does not bother me, it is the lack of accountability and precedents that are being established. Young or naive and optomistic consumers fail to understand the economic dynamics of a solvent business model. A few info charts could be beneficial to all. Again, if we dont police this ourselves the lawyers under the employ of angry parents will. Anyone can write a review, but numbers do not lie.

Steam can provide certain stats without opinion, and in doing so could remain neutral. Otherwise, it seems they are inclined only to act ethically when pressured.. In other words, if the house is burning, they will only put out the fire if Kotaku or some other news source breaks the story. I do not really believe they are complicit, but a bet someone else could make a case.

[General Zod]

引用自 CharlestONE：

To be fair, War z was not an EAG and Steam took action against it. Also, the EAG completion rate should be judged on games that were released around 1.5-2 years ago as games take a lot of time to make and more EAG come out every month further skewing the compketion rate. That or they should be judged based on an estimated completion time given at launch, but even then there will be delays. Think of how much big budget/resource AAA games get delayed. I'm sure most people would rather a delay than having release build 1.0 slapped on a build to meet some time frame requirement.

You can always see games a dev or pub has released on steam, but outside of that tracking them becomes difficult. Say Dev X makes a spectacular EAG failure. They then decide to disolve their dev studio and create a new one with the same people but different name and put a different or new employee's name as the head/owner so no one is any the wiser.

The EAG system does need to be reformed a bit, but it's already proven popular with both customers and devs as consumers have seen the systems highs and lows over the past 2 years andcontinue to throw large amounts of money into these projects despite the potential pitfalls and clear warnings which of course then in turn encourages more developers to utilize the system.

Hi CharlestonOne,

You are indeed correct about the War Z and while its not quite apples to oranges, your objection stands and I respect the correction.

I need to be clear about why development cycle is important. I am by no means trying to enforce deadlines.

A data value such as average development cyle is needed for speculation on wether or not a project will be able to raise enough funds to complete its cycle. This is one of many formulas that would be used. I would also stress the importance of outlier data. Further, there should be a collaboration between the Devs, Steam and the Community as to what information is available. This could make the market and genre stronger, and self policing would actaully be effective.

[supertrooper225]

引用自 General Bacardi：

I am speaking about aggregate losses. Not individual earnings or details pertaining to donut and redull consuption. Come on man - You do know what an average is?

引用自 supertrooper225：

It isn't your business to know the financial details of a developers earnings. If a dev wants you to know something...they can tell you. That is their choice. As far as failures vs successes...that is totally subjective isn't it? Or do you mean financially? In that case, what does it matter to the consumer? There are reviews on every game page for informed consumer decisions.

Game development cycles rarely stay within the initial time frame conceived by developers. That is extremely rare...so that stat wouldn't mean much at all.

We already have tools consumers can use to make informed decisions. They don't need this data. It has nothing to do with whether or not a game is fun and worth buying. These tools are called reviews.

You sound upset...perhaps your cash cow model of cloning shovelware and intentionally failing after 4 months of willful neglect, only to restart the process again is threatened.

Also, if I am a backer then it is my business to know how many times a dev or individual has failed in the past - remember The War Z.

Reviews are opinions, and therefore limited in usefulness. I would like to see actaul statistics. Sorry if your are offended by math.

Certain laws are already in place because boundries are being pushed and unethical precedents are running amok. I dont want to ban early access, but the herd needs culing. How many devs or actual gamers or even respect the genre? Here are a few things to think about. Every indy dev will tell you about the evils of big software....but how many of these guys are simply unemployable or incompetent?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/11/study-most-steam-early-access-games-have-yet-to-see-full-release/

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/05/02/state-of-washington-sues-deadbeat-kickstarter-manager.aspx

http://kotaku.com/controversial-game-highlights-flaws-in-steams-system-1565768119

I could go on,,,but it may not be necessary, as your contribution here is at best inflamatory and you do not seem to grasp what is at stake. True, that my opinions will be unpopular, but at least i know they are not for personal gain. How long will it be until Steam has as much shovelware as other appstores?

OK, I wasn't upset. Nor was I inflammatory. I have just seen your argument a million times and it has gotten old. Sorry. Now, this is not MY system. Your points are mainly based in assumption and the demand for financial information that is not really your business. Steam will sell what it wants. Our job is to pick what we want. Not decide what everyone gets to play or how developers do their jobs. Gaming development just doesn't have a rigid schedule or rule set for you to create an average...games are totally different and require totally different development periods. There are too many variables for all this.

Your solution has been in plain sight the entire time and is a rule you should already be following. Do research and make careful decisions about what you buy. If early access puts you off...don't participate.

[cinedine]

I agree that it is your business to investigate who you are planning to give money to. But Steam is not an investmen broker, so it's not their business to provide you that data.

Early Access is a broad field. Far too broad to compare each title to one another. We have experienced studios as well as start ups. We have seen games ranging from 'pre-alpha' to 'just for balancing' or even 'already released but in beta for a new feature'.
And just like Kickstarter a few years ago, Early Access is still in a "Gold Rush" phase. It will die down soon and normalize. But for this too happen we NEED those failed projects. We need all those zombie-survivial-mmo-sandbox-crafting games which will get stuck in development limbo or being ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out. Because this is the only way to teach consumers awareness.
People have donated tens of thousands of dollar for some projects on Kickstarter which have never seen the light of day. And now only big names and great concepts will even reach their funding goals.

The only thing wrong with Early Access is people's expectations.

[WhiteKnight77]

That someone is using articles about a program that was barely a year and a half old at the time they were written shows that even the writers were reaching and they are someone who should know very well that development of video games take more than 2 years shows that even now that the program is 2.25 years old, still reach for the so many incomplete or unfinished games argument.

The possible failure rate is barely 1% if one takes a look at the program from the start. Many games have gone on to a final release compared to the number that were kicked off or moved to a final release due to not getting enough funds.

That more games have been successfully completed and gone on to be a final release compared to what has failed shows that the program is working.

[General Zod]

引用自 WhiteKnight77：

The possible failure rate is barely 1% if one takes a look at the program from the start. Many games have gone on to a final release compared to the number that were kicked off or moved to a final release due to not getting enough funds.

That more games have been successfully completed and gone on to be a final release compared to what has failed shows that the program is working.

L O L
Please source this


actually forget it, most people dont understand what the big picture is so I am done. gonna go play some games

peace

[WhiteKnight77]

引用自 General Bacardi：

引用自 WhiteKnight77：

The possible failure rate is barely 1% if one takes a look at the program from the start. Many games have gone on to a final release compared to the number that were kicked off or moved to a final release due to not getting enough funds.

That more games have been successfully completed and gone on to be a final release compared to what has failed shows that the program is working.

L O L
Please source this


actually forget it, most people dont understand what the big picture is so I am done. gonna go play some games

peace

Granted, this article is a almost 8 months old, but as can be seen, yes, more games have been finished than many people think.

Early Access popularity growing, but only 25% have released as a full game[www.gamesindustry.biz] but the article does fail to take into account that games take more than a year and a half to create (which is how long the program had been in effect at the time of the article was written.

Still, even at that time, 0 or 1 game had been kicked off the program or been released as a 1.0 release without full funding and there were ~250 games using the program at that time.