Intercept/PD needs to speak out NOW

[justspace103]

Ya'll read the title.

Silence is allowing this community that i have been a part of and loved so much to implode with panic and doom of the death of this franchise. I am starting to agree with them. For the sake of the community, @Intercept Games@Nate Simpson need to say something beyond "we are still working on the game". At least give us closure if the worst is to come, to allow us to move on and return to KSP1. Don't let this failure define this franchise.

[moeggz]

Closure would’ve gotten at least some mutual respect, but with the wording of their EA marketing it seems like such clarity may lead to actual difficulties in some countries and territories. 
 

They don’t respect us enough to tell us the truth and pay that cost, so they leave us in limbo forever. I’d wager a few more bug fixes are on the way, some form of a colony update and then a long period of near radio silence while they hope everyone forgets this game.

Edited May 8 by moeggz

[Icegrx]

I’m expecting them to quietly sit on this for a few months before coming forward and saying the plug is pulled. 

I had so much hope and optimism last week, and this week I’m just not feeling it. This game meant little to nothing to them, why should I let it mean something to me.

[VlonaldKerman]

Unfortunately there is a small cost to them doing this, and little discernible benefit.

I expect they probably don’t quite know yet- they are probably conducting a review of the code based to determine if the project is salvageable.

Or perhaps they are simply preserving option value.

[Pulstar]

40 minutes ago, VlonaldKerman said:

Or perhaps they are simply preserving option value.

I think the financials angle is a likely reason for the silence regardless of what exact plans they have, since the annual results will be made public next Thursday. Better to sit quiet than fuel stock market speculation ahead of the report's release.

On the other hand it might just be a corporate culture/PR things specific to Take Two. Just yesterday Microsoft bluntly said they are shutting down some game studios, but Microsoft has a fiscal year ending in June and their Q3 figures are publicly available since late April. Although granted a simpler explanation is that xbox/gaming is just a small part of microsoft - not even 9% by revenue so they don't care as much.

[Skorj]

The smart corporate move at this point is to quietly remove the roadmap section from the Steam page.  I suspect Vlonald is right in that they're currently busy seeing what they have, but my guess is best case we get colonies finished up.  With Colonies KSP2 has new content that KSP1 doesn't, and I could see htem thinking that justifies the current price.  Perhaps they're waiting on that assessment to figure out where to cut off the roadmap.

 

Edited May 8 by Skorj

[Icegrx]

10 minutes ago, Skorj said:

my guess is best case we get colonies finished up.  

I hope I’m wrong, but I highly doubt we are getting colonies. With the little info they showed us, it seems they are way aways off from a playable colonies. Especially without performance optimization

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

Nothing but silence for at least a week since the commotion started. 
Here’s your 50$ worth of communication.

This is why I think EA should be restricted to small indie studios that engage with the community and answer in hours not months. You just can’t do that when you are a big fish. 

4 hours ago, Icegrx said:

I’m expecting them to quietly sit on this for a few months before coming forward and saying the plug is pulled. 

Good God I hope you’re wrong. 
if they do that it won’t matter how often they update and what they update. 

Edited May 8 by GGG-GoodGuyGreg

[Yaivenov]

3 hours ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

Nothing but silence for at least a week since the commotion started. 
Here’s your 50$ worth of communication.

This is why I think EA should be restricted to small indie studios that engage with the community and answer in hours not months. You just can’t do that when you are a big fish. 

Good God I hope you’re wrong. 
if they do that it won’t matter how often they update and what they update. 

Valve putting an income cap on the early access program might be a fix.  As in if the sum gross income of the studio and all associated parent corporations exceed a threshold they may not use Steam EA.

[Apogee-23]

It's a real shame how little the developers are allowed to say. Instead of getting mad at the developers, I can't help but feel bad for them since the higher-ups won't let them communicate.

[Flush Foot]

25 minutes ago, Yaivenov said:

Valve putting an income cap on the early access program might be a fix.  As in if the sum gross income of the studio and all associated parent corporations exceed a threshold they may not use Steam EA.

Or alternatively, "if you are backed by a <major?> publisher/label, then you need to deposit 2-3 years worth of operating expenses in an escrow-account before we allow you to put the game in EA", or

"if you are backed by a <major?> publisher/label, then you indicate to us how much 2-3 years worth of operating expenses comes to and we will hold EA-sales up to 110% of that amount in an escrow-account for 2-3 years of EA-dev-time [or 12 months past v1.0, whichever comes first] before releasing them to you"

Edited May 8 by Flush Foot

[PDCWolf]

Just now, Flush Foot said:

Or alternatively, "if you are backed by a <major?> publisher/label, then you need to deposit 2-3 years worth of operating expenses in an escrow-account before we allow you to put the game in EA", or

"if you are backed by a <major?> publisher/label, then you indicate to us how much 2-3 years worth of operating expenses comes to and we will hold EA-sales up to 110% of that amount in an escrow-account for 2-3 years of EA-dev-time [or 12 months past v1.0, whichever comes first] before releasing them to you"

EA is unfixable as a concept because the guidelines allow devs/publishers to literally sell dreams and hopes, and then not deliver on them with no consequence. It shouldn't be about the money behind the devs/pubs, it should be as "here's the plan, let's go through with it", and if they fail to, that enables instant limitless refunds to anyone who might want them.

The problem is such a thing (and even your solution too) requires manual moderation, something Steam won't ever bother with.

[Flush Foot]

@PDCWolf I know there are no perfect solutions, but if the publishers had to 'pony up' a non-trivial amount of money upfront (or be locked out of EA-proceeds for a set amount of time), that could make them less likely to choose to use EA in the first place... I suppose another option might be 'well-backed EA-titles have an automatic 500-hr / 1 yr refund policy' or something similarly 'wild'.

[PDCWolf]

5 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

@PDCWolf I know there are no perfect solutions, but if the publishers had to 'pony up' a non-trivial amount of money upfront (or be locked out of EA-proceeds for a set amount of time), that could make them less likely to choose to use EA in the first place... I suppose another option might be 'well-backed EA-titles have an automatic 500-hr / 1 yr refund policy' or something similarly 'wild'.

What I'm saying is you're not aiming at the problem. Indie developers abuse EA just as much as big corporations. At the end of the day, you've gotta set a goal for EA. Right now that goal seems to be "pay to witness developers ruin the game and sometimes even fail to complete it" except for a very small number of exceptions, and making a differentiation based on who has big money behind them won't help at all.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

20 minutes ago, Yaivenov said:

Valve putting an income cap on the early access program might be a fix.  As in if the sum gross income of the studio and all associated parent corporations exceed a threshold they may not use Steam EA.

I was trying to think of various things Valve can to to help preserve the integrity of what Early Access was intended. If you read the missions statements from the EA program, it's seems clear it was intended to promote small companies without the means to fund a good idea.

EA would be proof of concept & the launch would essential be a proposal to potential investors. 

This may not be a perfect analogy, but there needs to be something in place to help prevent bloated major gaming companies from gobbling up this section of the market space. 

It reminds me about the decline of small business in America as corporate lobbying power continues to initiate changes geared at supporting big corpos.

Anything my inexperienced mind could imagine could be circumvented.

Revenue Caps, Developement Team Size could all be navigated with loops holes or work around.

Hope there can be enough consumer related impact. I know I will not join TT backed EA again.

Nor will I get excited by any hype delivered by Nate Simpson.

[cocoscacao]

4 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

What I'm saying is you're not aiming at the problem. Indie developers abuse EA just as much as big corporations. At the end of the day, you've gotta set a goal for EA

Keep it free, until finished version arrives seems to clear out that particular issue. If it's cancelled, allow selling what is there so far. Whoever finds it valuable will chip in.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Most of the EA indie titles I've followed have good relations and do rather well. I was unaware that it was abused by the little guys .. but makes perfect sense now that inam looking at it through a wider lens.

 

What @PDCWolf brought up has been my biggest issue with this title. Follow Through

[Flush Foot]

10 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Keep it free, until finished version arrives

Kind of like Kickstarter then? Where backers only charged if the campaign hits 100%?

[cocoscacao]

Just now, Flush Foot said:

Kind of like Kickstarter then? Where backers only charged if the campaign hits 100%?

With non-refundable donation option if you wanna support the project during development itself. Sure, why not.

[PDCWolf]

14 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Keep it free, until finished version arrives seems to clear out that particular issue. If it's cancelled, allow selling what is there so far. Whoever finds it valuable will chip in.

And development is funded with... nothing, so EA is no longer something indies can aim for.

9 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Most of the EA indie titles I've followed have good relations and do rather well. I was unaware that it was abused by the little guys .. but makes perfect sense now that inam looking at it through a wider lens.

 

What @PDCWolf brought up has been my biggest issue with this title. Follow Through

Well... optics.

For me KSP1 abused the EA system by one day deciding to arbitrarily call their product 1.0, promising multiplayer, and then just bailing with T2's money on their pocket. If you want a much more egregious example look at StarForge, the DayZ clones, Last Oasis, Starbound, Atlas, Fault, and so many more we could make a wikipedia list.

And some of those games didn't get cancelled, they just shed tons of features and plans, called it 1.0 and went away. For me that developers can have forums or discords talking about this or that future feature, nice trailers that turn out to be unity editor scenes, and so on, and then do literally nothing of that, and go away, because god forbid we aren't throwing our money at random people making sandcastles whilst some even defend them because "they never said 'we promise' ". THAT is the problem of Early Access, that insofar as the Steam page is clean of promises, they technically broke no rule, and that by calling their product 1.0 and abandoning it, they technically broke no rule.

By the way, don't try to conflate this with immutability. One thing is features changing thanks to feedback, another is features disappearing or being mere shells of what they were supposed to be (hello heat system).

[cocoscacao]

4 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

And development is funded with... nothing, so EA is no longer something indies can aim for.

I've added additional answer after that post. Optional donation capability. Now... this can also be turned into a scam, but how would you resolve the problem?

[PDCWolf]

15 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

I've added additional answer after that post. Optional donation capability. Now... this can also be turned into a scam, but how would you resolve the problem?

And how do we prevent donators from being offered perks outside of Steam? How do we ensure developers are not capturing donations by being just as much disingenuous as they were before forcing EA to be free?

Because the problem isn't money, or how EA works as a buy-in for the customer, the problem is the developer having the total freedom to decide when to call 1.0 whilst saying the finished product was gonna be something totally different in their store page, and other media the whole way.

We don't need extraneous examples really... How do we create a system where T2 can't announce tomorrow that 0.2.2 is the 1.0? Because if that's what happens, there's no refund.

[Flush Foot]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

How do we create a system where T2 can't announce tomorrow that 0.2.2 is the 1.0?

Poll the buyers when "Dev declares current game to be complete" to see if that's justifiable? (Maybe not even needing to clear 50% + 1 vote, as if even 40% or so say 'yes, the devs have done enough already', that's giving them a slight advantage over "being held hostage" by a simple majority)

[cocoscacao]

6 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

And how do we prevent donators from being offered perks outside of Steam? How do we ensure developers are not capturing donations by being just as much disingenuous as they were before forcing EA to be free?

Have you read my reply?

[VlonaldKerman]

Am I the only one who thinks there should be no restrictions on EA games, that if EAs from big publishers suck, we shouldn’t buy them?

No need to meddle with the market. I think people are willing to pay a relatively small sum (tens of dollars) for the possibility of a good game, and that is why they do. If that’s a problem, take it up with people! They do tend to ruin everything.