DunDunDunpachi
Banned
Neither of those games were the first to offer direct-to-consumer purchases, but they were among the first to sell an in-development version of a game instead of offering it as a complete retail package. Customers were offered a significantly cheaper price compared to full retail -- $10 or $20, depending on when you jumped in -- and lifetime support / upgrades for the game.
Brilliant idea if done correctly. Customer saves money. Customer gets to enjoy free upgrades. Devs get some dosh to keep development going. The indie dream! Surely we would exit the dark ages of retail / giant publisher videogame industry drudgery and enter a glorious age of direct-to-consumer gaming.
A weird thing emerged: community engagement became a far bigger part of development. People were judging games based on whether the developer listened to feedback in a timely manner, and/or how well they implemented the feedback.
I remember heated discussions and arguments about Terraria vs Starbound, and one of the prevailing talking points was how the developers responded to community suggestions and bugfixes. This was fascinating to observe, because it was more of a customer service / GaaS mentality instead of a "'game as a finished product" mentality. Normally we would shrug and hope they included features in the next DLC or the next patch, but the Early Access / beta key nature of these games meant that the fans could expect free upgrades and not be written off as entitled whores.
Don't Starve -- still one of the best roguelites ever invented -- also gained a lot of customer love because of how Klei added to the game, listened to fan feedback, and added the tweaks and features requested by their community. No Man's Sky is a good example of the good and bad nature of buying a game-in-progress that was billed as a fully-fledged release. The knife cuts both ways.
Unfortunately, this changes how we buy games. We no longer buy games so much as we invest into a developer who has committed to delivering a full game, a sort of half-step wedged between Kickstarter and retail release and paid subscription. I don't mind the very real benefits, but I lament the losses to ownership. A game in flux loses something. Annoying and game-breaking glitches are removed, but so are the amusing ones. Fans of the game are engaging with an ever-changing piece of entertainment instead of buying a finished product and devouring it together.
When I grouse about "not owning a game", it isn't so much about whether I own a physical disk of the game. My concern is that a game is becoming less of a monolithic "product" and more of a loosey-goosey GaaS timestream where the game you get at the end of the revisions is markedly different than the game you first purchases.
Brilliant idea if done correctly. Customer saves money. Customer gets to enjoy free upgrades. Devs get some dosh to keep development going. The indie dream! Surely we would exit the dark ages of retail / giant publisher videogame industry drudgery and enter a glorious age of direct-to-consumer gaming.
A weird thing emerged: community engagement became a far bigger part of development. People were judging games based on whether the developer listened to feedback in a timely manner, and/or how well they implemented the feedback.
I remember heated discussions and arguments about Terraria vs Starbound, and one of the prevailing talking points was how the developers responded to community suggestions and bugfixes. This was fascinating to observe, because it was more of a customer service / GaaS mentality instead of a "'game as a finished product" mentality. Normally we would shrug and hope they included features in the next DLC or the next patch, but the Early Access / beta key nature of these games meant that the fans could expect free upgrades and not be written off as entitled whores.
Don't Starve -- still one of the best roguelites ever invented -- also gained a lot of customer love because of how Klei added to the game, listened to fan feedback, and added the tweaks and features requested by their community. No Man's Sky is a good example of the good and bad nature of buying a game-in-progress that was billed as a fully-fledged release. The knife cuts both ways.
Unfortunately, this changes how we buy games. We no longer buy games so much as we invest into a developer who has committed to delivering a full game, a sort of half-step wedged between Kickstarter and retail release and paid subscription. I don't mind the very real benefits, but I lament the losses to ownership. A game in flux loses something. Annoying and game-breaking glitches are removed, but so are the amusing ones. Fans of the game are engaging with an ever-changing piece of entertainment instead of buying a finished product and devouring it together.
When I grouse about "not owning a game", it isn't so much about whether I own a physical disk of the game. My concern is that a game is becoming less of a monolithic "product" and more of a loosey-goosey GaaS timestream where the game you get at the end of the revisions is markedly different than the game you first purchases.
