Was the spirit of EA Violated? Or not

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I posted this in a couple threads before someone suggested I Start one.

In the past, a couple threads were moved into more obscure areas bc they threads did not openly discuss KSP2.

So I had a thought.. do you feel KSP2 violated the spirit of Early Access?

Did they make false claims at all?

Did they honor their own commitment to the EA standard as described by the words posted on steam store page?

There have been too many amazing titles produced through EA to dismiss it. But I feel that others may use it to recoup developement costs before it is ready.

Some developers treat EA as the same as 1.0 & maintain radio silence. 

I ask those of you who wish to challenge the current paradigm to please sign this petition to encourage an option to initiate Valve Review.

There should be some way the community has to ensure that those they placed their trust in.. do not blatantly abuse the trust.

I understand things happen, studios die, games do too...the nature of things. This petition is not to address games that fail.. or have subjectively terrible gameplay.

This is all about trying to establish some form of accountability when there is a perceived violation of EA tenets.

 

I have my personal feeling and think communication was NEVER genuine after the dev blog on heat effects.

 

https://www.change.org/p/steam-early-access-reform-advocating-more-oversight-accountability

 

I want to hear from you both ways. Do you feel like IG did its parts or not?

Edited May 6 by Fizzlebop Smith

[dave1904]

26 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

I want to hear from you both ways. Do you feel like IG did its parts or not?

Obviously not. Didn't you hear? They were all fired. 

[The Aziz]

35 minutes ago, dave1904 said:

Obviously not. Didn't you hear? They were all fired. 

Got a source on that?

[Fizzlebop Smith]

That has to do with internal politics regarding the parent / publisher / developer.

I am talking about whether people feel Intercept Games approached Early Access in the spirit it was intended : primarily two way communication between community / developers.

I feel it was handled as a big title launch, not ground up EA.

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

This was EA only by name.

I just posted in another thread about this very thing and why I say this wasn't your typical EA.

[jaxmed]

EA in name only.

Even before the layoffs there was seemingly nonstop drama and complaining about the (lack of) communication. It was cyclical. Poor communication and incredibly opaque about what was actually being worked on or what would be released when, people start complaining, CMs come on and apologize about it and promise to do better, we get a few weeks of KERB updates or maybe a video or two, things quiet down again, people start complaining again... How many times did that cycle occur?

What we were told going into EA: "we want to get feedback from you, the community!"

What we got: near radio silence, maybe the occasional breadcrumb in the form of a video clip of some particle effects or a new planet or a bug status blog, more radio silence, then an update dropped, then more silence.

Point is, they tried to pass off the EA release as some sort of way to have the community be closely involved with the development of the game, but they never actually acted that way. The game continued to be worked on behind closed doors and it felt like the community asking for updates and the chance to provide feedback was an annoyance that they only begrudgingly paid lip service too.

The EA launch was 100% "our time is up and we're forced to start selling this to try and recoup some costs in order to keep the lights while we keep chugging away on because the game is totally behind schedule", rather than this mythical "oh we just can't wait to get it into player hands and hear your feedback and use it to shape future development" that they tried to pass off.

[NexusHelium]

28 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

am talking about whether people feel Intercept Games approached Early Access in the spirit it was intended : primarily two way communication between community / developers

I think the idea of it was much different to most early access but a LOT of fundamental concepts were the same. I would say it was closer to a true early access game than most people will think or say, but I think it wasn't executed the best on either side, from both the developers and the community.

Everyone made their mistakes, and everyone started to get better before.... the news, but I won't go into that here (and neither should anybody else ).

There's at least 10 different topics on THAT matter lol.

Edited May 6 by NexusHelium

[dave1904]

57 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Got a source on that?

Launch KSP2 and play it....

[moeggz]

EA in name only. The only feedback was on bugs, and even then it took forever for wobbly rockets to be taken seriously and still no change to font, parts manager, or serious consideration towards com net occlusion. 
 

They had their plan and wanted to see it through, which is fine. Just very misleading to say they wanted feedback when they never did. The plan was mostly set in stone. 
 

The trouble this game was in should’ve been apparent from the first time the game went on sale. Yes EA games go on sale, but not before they’ve actually added anything (in my experience) and not when their website has the wonderful FOMO inducing statement “Yes, KSP 2 will sell for $49.99 (SRP) during Early Access, and we expect that the price will be raised at 1.0 release.” The EA of this game was only to raise funds, as they never really wanted to EA it was not handled as an EA in any appreciable way, outside of the “don’t judge us for bugs or for its unfinished state” and the slightly reduced price. 
 

Look at the recent reviews. While some are claiming it’s unjustified, even the positive ones straight up say they wouldn’t recommend the game, below the “ recommended” title steam gives their review. They got away with their score for so long with people reviewing based on future predictions. Now that those are in doubt and the game is being reviewed as is, a prettier but buggier edition than the first game with numerous missing features, is is apparent just how much they abused the EA system. They sold on hype, contrary to the EA model, and people bought on that hype. 

Edited May 6 by moeggz
Spelling/grammar

[Scarecrow71]

45 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

I am talking about whether people feel Intercept Games approached Early Access in the spirit it was intended

That's a hard question to answer, and it really depends upon the interpretation of the Early Access model, especially as it relates to Steam's/Valve's terms.  Going strictly at face value, taking the terms of EA and comparing them to what has happened, I say that TT/PD/IG did not release this in the spirit that EA intends.  And I'll break this down by going through multiple sections of the terms.  For anyone who doesn't already know, Steam's EA Terms are right here:

Early Access (Steamworks Documentation) (steamgames.com)

Quote

What Is Early Access?
Steam Early Access enables you to sell your game on Steam while it is still being developed, and provides context to customers that a product should be considered "unfinished." Early Access is a place for games that are in a playable alpha or beta state, are worth the current value of the playable build, and that you plan to continue to develop for release.

Releasing a game in Early Access helps set context for prospective customers and provides them with information about your plans and goals before a "final" release.

The game, upon release, was most certainly alpha state at best.  It was not, however, entirely playable unless you had the best hardware AND got really lucky with the bugs.  Myself, I never saw the bug where the KSC followed you into space, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist.  A lot of people found the game to be crude and raw, in a vastly unplayable state.  Add to this that it really wasn't worth the current value placed upon it ($50 USD), and I don't think that the company even met the very first paragraph of the terms.

Quote

What Early Access Is Not
Early Access is not a way to crowdfund development of your product.
You should not use Early Access solely to fund development. If you are counting on selling a specific number of units to complete your game, then you need to think carefully about what it would mean for you or your team if you don't sell that many units. Are you willing to continue developing the game without any sales? Are you willing to seek other forms of investment?

This part of the terms is really sticky.  A lot of people have opined, both before the announcement of the layoffs as well as after, that the company used EA to fund the project.  This includes initial sales, the sale that happened a few months into EA, and then all the sales that were generated from the release of For Science.  And while we cannot prove whether it was or not, if it did happen, that's a clear violation of the terms here.  You simply cannot sell a game in alpha/beta/early access simply to find the continued development of the game.  At least not according to Steam/Valve.  Not saying it doesn't happen, but rather that it shouldn't.  And if it did, they violated the terms.

These are the first couple of paragraphs of the terms; we haven't even gotten into the actual rules yet.  And things already look bad.  But, let's look at several of the rules here.

Quote

2. Do not make specific promises about future events. For example, there is no way you can know exactly when the game will be finished, that the game will be finished, or that planned future additions will definitely happen. Do not ask your customers to bet on the future of your game. Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized.

This is the big one right here.  We were told multiple times by multiple people that the game was fully funded, development would continue through 1.0, and hey, here's the roadmap of expected features.  Everything we've been told for the last 15ish months is literally in violation of rule 2 here.

Quote

5. Make sure you set expectations properly everywhere you talk about your game. Be transparent with your community. For example, if you know your updates during Early Access will break save files, make sure you tell players up front. And say this everywhere you sell your Steam keys.

The expectation was that the company would be transparent with the community, and that we would be involved in helping steer the direction of the game.  What we got was mostly radio silence, with some corp-speak-lip-service when we did get communications.  Goal posts continuously moved in regards to what communication we'd get and when, and even the content of communication changed (I'm looking right at the removal of items from KERB reports due to them "clogging up the report when nothing has changed").  We were consistently left in the dark, much like we are now, forced to determine for ourselves whether or not anything was actually happening.  And while difficult to actually prove, they are still in violation of rule 5 no matter how you shake it out.

Quote

6. Don't launch in Early Access without a playable game. If you have a tech demo, but not much gameplay yet, then it’s probably too early to launch in Early Access. If you are trying to test out a concept and haven't yet figured out what players are going to do in your game that makes it fun, then it's probably too early. You might want to start by giving out keys to select fans and getting input from a smaller and focused group before you release in Early Access. At a bare minimum, you will need a video trailer that shows gameplay. Even if you are asking for feedback that will impact gameplay, customers need something to start with in order to give informed feedback and suggestions.

This is an important one, even though I'm going to state that this wasn't violated.  It's hard to prove whether or not the game was a tech demo or not, primarily because it wasn't very playable at launch.  The problem here is that the company wasn't really trying out concepts, or that they didn't have specific gameplay.  For those few who had the right hardware and weren't hit by the bugs, they could get into orbit, hit the Mun, leave Kerbin's SOI.  So no, this rule wasn't violated...even though we all feel like it was.

Quote

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
The Community plays a crucial role in Early Access development. How will you communicate with your users? On a forum? Your website? How often? This is your chance to tell your users how they can shape your product's development.

This is my favorite part of the terms, and it's found in the Q&A section.  The company is supposed to - not forced, not mandatory, but supposed to - tell Steam, and by extension us, how they are going to communicate.  We've beaten this horse to death, but it's important to note because it's right in the terms.  They are suppose to let us know how they'll communicate, using what media, how often, and what content the communication will include.  And they did NONE OF THAT.  I mean, in addition to simply clamming up, they barely told us how they would communicate, and then every so often just changed their minds and expected us to just go with the flow.

All told, I personally believe that Take Two/Private Division/Intercept Games did NOT approach Early Access in the spirit with which it should be intended.  They violated multiple rules and sections of the terms, and they should be held accountable for this.  Again, this is one person's opinion of things, and I could very well be wrong.  I'm not a lawyer, and I don't do the whole corp-speak-interpretation thing very well.  But I believe they didn't follow the rules.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Thank you @Scarecrow71 for the suggestion. It resulted in a discussion instead of just an attempt to gain support. Which is always preferable.

My thoughts focus on the communication aspect mostly, bc it is easiest to point and cry foul.

I have no clue if everything was legit at the start of EA, but I sure as heck know it fell apart somewhere along the way.. and we'll before the WARN notice.

They can point to the dev blogs and claim meaningful content.. i disagree but realize the subject matter relevance is .. well subjective. Some may have felt it was meaningful.

I can absolutely point to the KERB reports as  

A failure for the developer to honor the commitment they set forth regarding timely communication cycles.

The days of EA being strictly indie titles is over but we must try and preserve them integrity for those other precious gems in the rough.

Most indie developers are so passionate you get tons of info on what's going on. 

I feel Skylines community was similiarly disillusioned.

 

[HebaruSan]

@Scarecrow71, I salute you for doing this how it should be done: Cite the text of the rules and ground all arguments in them. I mostly concur. Early Access was used as a way to test whether the product had a market in its then-present state, offset costs of continued development, and presumably light a fire under an underperforming team in hopes of hastening completion. It didn't work out, and TTWO's margin call came at a bad time.

For completeness, here are the rules you didn't quote, so we can assess the significance of those omissions:

Spoiler

1. You must include Steam Early Access branding and information about the current state of your game on any third-party sites where you are distributing Steam keys for your Early Access game. We work very hard to make sure that customers understand what they are buying when they get an Early Access title on Steam, and this expectation continues wherever Steam keys are distributed. You must include the Steam Early Access branding as well as current information on the state of your game, and a link to the Steam Early Access FAQ on any site where you are selling Steam keys for your Early Access title. Additionally, you should also include a copy of the Early Access questionnaire. You can read more in the Steam Branding Guidelines.

3. Steam Early Access titles need to be available to customers through Steam. If Steam enables your Early Access game, we expect you to have the Early Access game available for sale on the Steam store. Do not offer it for sale on Steam any later than you offer it anywhere else.

4. Don't overcharge Steam customers. The Early Access price of your game should be no higher than that offered on any other service or website. Please take care of your customers on Steam.

7. Don't launch in Early Access if you are finished with development. If you have all your gameplay defined already and are just looking for final bug testing, then Early Access isn’t right for you. You’ll probably want to send out some keys to fans or do more internal playtesting instead. Early Access is intended as a place where customers can impact the final game.

On all of these, I'd give them a trivial pass because it was only sold on Steam and definitely not finished (though the word "overcharge" invites other interpretations than just "more expensive on Steam than elsewhere").

50 minutes ago, moeggz said:

They had their plan and wanted to see it through, which is fine. Just very misleading to say they wanted feedback when they never did. The plan was mostly set in stone. 

"Plan" is a very generous way to characterize the EA period. It seems to me more that the product was simply incomplete and they were reluctant to add even more work and re-work to the mountain they were already facing unless it was absolutely necessary. We can hardly call the glaring and baffling numerical and unit errors in the tracking station a planned feature, but there they've sat since launch, because no loud, sustained uproar was mustered over them.

Edited May 6 by HebaruSan

[Fizzlebop Smith]

2 hours ago, moeggz said:

EA in name only. The only feedback was on bugs, and even then it took forever for wobbly rockets to be taken seriously and still no change to font, parts manager, or serious consideration towards com net occlusion. 
 

They had their plan and wanted to see it through, which is fine. Just very misleading to say they wanted feedback when they never did. The plan was mostly set in stone. 
 

The trouble this game was in should’ve been apparent from the first time the game went on sale. Yes EA games go on sale, but not before they’ve actually added anything (in my experience) and not when their website has the wonderful FOMO inducing statement “Yes, KSP 2 will sell for $49.99 (SRP) during Early Access, and we expect that the price will be raised at 1.0 release.” The EA of this game was only to raise funds, as they never really wanted to EA it was not handled as an EA in any appreciable way, outside of the “don’t judge us for bugs or for its unfinished state” and the slightly reduced price. 
 

Look at the recent reviews. While some are claiming it’s unjustified, even the positive ones straight up say they wouldn’t recommend the game, below the “ recommended” title steam gives their review. They got away with their score for so long with people reviewing based on future predictions. Now that those are in doubt and the game is being reviewed as is, a prettier but buggier edition than the first game with numerous missing features, is is apparent just how much they abused the EA system. They sold on hype, contrary to the EA model, and people bought on that hype. 

That is my biggest upset. Since I have started this conversation on a couple mediums.. I heard steam had a Greenlight requirement for EA.

People keep tossing the EA agreement in my face.. but I'm trying to bring attention to the individual developers respective commitment to those EA guidelines.

Each title in Early Access has a section where the developer addresses various bullet points and essentially lays out their Early Access modus operandi.

This is what i think should be the criteria to determine if violations occured bc this is where that relatuonship of trust begins

 read this page.. if i give you my money, i am trusting you to do those things your promised.. right thete in writing.

what did they ever say they were going to get the community involved? Was it bc they thought it was going to be all golden atta-boys at launch? If they playtested with actual gameplay.. they should have known better, right?

I mean ever step of the way IG tripped over communication.. because they are the ones to make the promise. And therefore should be held to it.

Other games i feel violate for other reasons.. promising a rapid patch cadence with subsequent hotfixes.. and several months pass without any reason why.

not wanting everyone to get shut down for this or that.. just a way to make the voices heard and have a push notification that says "EA warning received - do better"

[VlonaldKerman]

They released a pre-alpha build of the game but the communication style was more like a late-beta coming a month before launch.

I wish they were willing to call a spade a spade, and say, "We released a very early version, so we're going to have even more communication and transparency than most early access games, like is typical of an alpha or pre-alpha release."

The problem, I suspect, is that this level of transparency would expose the underdeveloped nature of the game, especially with regards to "core features", the engineering challenges that constituted the key pillars of the game's success or failure, namely:

• Performance with large part count ships
• Large number of concurrent missions
• Brachistochrone trajectories
• Improved terrain system
• Interstellar-capable game engine
• Performant colonies
• All the other things which modded KSP fails to do, and so would motivate one to build a new game from the ground up rather than update KSP 1

In fact, these were the main win-conditions for the game to be successful. It was always ultimately going to be judged for its success or failure on these metrics- everything else is the icing on top. And, as of now, as far as I know, we are not even 3/10 completion with ANY of these. I can only assume if they were doing better behind the scenes, they would want us to know.

As I find generally to be the case, most problems with form (ex, communication style, perceived intentions) are actually just downstream manifestations of problems of substance. I highly suspect we would never be having this conversation or any one like it, if development was actually going smoothly, they were making progress, and finding success tackling the aforementioned core challenges.

I suspect their failure with respect to those bullet points is responsible both for their frustrating communication style, and for the ultimate cancellation of the game (which seems likely at this point).

[Skorj]

In terms of "EA accountability", there is a player-initiated review process already for games that are broken, malware, or a legal liability for Steam, but the items you can flag a game for aren't the sort of problems we're talking about here, I think, although I did flag KSP2 for its registry spam.

There are probably 1000 EA games released each day on Steam now, given it was over 100 when EA was new.  Human EA oversight would be a bit challenging.  For sure I prefer a store with minimal oversight to one policed by insane AI bots the way Google does their stuff.  Any system that could possibly result in a game being removed without a clear statement of the reason, what rule was violated, how it was violated, and an  appeals process involving actual humans who actually respond (unlike, say, the VAC ban process) would be worse than what we have now.  Player-complaint based review leads to a dark place, as we should all know by now. 

But perhaps Steam could review the store page for EA games above a certain revenue threshold, and at least ensure the text of the page was rules-compliant.  That at least could be done fairly with no involvement in gamer drama.

[jaxmed]

35 minutes ago, VlonaldKerman said:

As I find generally to be the case, most problems with form (ex, communication style, perceived intentions) are actually just downstream manifestations of problems of substance. I highly suspect we would never be having this conversation or any one like it, if development was actually going smoothly, they were making progress, and finding success tackling the aforementioned core challenges.

I suspect their failure with respect to those bullet points is responsible both for their frustrating communication style, and for the ultimate cancellation of the game (which seems likely at this point).

100%. It's why in spite of everything I don't really begrudge the CMs for how they handled things. They had the unenviable job of trying to spin straw into gold. Everyone's frustrations with Dakota and NerdyMike probably stemmed from the simple fact that they had no updates or good news to share. So instead we got fluff pieces (eclipses and previews of re-entry particles), excuses (2 weeks spent on sprint planning), and silence. Because an honest update of "the devs have been struggling to untangle this mess they found themselves in and our earlier multiplayer screenshots were from a two-day tech investigation that's totally unscalable and will require months of effort to put into the actual game and now we've got some horrible registry corruption bug and everyone is panicking" would probably not go over so well.

[chefsbrian]

5 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

So I had a thought.. do you feel KSP2 violated the spirit of Early Access?

Despite my disdain for how everything turned out, no - They met the expectation of letting the community in during development of the project. They delivered updates and patches (Glacially) and took input and bug reports from the community and actioned at least a few of them. They were terrible at it, but as far as spirit goes? Achieved.

5 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Did they make false claims at all?

Yes. They treated the roadmap as a guarantee, repeatedly promised improvements to engagement, and promised that they were fully funded and development would not be pulled. While there is argument to make across all of them about their ability to even control it, making promises you cannot keep is still a false claim regardless of intent or belief.

5 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Did they honor their own commitment to the EA standard as described by the words posted on steam store page?

No, they failed to achieve those standards, simple as. They aspired, certainly, but missed.

5 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

This is all about trying to establish some form of accountability when there is a perceived violation of EA tenets.

While I understand the sentiment driving this, this is also the last thing you want for accessibility in the games market.

The entire point of the early access program changing from its early "vote driven" approach to the "Buyer beware" free for all is explicitly because its simply not viable to oversee everything, nor does steam actually have the tools and authority required to act on anything. Steam has no realistic method to recoup any financial implications - Once a developer has collected their payout the only funds steam has theoretical access to is future purchases, which presumably they'd also be banning in the case of a violation. So There's no money for them to take and refund. Steam would be stupid to refund out of their own pocket, as it'd become an easy scam to sock buy games made with a throwaway company, get the payout, then get the refund later. And trying to debt it forward on the studio just means you'd ditch an indebted studio name, at best - at the worst, you'd be financially punishing a failed developer to discourage ever trying again. Whether you think that's a good thing or not is up to your discretion, but it will objectively reduce the ability for developers to bring games to the market.

Attempting more aggressive contractual terms for early access will just discourage developers from ever touching it - Why would you sign a document saying that the mob can bankrupt your company in two years if things go sideways and EA doesn't work out? You might think "Oh but the terms will define what is and isn't acceptable" but then at best it'll be gamed to irrelevance and at worst it'll harm the unfortunate but natural failures. Besides, you can't really squeeze blood from a rock, and most EA failures are studio failures as well. 

As awful as cases like KSP2 can be for EA, every other outcome is it doesn't exist and many projects die lacking that early financial lifeline. The only and most drastic action steam could take would be to forbid a developer from publishing further early access titles, but studio drop and rebuild would negate it anyway. Going after a publisher is no better as it'd all but guarantee publishers drop EA options entirely, which again constrains projects as an entire avenue of early funding and market testing is just removed from their toolbox. It sucks to say it, but nebulous "accountability to spirit" is just translated in business speak to "Someone can arbitrarily torpedo a project based on how they feel", which is a contract you never sign, no matter how confident you are that you won't intentionally screw someone.

Believe me, my KSP2 review has been like 6+ paragraphs documenting how terrible the state of the game is for the last year, with edits over the science update, and only just got another paragraph edited in to explain the studios dead and shuttered. I'm not defending anything they've done and I've been burned on many EA games before. I own Godus, Sheltered 2, Embark, and so forth. I know what its like to be at the end of the dev cycle and just feel so absolutely done with the kind of treatment that comes from the end of the line, all while being glaringly aware of how you paid for the privilege to be fleeced.

But the last thing you want to do is burn down the EA house. For every KSP2, you have games like Project Zomboid, Manor Lords, Cosmoteer, Blade and Sorcery, Nebulous: Fleet Command, Terra Invicta, Valheim, and thats just the ones in my library I've played since the start of the year . Some games like Kenshi or Blade and Sorcery would be incredibly hard to find traditional funding for due to their niche markets and spaces, and instead found great success through early access, becoming games well beyond what they could have been without it. What we just experienced sucks, but I wouldn't change it for the world if it risked any of the other things sharing the same opportunity space. 

[Fizzlebop Smith]

The CMs certainly are not at fault. They only acted within the scope of their abilities at any given time.

Thay must have been a pretty excrementsty burden to bear... wanting to talk about really cool stuff thay was almost ready .. just need to figure this out or that.. and not getting to talk about it at all.

I feel like the CMs kinda got the crappiest deal of all. The industry has exploded since early 00's. A vote based system to enter EA is longer relevant. 

And I know nothing is perfect.. a large group of angry incels could still slam whatever feature and initiate unfair action. But with people behind the oversight, this would be obvious.

This sentiment has been fermenting for a bit over a couple (one) other titles I wanted to be excited about but feel developers employed less than genuine approach to EA. It may shape up to be alright in the end..

the massive breach of trust doesn't occur in the community over singular incidents. It's not like we freaked out over price, or routine delays in communication, then postponed delays of communication, lack of technical dev blogs, incinere AMAs... it was a culmination effect.

@chefsbrian obviously titles with awesome customer relations and positive review rating would not be one brought to question. 

im not asking anyone to adopt a unilateral set of qualifiers for EA. Merely adhere to the standard each puts forth on their own EA store page.

Each one answers certain questions about what EA means to them & how they intend to approach various benchmarks for the guidelines.

There isn't even a scope set forth in the guidleines with a set of minimum acceptance criteria.. beyond game must be playable & not provide blatantly inaccurate info.

There is no minimum required engagement for the community feedback nor a set bar for how frequent we should get announcements of any kind. But the development staff sets that expectation when they fill out the little questionnaire & it enters into writing.

That is the first step of a relationship where trust Is a factor. That trust is based on what we read on that page. (Very few read anything outside the Steam page)

Edited May 6 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Yaivenov]

It is my opinion that the Early Access release was a cash grab executed when it became obvious they were never going to complete the project.  It was just an attempt to ameliorate their financial losses.

[HebaruSan]

2 minutes ago, Yaivenov said:

It is my opinion that the Early Access release was a cash grab executed when it became obvious they were never going to complete the project.  It was just an attempt to ameliorate their financial losses.

Wouldn't you cut all the staff at the point you realized that, though? They were still paying ~70 salaries as of a few days ago.

[Yaivenov]

21 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Wouldn't you cut all the staff at the point you realized that, though? They were still paying ~70 salaries as of a few days ago.

Not if I were to maintain a pretense of development in order to avoid being sued by Valve, the customers, or the FTC for outright fraud.  

Release a pre-alpha tech demo (that was supposed to release as a full game) as an early access game while also firing the entire staff?  Very obvious they weren't going to finish the development, very obvious cash grab with a said unfinished product, very obvious lawsuit. 

But, realize you have a pile of garbage on your hands that will never even equal its prequel let alone exceed it, and you've already sunk a boatload of money into it, what do you do?  The answer is dump it on the market as "early access", string along the development at life-support pace for a while, after a sufficient period of time then lay off the useless dev team,  transfer the product to a one-person maintenance staff, and forget about it.  Maybe some more sales will slowly trickle in from unwitting consumers, maybe not, but now they can focus their corporate profiteering attentions on their next victim/cash cow.

Edited May 7 by Yaivenov

[HebaruSan]

4 minutes ago, Yaivenov said:

Not if I were to maintain a pretense of development in order to avoid being sued by Valve, the customers, or the FTC for outright fraud.

Paying 70 employees for over a year just to maintain a legal pretense of active work doesn't make sense when a skeleton crew of 15 would have served that purpose just as well. All signs point to they were hoping it would turn out to be a viable product, and it just didn't.

[Superfluous J]

EA worked for a couple years when indie developers used it to promote and fund good games that publishers would have probably ruined.

See: FTL. Factorio. KSP. Darkest Dungeon.

If a publisher who makes so much total money that the financing of a game is akin to an error on their tally sheet, makes that game EA, then no it's not even remotely in the "spirit" of EA.

But that spirit's been dead* for so long it doesn't really matter anymore.

I won't sign your petition. Not because I don't agree with it but because Internet petitions aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

*can a spirit die?

Edited May 7 by Superfluous J

[MechBFP]

48 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Wouldn't you cut all the staff at the point you realized that, though? They were still paying ~70 salaries as of a few days ago.

Technically they are still paying their salaries until roughly the end of June.

[Superluminaut]

I think a corporate game development studio doing early access is fundamentally absurd.

It's akin to putting training wheels on a motorcycle.