Until they ditch the "live service" model, this will continues. How many big title games today are really sold in a complete no BS state where DLC actually means extra contents? No much I guess.
That stems from the revenue model, and not by gamers.
I feel like Paradox games falls into this category, problem is everyone is so used to playing the okder title with all of the dlc that people feel the new title is barebones and unfinished.
Minecraft falls squarely in this category. I paid 15$ some 12 years ago and am still getting a yearly update for free.
And yet if you go in the MC community, one of the most common complaints people have is that the updates are never enough and the Devs are lazy etc... I guess this goes to the point of this article, people can easily be trained to have unrealistic expectations.
I'm not crying for Mojang/Microsoft but I can't imagine how it feels to be an indie dev and have people shit on you because the work you do for free is not good enough.
Minecraft is a special case. They promise a lot and what we got is a version of the game that's microtransaction hell. Texture packs, mods, maps, etc all cost outrageous amounts of money in the console/windows10 version of the game. The community is mad because they're clearly spending way more money on making content for the store than doing any actual updates for the game. The most we get is something like a new mob every six months...
I’d almost love if games were released and getting no updates after that. But only if the games are released in a complete state.
I hate the fact that you shouldn’t play some games as soon as they are released, because you’d be playing the inferior version.
That needs to change.
Eh, EA can certainly be a problem, but it's also an incredibly useful resource for devs operating in good faith, opening up the field for talent that would otherwise be priced out of making a game at all. Personally, I'm ok ignoring money grabs if it means the barrier of entry for resource starved talent is lowered.
Manor Lords is early access. At least one patch is to be expected. And of course the publisher is absolutely right. If my memory serves me well one dev developed the game all on his own so far and the challenge of meeting expectations after being a massive success is huge. Hiring more people to get developments going is likely necessary but expanding takes time. Some players have unrealistic expectations in general but even more so when it comes to small indie productions.
There used to be an unspoken contract with game developers and gamers:
Somewhere that evolved into shipping unfinished games, subscription based games, battlepasses, endless DLC, loot boxes, and forced online connections for single player games.
The game studios broke the contract. If they want endless money, that comes with endless work.
Because it is a much safer investment to send out a 50% costed demo to see if you can break into the market then trickle out updates to make up the rest of the cost
If your demo doesn’t land then you’ve saved half the cost of a full project that would fail anyway
That's why I'm really glad to see Hooded Horse and Greg Styczeń have this mindset, and that they're actually speaking out against the GaaS mentality. They're going back to the unspoken contract and saying the current status quo is stupid.
The headline is poorly chosen. They aren't saying that studios should be earning endless money without work. They're saying the GaaS model to try and earn endless money is putting devs on a treadmill, and that this shouldn't be the case.
I hope to see more like this going forward. I don't think gamers nor developers are a fan of GaaS trying to stay constantly relevant.
The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
The problem does not lie with gamers. It lies with 'AAA' developers who publish unplayable cashgrabs that need years of bugfixing before reaching a playable state, thus leading to expectations of ongoing development. Not that Early Access has helped in that regard.
If someone complains about buying a finished game and not getting more of it later, they're idiots and there's nothing you can do but ignore them.
Publishers that do ultra-early access/roadmaps/live services with promises of content/bug fixes/trust me we're making the rest of the game later, are clearly to blame for the mess too. They're the ones poisoning the well.
But plenty of games release in a final state and that's okay. They have to be firm about it though.
I think part of the problem is down to how a lot of games come out as "Early Access" which implies it's more bare bones and will get fleshed out over time.
If a game releases as EA then the expectation is you will get more content until release, if a game just comes out without EA then it's assumed it has all content and anything new is dlc/mtx/expansions.
I'm not gonna bother addressing Live Service games, wish they would go in the bin with most other MTX.
I just want to buy a game that's actually finished. Early Access has ruined that first play experience.
Depends. Like Satisfactory, I'm extremely satisfied by their pace of development.
Spend years releasing unfinished and incomplete work.
Gamers expect work to be unfinished and incomplete.
🫵
Thank you for all the free updates ConcernedApe. I hope you're enjoying your time with your millions and if/when you release the Haunted Chocolatier I'll get that too. You're great and your game is great.
The article says that comment came from a CEO of another game company, not players. Tim Bender, the CEO of the publisher for The Manor Lord, said "Players are happy, the developer is happy, and we as publisher are thrilled beyond belief." I don't understand where the post title that says he cited gamer expectations came from.
Game Publishers: complains about how users expect endless content
Also Game Publishers: Mostly pushes for live service games and Free-to-Play
surprisedpikachu.gif
Alternatively
Game Publishers: Release unfinished game that gets horrid backlash until they work overtime to patch it to a slightly more playable hell, get caught in an update loop, game inadvertantly becomes live service.
Sometimes, it works out (No Man's Sky)
is Manor Lords live service? seems like they're arguing against the notion that every game must be live service.
Sorry, but I for one am not going to accept these companies blaming everything on gamers. I'm not into bootlicking. Gamers are annoying af for sure, but I'm not blaming systemic industry problems on gamers. That's complete horseshit.
A good game will stand on its own merits. It will be complete and self-contained at launch. And any DLC released later will have been planned from the very start.
Endless updates is just another word for cosmetic micro-transactions and an excuse to make you keep the game online all the time.
Meanwhile Terraria: "So we are releasing this last final update, but you can expect bugfixes for the next two years, and a last last final, followed by finally last last final updates in the following two quarters"
Before you throw stones be advised that this team is like 5 people at most, the game just blew up and some gamers are giving it the Valheim treatment wanting faster and faster updates.
Such a childish take expecting AAA speed from tiny homebrew dev teams imo. Obviously progress is going to come slower in most instances, they don't have a tiny island nation's worth of man power to throw. That and, I'm sorry, if my homebrew passion project blows up stupid big when I go for early access for seed money / water testing, I promise you I will be taking time off to celebrate the accomplishment.
This shit is a grind. Lots of dedication over a long period of time. Go on, hit that resort life for a minute, you earned it. Come back and finish up when you get some r&r. 🤙
Obviously still expecting progress down the line, but if I'm supporting early access I know what I'm getting into. Indie scene is where the love is, but it's ma & pa shit. Plus there's thousands of other ways to waste my time, I'll check back in later if I'm bored with the game's current build.
Waiting sucks, but chill. Save outrage for where it really matters, like genuinely shitty devs. Juuust my pocket change. 🙌
I've seen people say 'I played forza for 150 hours and now it's boring"
Like dude, wtf
Sounds like a management issue, how is the guy paying for the services gets shitted on here
I also don't understand why I am being scolded by a guy I paid 30 bucks too for alpha testimg...
I never complained.
I don't think it is targeted at you or me. Ofc there are some gamers out there that would be whipping the dev given the chance.
But the main issue seems to be unrealistic and poorly managed expectations. From management, devs themselves and gamers.
I think the silent majority knows what they are getting into and understand sometimes you buy a melon, but mostly devs just take longer than people want.
The dev seems to have a good publisher that's on their side, which is nice to see. I find it bizarre that this rebuttal comes in response to the CEO of Hinterland Studios, the devs of Long Dark, which was in early access itself for ages. Dunno if they think they're above it all now, but you'd think they would at least be sympathetic of devs facing that kind of shit. Probably just CEO saying CEO shit. Hopefully the Manor Lords dev doesn't let it get to them much, or at all.
Why only devs though? No worker should be exploited like that, no matter the occupation!
Generally speaking it’s impossible to define a standard for how much output is “enough” for a developer.
Management always wants to extract as much as possible.
Excellent write up by the publisher and good that they warned Greg of the shit storm ahead.
I bought it, played it. It was already fun. The patches fixed some of the issues that made playing it not fun.. so good choices there. I left him some small feedback on the game and some words of encouragement in the hopes that helps.
I hope he can continue his development to deliver his vision for the game. I feel like I got my moneys worth already and I'll spin it up when the next series of updates are done.
Till that time I just saw Timberborn (another one of these jewels) had a cool update so I'll go and try that or one of the mysiad of other cool Early Access games that still receive a lot of love.
I don't want a fucking endless game I want a finished game for the price I pay at release that doesn't require $3000 gpu to render the most obnoxiously detailed graphics of a game that has the fucking depth of mine sweeper.
I don't know if this recaps the situation accurately, to be honest.
Sounds like the publisher is complaining about some article that's trying to use the game as a reference on why early access can be a bad thing.
I don't see how the gamers are an issue though. They will expect what you tell them to expect, this is something for the publisher to manage, and I don't even think this is a problem for Manor Lords.
All of it just seems like news sites trying to come up with their clicks.
Especially with this game, where the dev and publisher have actively worked to manage expectations before early access. That it’s not at all complete yet. There were so many people super hyped, comparing it to total war and what not. So they made it clear this game is on another scale.
If it had been the other way around, if they had hyped up the game like crazy and made huge promises about the post EA launch content, then yeah, it would be a failure.
And I suppose in practice it also would’ve been a “failure” if they hadn’t managed expectations, due to the hype and the general expectation from post launch content these days… (sigh)
But what we got is exactly what was promised, so what on earth is that Hinterland guy talking about.
Riiiight... it's the users of the product that is forcing the producers to work under toxic conditions, and totally not their money-grubbing capitalist bosses.
Riiiight.
Very reasonable, I hope the dev sticks to his guns and keeps a manageable pace. I feel that it's right to expect content updates coming in if the game is marked early access, but so long as you don't pull a Valheim, people shouldn't be mad at you
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