Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
6/8/2015 11:53:54 AM
Subject:
RE: FallOut 4
Also, the public needs to stop supporting crowd-funding and early-access schemes. Almost nothing good has come from this flimflammery. For every Wasteland 2 and Elite: Dangerous (and, of course, johnny's assuredly excellent card game and whatever marvelous thing muppet is working on), you have hundreds of potatoes. These may be honest, creative, well-intentioned potatoes, but a potato is a potato and a rat hole is a rat hole.
Early access is just modding in reverse. The common mod "team" promises amazing alterations to an existing product. The early-access team promises a product that persistently alters because they keep moving the goal posts. The difference, so far, has been that the early-access team collects money while the mod team doesn't. Now mod teams have a way to charge money, which is yet another fool-and-his-money disaster in the making, but I will not pursue it here.
The point is that all this panhandling has to stop unless you can guarantee your outcome with something like a detailed prospectus. You should also be constantly accountable to your stakeholders. If I'm going to give you money in advance for a product, I want to see where every dollar is going. I also refund clauses if I see a rat hole situation.
Early access is a euphemism for alpha and beta testing. You should be paying me to do that for you. Instead, I'm not only going without game-testing salary; I'm actually paying you for employing me. In the end -- assuming there is an end -- I get a copy of this product I've technically been working on. Can I get any dumber than that? I'm sure I can. You already have me paying for alphas. I buy DLCs from other people, meaning that I give them on average $80 to $120 for a $60 game (which I should be paying $10 less for on the PC, by the way). There are all kinds of ways I can get dumber and dumber. You can count on me.
