You're severely misinformed.
) So far, my experience with the platform has been pretty positive.
Not exactly. When you buy an early access game on Steam, you are owed the finished product as advertised. You are buying the finished game, with the ability to play it as it develops. The developers are still earning money from making a finished game, with the difference that they can make some sales earlier instead of later. Abandoning your game before it's finished would mean you have to refund everyone.
You act like they're forcing people to buy it or give feedback. This may be a shock to you, but many people like playing early access games. And some even like giving feedback to a game that they want to see improved. Isn't that crazy?
Here we're back to your misunderstanding of what buying an early access game means. How is buying a game a donation? By that logic, preordering is even more of a donation, because you don't even get to play anything in return until the game's done!
It does? Can you point to actual cases of this? I could spin that logic right around and say that people buying their game puts even more pressure on them to finish it and meet expectations. Without early access or preorders, they aren't being held accountable by thousands or millions of customers.
Your theory stinks. Developers don't make money by doing nothing. The longer a game spends in development, the more money it costs. Where do you think the money is coming from for these employees to get paid? That money is finite, and if they take 5 years to make the game, they're going to tap it dry and possibly get into serious debt if they don't finish the game and have to refund all sales. There is zero incentive to "sit on their asses." You act like they can stay in early access for as long as they want and continue to get a steady rate of purchases while doing absolutely nothing. It does not work that way. Like I said before, show me a game studio that has actually done this that didn't turn out to be an obvious fraud in which the studio lost big time in the end. You're making these criticisms that have no basis either in reality or logic.
Way to completely abandon your other points and hop onto a completely new one.
Gosh, you sure know a lot about what the game is going to be like when it's done! Are you from the future?
And I said earlier, yes there is a limitation, and it's money. They have to eventually finish the game. If they do not, they lose everything. If they do, then what's the problem? So people had to wait longer than they expected. Yeah it sucks, but at least they got what they paid for. And now the developer has a shitty reputation. In the end, they don't end up with more money than they would have if they had released the game quicker. The ratio of income to expenses can invert pretty quickly after the initial hype is gone. And any sales they make during early access means less sales when it's released (and the early access price is usually less, so that's less money for them).
I think you're oversimplifying it. WarZ called their game finished too, but it failed to deliver features that were written on the product page. So you're dead wrong on that, there is a regulatory system in place. Steam removed the game because it did not deliver what was described. Steam has standards. I don't know why you think it doesn't. This is not a matter of "is the game done? okay, you're good to go!" People tend to buy into early access games based on promised features. If not every one of those features are implemented and working, you can get a refund through Steam. Can't say the same for anything outside of Steam, but if you're buying early access games outside of Steam, one should be wary of shitty developers. Due diligence and all.
The business plan "Early Access" is basically just a pre-order that gives you access to the alpha/beta, so your free to play format isn't the 'official' idea of Early Access. If the servers are going to be a drain on your personal funds, I would suggest at least some form of income from the game. You could take the Early Access rout, or you could whore some space out for advertisements. If you do take the advertisements, I personally* think optional ads would be the best; so any beta tester would have the opportunity to view an ad in exchange for some in-game currency or something.
What does it matter if Breaking Point is in alpha? It's completely irrelevant to my point, which you missed. I was pointing out that your comparison between DayZ and BP was meaningless because your only basis is that BP happens to currently be a more complete experience than DayZ. That's great that they're still working on it, but they still can't address any of the major roadblocks I pointed out. And you can't address those either, because you argue like a 12 year old with ADD.
