Excellent feature. One of the first things I check anyways when buying early access games is when the last news post was.
This is very good, but I hope devs can’t just get around it by releasing a 5kb empty update to reset the counter.
Steam now warns about Early Access that have not been updated in months.
Submitted 10 hours ago by simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world
https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lhgj6fphkx2y
Comments
TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
Jokes on them, I got burned on a couple early access games in like 2012 or something so I quit buying early access. Wait for a release.
Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
DayZ Standalone for you as well?
TyrianMollusk@lemm.ee 5 hours ago
Which is fair. Most people should not buy early access, and should wait for the devs to declare their project release ready. Early access buying is all risk and responsibility (to post feedback, to update Steam review if it’s out of date withe the project, to understand the individual project’s development pace, etc), with a lot of factors a buyer should take into account, that most people genuinely should not need to care about or wait for.
There are an insane number of Steam games already released to buy and play.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I can always tell that a game has given up when their “updates” are all about what the community has built in the game, rather than what the developers have built.
Mortoc@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
This is just pressure on the business folks, not the devs.
I’m a game dev of 20 years and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a dev with that sort of scammy inclination. On the business side of things though…
TyrianMollusk@lemm.ee 5 hours ago
I follow lots of early access devs, and it’s not uncommon for some devs to blatantly post updates only strategically, fixing some minor thing as the next seasonal Steam sale approaches. Some continue even after leaving early access: serious issues in bug report threads, but some minor fix gets posted as the sale approaches, clearly to make the game look alive, even though none of the big stuff is getting fixed.
Plenty of devs are their own business side, anymore.
urda@lebowski.social 4 hours ago
Early access titles should have an “expire” time. Either get to market, or don’t early access if you can’t in time.
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I feel like all that will happen is games will just release to 1.0 as “finished” when they clearly arent. It also may encourage rushing a game out thats a buggy mess.
Ive known some games to be very rough in early access that become absolutely gems a couple years later in development.
kautau@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Yeah satisfactory spent 5 years in early access. Good dev takes time
urda@lebowski.social 4 hours ago
So be it, but at some point they need to shit or get off the pot, and way too many games are just staying early access.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
But at least that’s honest. They’re saying, “This is the real product” instead of “The real product is coming later if you give us money now.”
Pika@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Thank god, this was well overdue. In my opinion though they should have changed the color to be the red backdrop like what they do when the game is incompatible with your system, because people are going to miss that notice since it doesn’t look all that different from the standard Early Access notice
unipadfox@pawb.social 5 hours ago
I just have Steam set up to hide early access games. There’s not much reason to play early access when there are so many great and fully complete games you can play in the meantime.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
My only real counter to that is Project Zomboid. It’s a complete game. It’s in EA due to them wanting to add many more gameplay systems to the existing complete sandbox. They have a roadmap somewhere. They don’t release major updates without multiple ones being added.
Last major update (41, a few years ago) was drivable cars (and all the spawning systems, loot, and map changes to make them fully fleshed out) and multiplayer. I’m sure there was more, but those were the standout things.
The new major update (42, available through a public opt-in beta branch right now) is a complete overhaul to gunplay, liquid management/mixing, crafting systems, lighting engine, and the addition of NPC animals with a full husbandry system. And that’s only the highlights. It will stay in beta as they get better data for balancing the new features and the absurdly increased player count surfaces bugs they didn’t find through internal testing. Once it’s balanced and stable (maybe a year), they’ll push this update to the main branch where it will continue to get minor bug fixes as things crop up (usually bugs surfaced by the modding community by the time it hits stable).
Then they’ll keep crunching away on work on human NPCs and simulating story stuff with loot generation, which I believe will be the next major update in a few years.
Each intermediate release is a complete game, it just doesn’t have the full set of features on the roadmap. It still is the best zombie survival sim on the market as is.
But it is absolutely a unicorn of early access.
Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
My favorite game ever is noita and i played it for almost 3 years of early access plus the 4 years since release. I’m really happy i got to see this great game be worked on. Tbf i think the bulk of the game was pretty much fleshed out already and the devs just made things better and added new stuff.
iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Omg I love Noita! It’s so hard, but I’ve gotten to the point that 1 in 5 rounds can end up a god run. I finally got my 33 orb Kolmi!
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
There’s a few indie shooters I’ve played that are officially EA, but have hours of gameplay in their first play though and are very replayable. Selaco is an absolute joy with 9 hours on the main campaign and 22 hours for 100%. Officially EA with only the first episode out.
Spitfire@pawb.social 9 hours ago
A good change. I wish it was more prominent on the page, though.
KillerTofu@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Maybe not allow the studio to charge for early access?
simple@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
Why? There are plenty of proper games that benefit from early access, and plenty of people that enjoy early access.
FlihpFlorp@lemm.ee 8 hours ago
Whenever I buy early access I ask my self “if the devs evaporated and development stopped permanently tomorrow, would I still buy this game?” It has snagged me some games I love like valheim, window kill, palworld and blade & sorcery. It’s also gotten me some games I enjoyed but still felt like a paid a good price for it, and also dodged a few bullets because the games look fun but weren’t complete and I didn’t buy
KillerTofu@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
And plenty of early access games that die on the vine. Pay to be an alpha tester? You do you.
DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
Maybe hold back 50% of the revenue to only be released to the devs when the game full releases
visor841@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
That just incentives devs to just push out whatever mess they currently have and say the game is released, and they’ll do it unless Valve wants to start moderating game again. At least right now the abandoned games are still labelled early access.
SolidShake@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Why can’t steam just go back to the greenlight system. It was SUCH a better storefront then. Now it’s just a cesspool of bullshit games and bullshit “reviews” I rarely use it anymore.
simple@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
The greenlight system wasn’t any better, all it did was gatekeep indie developers while still being easy to manipulate.
SolidShake@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
It didn’t gatekeep, it let people vote. And calling someone who makes a fury hentai game isn’t an “indie developer”. It’s a scammer.
dustyData@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Greenlight saw one of the biggests flood of shovel ware in Steam’s history. The store hasn’t actually recovered since.
SolidShake@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
That doesn’t make sense since the community as a whole would have to support a game before it hit the steam store. So… idk what you’re talking about. Grenlight was like a “hey guys I made this game where you play a stick man and you do a gem puzzle to unlock a flash animation naked furry girl!” No one would allow that to be greenlot, therefore it would never be on steam
After greenlight every fucking pos on the planet has made some kind of $2 scam game making Nintendo’s eShop look normal.
No greenlight = anyone and everyone can put anything on steam and sell it.
dev_null@lemmy.ml 9 hours ago
Many great games wouldn’t be released without the current system giving them a chance. Shovelware is a problem, but I think it’s a fairer alternative.
SolidShake@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Doubtful
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
cesspool of bullshit games
You sure you aren’t confusing Steam with the EA App?
(god that name is completely braindead)
SolidShake@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
EA has EA games… I don’t get the jab?
RixMixed@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
I wonder what the threshold for this warning is. I follow a lot of great early access games that only put out big updates 1-3 times a year.
reksas@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
why even have a threshold, just tell when the last update has been. That way you could also have more reliable data about behaviour of the dev and see if they just have really long update cycle.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
The examples I’ve seen are a year+ with no updates. Not definitive, but I highly doubt they’re doing this for the cases you’re talking about.
TheFunkyPickle@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
A great feature. I worry when Valve will stop being consumer friendly as they are the only company that still is.
earmuff@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
This might happen if GabeN dies, because it is mostly him and his mentality that leads to consumer friendly decisions inside VALVe
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
Everyone keeps labelling GabeN as the only one holding VALVe to standards, but by his own admission he’s more of the equivalent of a board member now, not deeply involved in the day to day anymore. I think the only ones that truly know his level of involvement would be people at VALVe.
What I’m getting at is that I have the same concerns about what will happen after he passes, but I don’t think he’s the only person standing in the way of VALVe going full corporate.
kamiheku@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
reksas@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
being consumer friendly has brought them more money than any exploitative behaviour ever could have. Getting rid of that would be like butchering a goose that makes golden eggs just so you can get some extra money from the meat.
Halosheep@lemm.ee 3 hours ago
Butchering that goose is the common tactic of satisfying shareholders temporarily.
Fortunately, their shareholders are still private and they don’t have to go to that level (yet)
Lesrid@lemm.ee 6 hours ago
What’s interesting to me about this and other features is that they all actually benefit Valve, as long as the EU/Australia require them to issue refunds upon request. Without refunds then these features are simply charity, but presently it’s good business.
tiramichu@lemm.ee 4 hours ago
The cause of enshittification is essentially the shareholder pressure for endless and exponential growth that comes from public ownership.
Valve is a privately held company, and as long as it remains that way it doesn’t have those perverse incentives.
Gabe will never allow Valve to go public as long as he is in control, but after he is gone who knows.
pivot_root@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Epic Games is also a private company… and they’re the posterchild for “fuck the consumer, we want a monopoly.”
It might have something to do with Epic being partly owned by Tencent and Disney, but it more likely comes down to the philosophies of their CEOs. Gabe came from a corporate shithole and runs with the diametrically-opposed view that good service = loyal customers = profit. Sweeney, not so much.