KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Yesterday a Steam Early Access title had to be booted off of steam, which raised some valid worries about how Greenlight and Early Access are run. Today we have more cause to not trust the Greenlight or Early Access programmes as the developers behind Towns have abandoned the project completely.
Towns was Greenlit on Steam over a year ago but trouble started brewing this year when the main developer left in February claiming that he was “burned out”, after that, Florian Frankenberger took over the project but it seems that the game isn't selling well enough to justify the amount of work he is putting in to it.
It's not entirely Frankenberger's fault, he was told that the game would sell a certain amount of copies per month, which would keep him going but it seems the actual sales figures amounted to a lot less:
“When I signed up for working on Towns I was told that we sell a minimum of about x copies/month of the game. I agreed to work on Towns for 15 per cent of what would remain after removing all the taxes and the Steam fee. Sales are going down rapidly. So we are now selling less than a third of the x copies a month, losing about 33 per cent of sales per month. I can't work for that little amount. I have to pay for the rent and food and this doesn't really suffice for any of it.”
“I hope you are not too disappointed. And if you are: I'm really sorry. I'm quite new to indie game dev and I couldn't really see that the game sales were declining that rapidly. I guess if I had more experience I would have seen it coming …”
The game is no longer in Early Access but the unfinished game will continue to be sold on the Steam store for £9.99. Although, I don't see why someone would want to buy a game that both of its developers abandoned.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Early Access isn't a good programme, it's far too easy for developers to release sub-par games only to get lazy or stop working on them shortly after. Lets open this up for discussion again, what do you guys think of the Early Access programme? Do you think Steam should continue to become an open store where anyone can publish or should Valve be implementing some quality control?
Source: MCV
If i purchase a new build house that’s still in development, I wouldn’t expect to be handed the keys with no roof.
Its unfinished and therefore everyone who purchased it should be given a full refund. No arguments.
Wrong, Daz. The buyers bought the house knowing there is no roof. That’s a difference. Early access is a method to support the developers to finish the game, well knowing that it might not turn out the way they want it to be – or not att all.
I agree with daz. On top of that: as the quote says, he was not experienced enough to see this coming, which should lead to a logical conclusion as to not allow greenlight games to be put up for early access. Conpanies who need to have their games greenlit are those who do not have the funds to risk a creation like that, usually meaning that they did not release a (successful enough) game to be called experienced. Other companies should still be allowed to have early access games available, although the discussion of whether that is a good business plan altogether is a completely different one.
Guys people should know the risk. They didn’t pre-order the game, they bought into the early-access. So as Jad said, they bought it knowing that it had no roof.
Yes you would expect it to get finished, but it’s a risk you are taking when backing early-access.
But with Alpha/Early Access that is the risk you take for getting potentially a cheaper copy of the game. When you click that buy button you accept that the games state (as of purchase) is incomplete and missing functions – the only difference is that it can improve and potentially complete while awarding you a full copy for sticking with them through thick n thin
I really myself enjoyed towns as a concept and I am sad that this has occurred but I am not butthurt because of the price I paid for towns. That and even in its unfinished state is still quite playable.