(Proposed) Early Access Game Platform Guidelines

[BlackSpawn]

Suggested Guidelines for Early Access Game platform

1. Timeline:

One Year after launch, the Early Access tag will be changed to "Early Access - Past Year One." At this point, the game will no longer be marketed on the Steam front page nor on the general Early Access page; there will be a dedicated page for this subset of Early Access games.

During the "Early Access - Past Year One" period, the developer is required to maintain an update frequency of at least 3 months in order to keep the Early Access designation.

2 years after launch the Early Access designation expires, the game will have to be made Full Release (if appropriate), recategorized/flagged appropriately or removed from the store.

Exceptions and Extensions: Selected games which have adhered to guidelines may be exempted from 2 year limit; scope, update history and progress since launch will be taken into consideration.

Moreover, developers may appeal to the community/players that have purchased the game for an "EAG Extension". Each customer which owns the game on his Steam account would get a single vote, a simple majority vote would determine the outcome.

2. Abandoned Projects:

A project that has not been updated in 6 months is considered abandoned and may lose its Early Access designation and/or be approriately flagged; it may be removed from the store.

On the Steam store page, there will be a button to: "Report Abandoned Game" with a free-text comments section to expand upon the reason; several reasons should also be selectable on a pre-set selection of common scenarios.

3. Build Rollback and Changelog:

The game would automatically attempt an update to the latest Build. However. every published Build of the game should remain selectable to be played by the customer, if they were to so choose. (Steam Library - Right click on Title - Properties - Betas/Builds).

Older Builds would not need developer support and would be provided as is; only the latest Build would be considered the "active" Build in development.

A link to the "Build Changelog" will be made available on the Steam Store page, so that potential customers can have insight into the number, frequency and quality/content of game updates.

4. Monetization Plans:

No additional monetization should be instituted during the pre-release/Early Access period; exceptions may be made on a case by case basis, for example, Free To Play games.

Plans for base game price during and after Early Access and any additional plans for monetization, if applicable, are to be described at Early Access launch. If stated monetization plans were to change at any time, customers are entitled to a refund, if they were to desire one.

5.Developer Commitment:

Steam may Charge an Early Access Submission Fee per title per Developer

Developer can have a SINGLE Early Access Game on Steam concurrently
No NEW GAMES can be placed on Steam by a developer that has a title on Early Access

Valve already tells devs NOT TO USE Early Access as a means to fund their title, they could certainly use different means to verify that titles introduced into EAG are funded in SOME capacity and limit day one scams in such a manner

Use personal/corporate identifiable information in order to curb the creation and abuse of sock-puppet companies and duplicitous use/abuse of the system by the same group/developer/publisher/individual under the guise of a different Steam profile/name/company.

Malicious individuals should be disallowed from submitting additional titles into Early Access and/or Greenlight (There should be an actual permanent identifier rather than faceless accounts)

6. Refunds:

If an Early Access title loses its Early Access designation due to the 2 year expiration period, failure to update at least every 3 months during the "Early Access - Past Year One" period or failure to update at least every 6 months at any time; customers are entitled to a refund, if they were to desire one.

[BlackSpawn]

Thank you for your comments.

"Early Access - Year One" came out of the data from both articles.
My aim was to use the average length in development that Early Access games take from launch to Full Release; and utilize that as the "goal."
However, one of the articles described a time from launch to release of 6 months, whereas the other an average time to release of 14 months.

As they didn't provide the data they used to make those calculations, I couldn't ascertain if the data sets had an overlap or even calculate a true average myself.
Hence, I just chose a "reasonable" number between the 2 averages that favored the lenghtier development time.

I do think more people should be educated about Early Access.
I am not sure as to how to spread the word about this, honestly.
I've been relatively busy lately to do it singlehandedly, please feel free to tell your friends and people that may be interested.

[Mooseknuckle [1upZ]]

I would asume "Year One" would be it's first year of development. After the first year (intial release and update) wouldn't "Year Two" be more applicable? IMHO, "Year One" would be the year of initial launch. Just my thoughts. I am onboard with everything mentioned. Just a minor language dispute, nothing major.

[BlackSpawn]

Interesting.

I termed it as such, since I wanted to emphasize the fact that the game has been on Early Access for at least a year....rather than referring to the actual year count.

And IMHO that should be the goal for Full Release....whereas 2 years should IMHO be the maximum for a title to remain on the program.

Of course, certain genres or titles that have proven themselves or have expanded their premise may be exempted from these "limits."

But yeah, the terminology is not that important; although I do like it to be literally descriptive, in order for it to be explicit and transparent in its message.

Maybe it should be "Early Access - One Year Plus"?
Can you think of a better term?

[Mooseknuckle [1upZ]]

That would imply over a year of early access. I could live with that and I personally think it is a more accurate description of how long it has been in early access. I agree, 2 years is a long time for early access. Curious though, how long was Don't Starve in early access. It's now a full release. I am just curious.

[BlackSpawn]

Updated the Guidelines: changed the terminology from "Early Access - Year One" to "Early Access - Past Year One."
Thanks for the recommendation.

As for "Don't Starve", after a quick search It doesn't appear that the base game was launched into Early Access, instead, some of the DLC and the Multiplayer "Dont Starve Together" portion were.

EDIT: Changed terminology from "Early Access - One Year Plus" to "Early Access - Past Year One." The "plus" had a positive ring to it that I didn't like. XD

[Mooseknuckle [1upZ]]

Wasn't sure. Thanks for the info.

[76561198034396398]

games that start out with a certain style then change halfway though,i don't know if you could include that,i've been burned 4 times with EA so no more for me,like most things started out as a good idea then went offtrack

[Mooseknuckle [1upZ]]

I stay away from EA myself. However, the actual EA game that I bought was from a reputable company that has decided to make some not so wise choices. I thought "I have a lot of this company catalog. It will be safe". I was proven wrong.

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

I have a pretty good idea of why I was invited, and it's that same reason that puts a hole in the proposed rules.

This particular game was officially in Early Access for slightly less than one year (2/3-1/19). Of course it released in more or less the same state as it entered, it just looks a little shinier and even now they're releasing major patches in what is basically Early Access, while further delaying other Kickstarter promises that should have been in at release and indeed, delays have been the name of the game. Just they hurried out a half done patch full of crash bugs instead of fixing the game before releasing it.

By the proposed metrics, a game like this would not be registered as a scam, even though it absolutely is.

[BlackSpawn]

Originally posted by Evil Doctor Porkchop:

games that start out with a certain style then change halfway though,i don't know if you could include that,i've been burned 4 times with EA so no more for me,like most things started out as a good idea then went offtrack

That is a tough one; as they are free to change the direction for pure artistic Freedom.
At least the "Build Rollback" assures that you can play the version you bought/enjoyed.
The goal is not to limit artistic expression/creativity; just to encourage devs to fulfill their part.
Its difficult to fit your cases into the guidelines w/o specifics.
What do you propose?

PS. If you would like to discuss a specific case in question at more length, i invite you to create a new thread.

[BlackSpawn]

Originally posted by Celerity, Executor of Impunity:

I have a pretty good idea of why I was invited, and it's that same reason that puts a hole in the proposed rules.

This particular game was officially in Early Access for slightly less than one year (2/3-1/19). Of course it released in more or less the same state as it entered, it just looks a little shinier and even now they're releasing major patches in what is basically Early Access, while further delaying other Kickstarter promises that should have been in at release and indeed, delays have been the name of the game. Just they hurried out a half done patch full of crash bugs instead of fixing the game before releasing it.

By the proposed metrics, a game like this would not be registered as a scam, even though it absolutely is.

If you have a particular suggestion that may improve the guidelines, please do.

The goal is not to stifle but to foster the process, while creating a minimum standard.
Sadly, I dont think curating the quality or scope of individual updates is feasible.
But perhaps some sort of content check/reassessment can be performed at the One Year mark.
The Build Rollback feature will enable users to assess the quality and scope of updates quite easily, if they so wished.

If you would like to discuss the specific case in question at more length, i invite you to create a new thread.

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

It's more that by hurrying out shallow, superficial, broken patches you can completely bypass those rules while having the same end effect. Reverting patches helps somewhat, if a patch is really terrible everyone will just skip it, and something more like the Games in Development rules like GoG would do a good job of preventing this particular sort of scam, provided that it was in effect from the beginning.

There's also no mention at all of policing censorship, which is a common problem with the Early Access abuse cases and often goes hand in hand with the lazy/incompetent development. That's often the first tell even.

As for making another thread I'm sure you've seen my 250+ post megathread already. I don't see a point in duplicating it here. A link perhaps, but no point in retreading the same ground.

[BlackSpawn]

These guidelines only refer to the Early Access game and not to forum moderation.
There are already Guidelines for that, including Censorship: https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/moderating_best_practices

These guidelines are just meant to steer and limit scams, but nothing will deter the practice 100%.
It certainly would be a great start at having a decent minimum standard.

The customer should seek to make an educated purchase; and these guidelines would go a great length into allowing transparency into the process and see through murky and shady practices more readily.

I may add a line regarding having a link to the "Build Changelog" available on the Steam store main page.

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

Hm. For clarity here, is this a hypothetical what if such a proposed system were introduced, or are you affailiated with Steam in some way that could actually make this happen.

[BlackSpawn]

Hypothetical.
I am NOT affiliated with Valve or Steam.
If enough individuals believe this is a good idea I may do a change.org petition to bring attention to the issue.