H Valve αποφάσισε να γίνει πιο αυστηρή σχετικά με τους τίτλους που κυκλοφορούν μέσω Steam Early Access, μετά από παράπονα παικτών για μη-αποδεκτή ποιότητα και έλλειψη updates μετά την κυκλοφορία σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις.
Μπορεί το Steam Early Access να μας έχει δώσει πολλούς και καλούς τίτλους όμως υπήρξαν και περιπτώσεις όπως το Earth: Year 2066 το οποίο αφού κρίθηκε ακατάλληλο προς κυκλοφορία, “κατέβηκε” από τους servers της Valve και όσοι το είχαν αγοράσει αποζημιώθηκαν πλήρως. Παρόμοια ιστορία είχαμε και για τη Double Fine και το Spacebase DF-9, το οποίο αφού κυκλοφόρησε μέσω Early Access, η εταιρεία ανακοίνωσε ότι σταματά την ανάπτυξή του και προκειμένου να αποζημιώσει τους παίκτες που είχαν πληρώσει, τους έδωσε δωρεάν το Hack ‘N’ Slash.
Παρακάτω μπορείτε να δείτε τις νέες οδηγίες που έδωσε η Valve στους developers:
- Don’t launch in Early Access if you can’t afford to develop with very few or no sales.
- There is no guarantee that your game will sell as many units as you anticipate. If you are counting on selling a specific number of units to survive and complete your game, then you need to think carefully about what it would mean for you or your team if you don’t sell that many units. Are you willing to continue developing the game without any sales? Are you willing to seek other forms of investment?
- Make sure you set expectations properly everywhere you talk about your game.
- For example, if you know your updates during Early Access will break save files or make the customer start over with building something, make sure you say that up front. And say this everywhere you sell your Steam keys.
- Don’t launch in Early Access without a playable game.
- If you have a tech demo, but not much gameplay yet, then it’s probably too early to launch in Early Access. If you are trying to test out a concept and haven’t yet figured out what players are going to do in your game that makes it fun, then it’s probably too early. You might want to start by giving out keys to select fans and getting input from a smaller and focused group of users before you post your title to Early Access. At a bare minimum, you will need a video that shows in-game gameplay of what it looks like to play the game. Even if you are asking customers for feedback on changing the gameplay, customers need something to start with in order to give informed feedback and suggestions.
- Don’t launch in Early Access if you are done with development.
- If you have all your gameplay defined already and are just looking for final bug testing, then Early Access isn’t the right place for that. You’ll probably just want to send out some keys to fans or do more internal playtesting. Early Access is intended as a place where customers can have impact on the game.
