Congrats Portalarium on currently being the #76 best selling

It's down the list further than when you posted? It's #84 (posted 14 hours ago)

It's now #91

Steam is drowning in an ocean of shit early access titles.

There are a few gems out there (e.g., Ziggurat, Nekro, Darkest Dungeon, Kerbal Space Program <-- no longer an EA title, but was still very polished and fun when it released as one), but by and large, most of the early access games on Steam are just shitty, cynical cash grabs and it's a huge problem.

Jim Sterling's whole channel is pretty much him roasting "shovelware" games and shit talking the devs who put these steaming piles up for sale on Steam (and the Steam platform itself for allowing it).

The whole following video is golden, well worth the watch:



From Rule 3:
"Being in early access shouldn't mean you get to be shit and promise that maybe one day you'll be decent. You should already be good. If you're charging money for anything, you should already have a good product. Selling faith is for the priest, not the game developer. Too many alleged studios are using early access as a blank check to do whatever the fuck they like and damn the consequences."

From Rule 4:
"Understand that being in early access does not protect you from criticism..."

^and everything that comes after this part is 100% on point when it comes to SotA and the sham positive reviews based on what people think the game will be, not on what it currently is.... Also, it directly speaks to the common 'per-alfalfa' responses to criticism that are all too common from the SotA crowd.

Steam Early Access rules for developers:

The reason they had to shut that down was probably because they needed the increased income Steam would bring. The months prior to Steam, they were bringing in in the single digits per day. At least now, they bring in in the low double digits.

The sad thing for the deluded masses over there is that those negative reviews from Early Access are not (contrary to what they've stated over there) deleted upon full release of the game. The reviews continue to be calculated in the game's review score, they are simply marked that they were EA reviews. It may have been Spoon who stated otherwise over there some time ago and the faithful were satisfied with a completely untrue assertion.

If one needs evidence this is the case, one need only scroll back to pre-release of games that were formerly in EA such as Kerbal Space Program.

If you want a real easy way to verify my claim (I realize wading through Kerbal's reviews could take hours to get back to their launch date) one could simply go to Prison Architect's page and click on Negative in their review section. The first negative review up there is from their Early Access days. Its actually from May 1, 2014 and marked "Early Access Review". Prison Architect did not leave Early Access until a full year and a half after that review, September 15, 2015. Still, that review is listed and counted in their negative reviews.

Just figured I'd provide an easy to find example for those that might question the above statement and want to verify.

Even Batman: Arkham Knight, which was pulled from Steam for 3 months and re-released saw Valve leave every review from the initial release. The only slack they cut WB was marking the earlier review "pre-release review". All of those reviews continue to count against Batman: Arkham Knight's review score.

Edit: Last example I'll give, Darkest Dungeon released on Steam in February in Early Access. It left Early Access October 15, 2015. All of its more than 8200 reviews continue to count towards its review score. For those that might think that the reviews simply remain, yet aren't factored into the review score, I submit that the 7118 positive reviews divided by the 8203 total reviews does match the 86% review score the game has.

I believe someone may have given incorrect information back when myrcello made the thread about Steam reviews, but I could be wrong there. I know I've read on multiple occasions over there that reviews would either be wiped or removed from the total review score. Its simply false and if anyone bothered even checking rather than spouting off like a know it all, they'd see they are clearly wrong.

They are actually down to 70.38% positive on Steam. If they pull in 4 more negative reviews without taking on a positive one, they'll be down to Mixed review status, which can't be good for sales. Their most recent 7 reviews have all been negative. Like Myrcello said, the public perception is not good. There forums there are so convinced the game is a diamond in the rough, they rebuff almost all criticism as a collective.

Also, at 50% off, they've managed to pull in only 70 new pledges over the last 2 days. That is not satisfactory. This month is set to be the second lowest new pledge month since November of 2013, despite the help of two Steam 50% off sales and one Steam 66% off sale. It will also wind up being the 3rd lowest funding month this year, ahead of only June and barely ahead of April.

I would say something like Ark or H1Z1 are the holy grail of early access games. They've had staying power and they provide regular substantive updates for their user base. Day Z (though I love it so) is and has always been shoddy and broken. Mind you, I love its quirks. Its sales brought totaled nearly 60 million dollars last time I checked and none of that money has been reflected in development.

I have the same problem with early access games as you Myrc. I play them early in development, I enjoy what I play of them, yet when they release, I'm essentially done. I've moved on. My love affair with UO lasted about as long as yours as well. I played from 1997 to 2000 then every once in a while I'd resubscribe for a month for nostalgia. I'm not a huge WoW or MMO player, I can't spend years and years on a single game. I get tired of the same mechanics and same visuals day in and day out. Early Access is a problem, as you said, because the time I'm playing, I'm playing a half complete game.

I agree with basically everything you said there and I think for folks like us, Early Access, pre-alpha, etc. all pose a huge problem. You want to play these games when they are popular (and lets not deceive ourselves like the forums over there, games are immensely popular even in EA, look at Ark, Darkest Dungeon, H1Z1, Kerbal Space Program, Rust, Don't Starve, any number of EA games that have taken off and maintained their popularity through development) which happens to be during Early Access. So you buy in, then by the time release comes, if you waited to play, you are playing when everyone else is already done. If you played right away, you played an incomplete game.

Chop down the tree!



I think that the entry requirements need to be changed, not have it stopped all together. The entry requirements should forbid a "successfully" kickstarted game or a game from a studio that has already invested millions, or form a game studio with any outside funding above x dollars at all. This way there is potential for it to help true indi devs.

I dunno Dodgy, once you tend to have big bucks controlling everything it tends to squash everything out, both shit and non-shit. Just like Hollywood. I've seen and heard of some very cool ideas that aren't picked up by publishers, if something could help get those literally one man operation games out on the free market I don't think that is a bad thing.

Even if the game is shit, what happens, nobody buys it! I'd like the chance to brows 10,000 games for one I could really enjoy and decide rather than to be fed 10 a year by big publishers and just outright told that this thing is awesome when 9 out of 10 of them are shit to me lol.

I have been meaning to check out Stellaris.

In all fairness (and to take a bit of the sting out of that snarky Jimquisition video), here is a TotalBiscuit video on the topic that is a bit more level-headed and bears viewing. He mentions DayZ a few times, along with scores of other Early Access titles.



A quote that I find most interesting in light of Starr/Port's move to put a "DayZ"-like warning on their store page and stickied at the top of their Steam forum:


Now, that might seem like something in favor of Port. They are, after all, warning people on their store page that things are incomplete and the game is still in development. That's a good thing, right?

Well, it's important to bear in mind that Starr's "Steam Review Request" was made in February (2015). This happened after the game had already been for sale on steam for MONTHS (with Steam Greenlight happening in September/October of 2014). The disclaimer on the store page didn't come until FIVE MONTHS after the Steam Review Request. FIVE MONTHS!!!!!

It took them over half a year of pig-headed stubbornness, half a year of greedily "sitting the fence" and refusing to put a disclaimer on their store page about how unfinished their game was. In my eyes, that is one part ineptitude and two parts greed.

I believe they waited over half a year before throwing a disclaimer up on their game because they wanted to keep the polish on their turd (and obscure their game's unfinished state) and keep sales up for as long as possible. In my eyes, they only resorted to a disclaimer as the game started to approach 72% recommended/"mixed" review status.

Of course, the water-carrying sycophants were all too happy to fall all over themselves congratulating Port for their incredible transparency (both on the official forums and in comments responding to Starr's steam announcement). But, if they were so goddamned transparent, why were they riding the fence for all that time and begging their "LOYAL BACKERS" to post reviews to counter those pesky "unfair" negative reviews (the very same negative reviews that Starr refers to when he says "thank you all for the critical reviews provided to date" in his announcement post about the disclaimer)?

I'll tell you why: $$$

Finally, to come back full circle to the TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling videos, both videos were uploaded January, 2014 (almost a full year before Port even thought of selling Shroud on Steam). A FULL YEAR!

Yet, Port ignored the sage advice of the Jim Sterlings and TotalBiscuits of the interwebs. They ignored those of us who warned them releasing on Early Access so early was a bad idea (and who chastised them for attempting to negate the negative reviews). They sold the game on Steam anyway, with no disclaimer, for MONTHS, they sought to manipulate the reviews, and they only decided to stop sitting the fence (with regards to putting up a disclaimer) when their game's review score started to really suffer.

If they had bothered for five seconds to take their heads out of their asses and gauge the barometer of the marketplace and industry that they claim to know, they would clearly have realized that if they were going to release on Steam, they should have done so with a disclaimer on their store page from the start.

All of this, again, just showed me how inept and greedy they are and it really broke my faith in their judgment and my confidence that they could deliver on their promises. THEY ARE TOTALLY CLUELESS when it comes to understanding the marketplace and the broader gamer community. It's clear to me very, very few of those in upper management at Port are actual gamers.

They are like chefs who have never sampled a variety of fine cuisines. They think they know what tastes good, but if all you've ever stuffed into your gaping maw is big mac and fries from Mickey D's, you don't know shit...



TL;DR Fucking Port devs exist in a sycophantic feed-back loop of their own making and can't see the forest of reality because all the trees of their fawning, adoring fanboys obscure the truth.

/rant

It sunk like a rock, but now it's up to the top of the 8th page, at #71

Tree killer!