Has pre-access killed Starbound's possible success?

it doesn't matter - any of the last few pages. they want to. they saw it fit to invest money in the company in that way. end of story.

 

but didnt you just completely discount "telecommuting"?

 

I assumed you were asking for the data for both groups, regardless on their impact. Never consider that you've given too much, only that you've given too little.

 

TO ANSWER THE OP:

I think the answer to this is a big fat "maybe".

The problem is, quite simply put, people played a ton at first, and then played a lot less over time because it wasn't really worth playing Terraria in space more than once, if that. I'm not really planning on playing the game again until phase 3, when the quests are all in, and I think that's true of my friends as well - it just isn't worth doing, most likely.

But I really have no way of knowing when phase 3 will be, so I can't really say when I'll be coming back to the game. I don't see anything obvious on Steam talking about it, and I don't see any sort of timeline anywhere obviously accessible just googling/looking. I don't know if they HAVE a timeline (which is always a bad sign, but whatever).

If everyone started playing it all at once with the full version, more people would be retained. But the original version was pretty clumsy, and that may well have turned off a lot of people permanently, thinking the game is going to end up being nothing more than Terraria in space (nevermind the fact that it originally didn't do a very good job of explaining itself at all). And while Terraria was fun, we've all played it to death at this point, I think.

So maybe it will hurt them, because when it releases, a lot of people will be like "Meh, already did this," even if the game had significant improvements made. I know a lot of people basically think of Early Access as "I'm buying the game and playing it early". They don't see it as Beta testing, let alone alpha testing, because, well, people are taking money for it - they are selling the game, and working to update it, but the game has, for all intents and purposes, already been released.

And the customers aren't even wrong in their expectation, really. With Kickstarter, you know you're going to have to wait a while before you get anything - IF you get anything. But with Early Access, Steam is selling you a game you can actually play. You can't really pretend that it isn't. It is exactly the same as releasing a very buggy game, or a game with very limited features, and promising that more is coming soon. There's no functional difference between the two. And if this doesn't make you really feel too good about buying a game... well, buying an Early Access game is a bad idea.

I think once reviewers start reviewing Early Access games as actual products, and as people come to understand what it is they're getting into with them, the whole "Early Access" thing is going to seem a lot less attractive to a lot of people.

That being said, if they felt that they weren't going to be able to make the game without the extra cash infusion, they made the right choice, as the choice between "bad game" and "no game" isn't a hard one for an indie studio, who have no reputation to worry about before they've made something.

 

I don't think it'll make too much difference to be honest. I can only speak for myself of course, but I'm holding off for the next update at the moment. Once things like Outposts and the quest system get added, I'm sure quite a people will start playing again.

 

nah. tried it. you REALLY go through your energy with 2. i like to maintain a reserve for tech use. i can kill a mini-boss without cheesing it using only 1 so im happy with that. besides, i like to lob them at mobs as i fly overhead! hehe.

come on D. why do you have to argue with everyone for multiple pages in every damn thread? its getting old fast! go to therapy already.

 

As a game dev student, I can't stress enough that play-testing and getting feedback on a game in development is really important in order to make sure that it is good. So in that sense, I don't think Early Access will hurt Starbound in any way. If they can get feedback to make the game more awesome, and then launch a PR campaign when the game is finally released, I think Early Access actually might've helped them instead

And even if people stop playing this game because they don't like the unfinished product, I'm sure some of them will come back eventually and notice that this game has improved since they last played it (I only bought this game a few days ago so I can't compare in that regard)

 

That's really how it should be. Not because Early Access is bad, per say, but because Early Access requires a very different set of interests from that of the average consumer.
Interests in the game development process, or akin to the folks that make game mods, or who want to see a particular concept project in the market; not the masses who are just looking for something to play.

 

Community hounds devs for a beta
devs release beta to calm the community
community enjoys beta for short period
community then complains that there's not enough content and game is developing slow
community realizes it would have been better to wait longer...

I find this whole thread amusing.

 

Patched that up there for ya. I call it version koolaid koala. Did some bugfixes and other stuff.
Cya in 2 weeks.

 

Oooooh whoops!
I still don't know about that. I believe only time will tell.

 

lol, people arguing semantics like it matters

 

in conclusion

 

Personally? No

In this case Chuclefish was very direct about what we are getting and I think the majority of people either didn't read up on that or purposefully ignore it. A quick look at many threads show that a large amount of players suggest things already in the works or confirmed. The sheer number of threads complaining about save wipes when they happened showed many didn't know one of the major do nots of this stage.

People over hyping the game and not researching the info or ignoring it, are the big problems for Starbound early access. Critiquing the game as though it is a complete offering doesn't help all that much either

 

I have it, bbut I never play it, I bought it to support the devs, and I'll play the game in the last phase of beta, or on release.

 

Hell no.
Pre-acces did only two things. It allowed devs to gather more money and to spread the word (attract people).
Personally I like this game even at the current stage.

In worst case...Infamy is even better than fame.
People will worship this game on release, when they see how much it changed evolved.

 

To be fair, I was given the game as a gift. I think my friend had some kind of bundle thing going and he let me have one of them. I felt a little left out cause we'd been playing terraria, starbound rolled along and he stopped hosting the multiplayer server for me. I wanted to do what he was doing, and then another of my friends told me how they had all of the ore and bars maxed out and I wanted to do that. Got my character wiped, tried again.

To be completely fair there is only one thing that greatly disappointed me. When they said characters wouldn't be wiped anymore, that was almost a green light for players to start investing time in the game. At least, for me it was. Having no experience with open access in the past I didn't realize there was a whole lot of things ready to be taken away, changed, cut, mixed around etc. I will not be participating in an open access game again, even if it is a gift, unless the developers of said game are taking 100% of the player's suggestions and ideas and feedback into account. I thought CF was doing that, came to realize while they're really good about that, that they're really not paying attention all that much, and....I feel kind of like 'why did I even start playing this game?'

It's sort of like opening your present early to realize you only have 1/4th a present.

 

So many experts on workforce management and game development......This place is impressive.

I do find it odd we have so many people in the "industry" yet no mention of a game they have developed or workforce they manage.

in grandma's basement:

Nameless game developer/workforce (NGD/WFM) poring over "code", with python for dummies opened to page 112 - Arrays - on desk. work continues on epic text based tic tac toe game. NGD/WFM pauses to post guidance on SB forums on how CF should run their biz, and how dangling integers compromise dev cycles. Grandma calls down to offer lemonade and cookies.

This is the scenario most people will think of without giving some real world experience...no one is going to take business tips or development tips for anonymous sources for all we know the above scenario fits.

Cheers

 

While I understand that position, it's not entirely relevant, especially when the job isn't the prospective point of the argument. Well, at least in regard to my post. My experience or lack thereof isn't a necessity and was more a point of reference. I'd say the more important thing is to provide a substantial exterior source, such as a journal or report, for people to judge objectively. I mean any folks could claim to be somebody, but opening that information up leaves place to scrutiny, if it's false, or Internet fraud, if it's true.

 

Success is relative to the person interpreting the world.

4 million dollars in sales (based off of the ticker on the official page) is already a success in my book, especially with no overhead. That's without the game being released also. In my eyes the game has already been a success.

After the game has become what it's meant to become we'll see what the rest brings, but Chucklefish has the capital for a bright future at the moment.