I'm pretty sure you're threatening him with a good time.

His affinity for homoeroticism and drag is even stronger than your average manosphere chud.

Oh, for sure. I forgot that was even him. In twenty or thirty years, this useful meme template will be the entirety of his legacy. I find that funny, so I'll continue using the template.

Actually gotten good recently.

With my penis.

It has DLC?

Ya know, Calvin really has more in common with Crowder than you might think.

They obviously both childish. They're fundamentally selfish beings. They have incredibly vivid imaginations, but they only ever use them to amuse themselves and reinforce their delusion that they're the most important person. They believe themselves to be rebels against a banal and suffocating system, but in reality they're just irritating little shits, constantly acting upon every rogue impulse of their raging ego and id, with no regard for how they're making life hard for the people who have to live near them.

Yeah. It's a shame we still use this asshole for these meme templates out of habit, but he is definitely not ok.

If that was strictly true, I would agree, and I wouldn't bother talking about it.

But it's NOT strictly true. There are Early Access developers who actually use the model to get funds for developing games, within reasonable timescales, and without doing exploitative shit.

It's important for Early Access to exist, because it's a way for independent developers to exist, completely outside of any big business control. A truly independent developer never has to deal with corporate jackals, breathing down their necks, demanding that they add more microtransactions and gambling into the game. They can make games that are truly outside the mainstream genres, without having to justify themselves to traditional investors.

These are GOOD THINGS. If I truly believed every single Early Access developer was just a scammer, I wouldn't bother saying any of this. I think Valve needs to get a handle on the system, rather than just letting it twist in the wind, the way they have been. There needs to be a time limit, before a game has to either be released, or else be cut off from further Early Access sales. They need to disallow DLC and other forms of microtransactions, within Early Access games. They need to establish rules about Early Access developers having connections with outside investors, and what exactly would be considered acceptable, within the system.

The developers who use the Early Access program the way it's supposed to be used are not making massive profits from it. They are paying for the up-front development costs of a game, and hoping that it will turn out to be a big enough success that it will continue to be profitable, after development is complete.

When people do annoying, scam-adjacent shit like selling DLC content for an Early Access game, it fuels opinions like yours. It makes people throw their hands up and say "Early Access is all a scam." And that fucking sucks. Because if it goes away, there's no alternative but for indie developers to sign up with traditional corporate psychos, who always try to make games worse.

There have been many truly amazing early access games though that might not have been made without it (rimworld, factorio, etc)

Nah there are actually good early access game (Palworld, and predecessor come to mind although predecessor is f2p) but one should use caution when buying Early access games

Same for Wube and Factorio, and Re-Logic and Terraria. I think we're on the 8th "final patch" for Terraria.

I'm so hyped for the new stardew valley update. I'll absolutely be buying the haunted chocalatier as well.

I often play a game called Sailwind. Very relaxing, but impressively deep sailing sim. It's been early access for a couple of years, but the (solo-)dev is active, new features are added all the time. If he would release a paid, cosmetic dlc: I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I think it would be nicer than to "get him a coffee" or sub to his patreon.

What I'm trying to say is: not all early access is bad, not all paid dlc is plain greed. And the combo is not necessarily toxic.

Who is it?

I used to be vehemently against EA games but there are some good ones. Project Zombiod for one. But a big part of the fun of that game is modding it. And the mod scene is expansive and quality, but I understand lots of people not wanting to mod games.

What pisses me off more is "Released" games like RimWorld that are broken as vanilla and require modding to work properly. That shit needs to stay in EA.

Like I said before, I forgot who that dipshit even was, especially since the template for the meme is so incredibly low-resolution. Hilariously, his actual dipshit sign looked so stupid that I thought it was a fake, when I saw it in the image search, when I went to get the blank one.

He's a fucking clown, beyond all description.

Found it on the Internet

Who is that? I dunno if I've ever seen the original and don't recognize the person

So they'll have to avoid games based on what people say about them, and nobody will be able to hide behind the excuse of "but it's still in Early Access, maaaan."

Steam's refund system is really good. I say get rid of Early Access and let every game stand on an absolutely equal footing, with no excuses anywhere in sight, for anybody. No privileged "oooh, but you don't get to judge this game yet" roped-off section for people to play shell-games with.

Start selling your game any time you want, in any state you want. But beware the wrath of the consumer. That's fair.

EDIT: I realize this could seemingly contradict another comment I just made, where I defended the Early Access program, as a vital means of securing funds for independent developers. To be clear, I think that the function of Early Access should essentially remain, but not be labeled, in any default way.

I think all the games should be on the store, all the time, any time. And it should be up to each developer to make their case, on their own, as to why the customer should be willing to spend money on their product.

Don't call it stillborn, call it vaporware.

Fuck that. Why is that acceptable? A soundtrack is a basic part of a game. You're so used to paying for extra shit that you forgot that options like those are part of the game that you paid for from non bullshit companies.

YES! That's maybe the most important point I could make, but I forgot to make it.

horse armor made more money than starcraft 2 expansion. Thus was the beginning of shit DLC cash grabs

The most annoying thing about that aspect of the phenomenon is how it's based completely and entirely on a false premise. When you do some crazy new shit and it takes off like gangbusters, you CAN'T JUST ASSUME THAT IT'S GOING TO BE POPULAR FOREVER.

Sometimes, a new product or service is immediately popular because it's genuinely a hot seller. The day hotcakes were invented, people probably said they were selling like blowjobs. Then they somehow sold even better than blowjobs, so they became the new idiom. But the thing is, that's not a guaranteed thing, for every product, and you shouldn't base the future of your industry on your bullshit assumptions.

The goddamned horse armor sold like crazy because it was a new thing. The potential market for $2.50 worth of micro-content was beyond wide open. Huge numbers of people were ready to go "LOL, I'LL BUY THAT INSTEAD OF A CRUNCHWRAP SUPREME." That should NOT have been an indicator of further success, in and of itself. But big business motherfuckers don't want to use actual logic, or even real intuition. They just said to themselves "I really want this to be the new easy way of printing money," and so they have spent all the following years FORCING that paradigm into existence.

But I think it's a false paradigm. Nobody talks about the money that's being left on the table, when such a huge percentage of the industry has been given over to microtransaction-based nonsense. The Battle Royale, MOBA, and Hero Shooter genres are as saturated as they're going to be. What about people (like myself, for instance) who play absolutely none of those games?

I've never played them. I'm never going to play them. I'm not even refraining from playing them because I hate microtransactions. I just dislike them, as genres. They're not my cup of tea. I play mostly play a mixture of sandbox games, RPGs, single-player action and shooter games, strategy games, and VR games, as well as a few survival/crafting/fighting games, like Terraria/Starbound.

I'm not alone. There are other people like me, who always want more intentional, in-depth content. If anybody doubts the possibility for better games to make money, you only need to look at Baldur's Gate 3. That game has made shitloads of money. Money that corporate advocates of the "we can just print money with skins and stickers" philosophy can never have access to, unless they also pry open their wallets, and invest in real content.

war thunder, destiny 2, what other games are there for the sole purpose of milking multiple payments of money out of people over a long period of time

gta 5 online probably counts too

Nah, they'd just call it finished and do the same thing.

But the post isn't negging on Early Access in general, it's pointing out that Early Access games shouldn't have DLC, and I agree. It's Early Access, which means it's unfinished. Why the hell is there paid DLC content? That's essentially expansion content without even finishing and releasing the game.

Honestly it's ridiculous, as even "full release" 1.0 games tend to be unfinished messes until six months after release these days.

Exactly. I don't know how a lot of these people have opinions that are so wildly different from this.

When you have people paying you for a game that isn't finished yet, you're making a compact with them. If you take it seriously, you should be saying "I acknowledge that you people have given me the entire purchase price of this software, even though it is absolutely not finished. Every day that I spend working on this software, from then on, is OWED TO YOU PEOPLE. I will not consider a single moment of my time to truly be my own, until I have paid off that debt, and released a fully featured, complete product, as quickly as possible."

If you aren't comfortable with that situation, you shouldn't enter the Early Access program. It's not for profiteering. It's also not for weak people. If you don't absolutely KNOW that you have the ability to pay off the debt you have incurred, you shouldn't take on that debt. Nobody is forced to take on that debt. If you want to spend forever and a day making your game as a little hobby project, you can do it without a shitload of other people's money lying around in your bank account.

And if you want to make microtransaction money, you CERTAINLY shouldn't be doing it on other people's investments. Not unless they're going to get that money back, with an added return.

ADHD?

Obviously, yes. I feel seen.

Offhand, I know ARK released paid DLC while still in early access.

Star Citezen, right?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1604030/V_Rising/

I guess you could define the DLC for this game as "microtransactions," because it's basically alternate cosmetic stuff, for equipment and housing decorations. But it's sold under the label of "DLC," and I don't care to make a distinction between "microtransactions" and "DLC," myself. One is a subset of the other.

If they have time to be making decorative extra shit, they should be spending that time working on the core game, which IS NOT FINISHED YET.

As I mentioned to someone else, that's a shame. The only alternative to Early Access = developers having to go hat-in-hand, begging for up-front investments from heartless corporations. They increasingly won't fund anything that isn't fit to be saddled with a games-as-a-service price-gouging model.

When Early Access is abused, it's destroying that necessary system for all of us, developers and consumers alike. If you want games that aren't 100 percent mainstream, money-sucking garbage, you should want Early Access to stick around. That's why I think it should, ya know, suck less, and NOT be abused.

That would also be a good option, to reduce some of the problems involved in the category.

What do you imagine would replace Steam/Valve? The Magical Post-Capitalist Game Fairy, who distributes games for free, for no reason?

Do you remember who used to distribute games? Walmart. And Best Buy. And CompUSA. And Circuit City. And Target. And GameStop. And Electronic Boutique. Ya know, retailers.

I deliberately peppered that list with names that most people hate AND names that many people associate with good feelings of nostalgia, or mixed feelings at least. But that's the reality of retail. Capitalism sucks. It literally sucks. It sucks money out of everyone, for itself.

Steam was and is the disruption that you're talking about. Steam disrupted a broken and destructive brick-and-mortar sales mode. If the catalog of products available on Steam had to be sold in physical stores, only about the top 2-5 percent of the currently available catalog would be physically able to be sold. THAT WAS, AND REMAINS, THE MASSIVE DISRUPTION TO THE OLD SYSTEM.

You're talking about disrupting the disruption. Maybe you're talking about some kind of nonsense universe, where everyone distributes open source games for free, maaaaan. Or maybe you think the developers should still get money, but the distribution system should be run as...a charity, I guess? Just, because someone feels like spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a bulletproof, entirely secure, worldwide system of game distribution and sales....for free?

Like I said, that would be some kind of Magical Post-Capitalist Game Fairy. If anyone tells you they are willing to do that shit, I guarantee there is a catch. They'll be getting something that they want, somehow. If they're taking a 30 percent cut of the money, I know that's the catch. If they're supposedly doing everything for free, out of the goodness of their own charitable hearts, I don't know what their angle is, but I know it can't be good.

I can't understand the hate for Steam/Valve taking 30 percent. Back in the day, when people were forced to rely on traditional brick-and-mortar sales models, developers could consider themselves lucky if they got the 30 percent. When publishers, disc/disk manufacturers, box printers, shippers, and retailers finally got done taking all their cuts, it could amount to more than 70 percent. Easily. The lowly creator of the software was an afterthought, in the payment pecking order.

But noooooo, Valve is eeeevil incarnate, because they take 30 fucking percent. Fuck that. 30 percent is reasonable. And what do they do with that money? Does Gaben flaunt his private jet travel and buy sketchy islands, like a some billionaires? Nah. They pump the money back into weird, tech-focused projects. Modern VR would be ENTIRELY under the control of FACEBOOK AND APPLE, if it wasn't for Valve spending their money stash on the SteamVR systems.

I know I sound like a fanboy. It's not even REALLY about any of the stuff I've said, so far. The biggest reason why it's okay for Valve to take 30 percent is to insure that Steam will always exist, and always be thriving, barring a vast and all-encompassing planet-wide economic catastrophe. Nobody has to worry about their Steam library suddenly vanishing. People might be tempted to praise alternative distributors, like Itch.io, because they take only a 10 percent cut. But you only have to look at their website to realize they're incredibly fragile, by comparison. I don't know if Itch.io will still be around in ten years, twenty years, certainly not thirty years. Steam WILL be around in fifty years, when I'm an old, old man. I'd be SHOCKED if it wasn't around a century from now.

That kind of guaranteed future costs money. That is a stone cold fact, whether you like it or not.

EDIT: I just looked it up, and it seems that Gaben does indeed own an island. Pfft. Whatever. I still don't begrudge Valve existing, exactly the way it exists. If Valve hadn't built Steam, we'd be living in a universe where Google/Alphabet handled the lion's share of PC game distribution. Wouldn't THAT be lovely for everyone?

EDIT 2: the article that I found, implying that Gaben owns an island, appears to be satire. LOL.

Any transaction through steam as far as I understand it.

Nah. Not acceptable. That's not the case, here. People had already bought the game, in Early Access, before they started selling this extra shit.

They're betraying the original investors with this shit. It's fucked up.

EDIT: I just checked the dates, and only one of the three DLC packs has been added after the game began its Early Access phase. I guess that's something. At least you'd know the DLC was going on, right when they started to sell the game. It still shouldn't be allowed. Early Access should be a privilege, specifically for developers who intend to be respectful of their users.

I think they're talking about emperyon galactic survival. They never finished the game, but took it out of EA, and now they just sold a story based DLC when the main game doesn't even have its story completed yet...

ARK has a whole ass sequel and the base game is STILL horribly unoptimized AFAIK. To be fair, I’m on linux, but that’s hardly an excuse when like 95% of other titles work just fine!

What kind of PC are you running, a 286 Compaq from the early 90s?