Starbound

[Prpl_Mage]

It's not Terraria but apparently Starbound seem to be close to release. And I lied, it is pretty much terraria

[Archem]

On top of that, you kind of lied twice. It's available for purchase on Steam right now, and loots of my friends are playing it.

I'm not. Money is tight this time of year (A.K.A. post-Steam Sale).

[Prpl_Mage]

Oh I thought it was like an early access / beta thing. Or stuff. But yeah, not really expensive but expensive enough before christmas

[SaiKar]

No, you're right - it IS early access right now.

I've heard a few things from friends, but they can be roughly summed up with this comment: "Starbound is a good game. Wait to buy and play it until they release it. It's a rough early release."

[Archem]

Well, yes, it is early access, but it's akin to MineCraft's beta stages. Anyone can buy and play it right now as if it were a finished product, except it's being treated as a beta product.

Honestly, I don't like that this is becoming commonplace. A beta is for testing, a price tag is for finished products.

[SaiKar]

I too am disturbed. While I guess it's good for smaller devs to get moving, honestly it feels like I'm buying a game that won't feel finished for a year, or more, or ever. Where's the incentive to finish when you've sold your game to everyone and made your money?

I'm at the point in my life where I want to pay a fair, full price for something polished and good. There are many, many more games than I have time to play. I don't need to get a discount to play something rough and buggy.

[Archem]

At least they have the integrity to call it a pre-release build. Indie devs tend to be up-front about that (and typically get off for having a smaller budget) compared to big publishing houses. We're all familiar with games and consoles having the rockiest of starts being the norm these days. Patches and failures galore.

[Cerebus]

Is the game actually discounted at least? Most games will have a slashed price next to its current one, telling that you do buy the game discounted since it's not a finished product. This one only has one price.

And yeah, it's starting to get a little too common, nowadays. I suppose its better for smaller developers who can't pay for QA. Personally, I don't totally mind if the discount is reasonable and the game interests me, and even better if they offer something "unique" when you purchase it, but it's lost the "special offer" side of it now that so many newer games and most likely a lot more to come offer it.

[Archem]

A discounted price does act as a good incentive to buy in early, and makes bugs and errors easy to swallow. It's still releasing an unfinished product for a price, but it's cheaper and up-front about the unfinished status, acting as a special deal for those who want the game, want to see how it's doing despite not being done, and don't mind testing to help make it better.

Starbound does not have a discounted price.

[SaiKar]

Starbound is 15 bucks. Terraria was 10 even in its hayday and went on sale 50% and 75% off frequently. I got for 2.50.

I'm passing on Starbound until it's either more finished or cheaper price.

[Prpl_Mage]

At least they have the integrity to call it a pre-release build. Indie devs tend to be up-front about that (and typically get off for having a smaller budget) compared to big publishing houses. We're all familiar with games and consoles having the rockiest of starts being the norm these days. Patches and failures galore.

And this can be a huge problem. I remember the tales of this one game that was released on steam, it wasn't completely clear about how unfinished it was. So people bought it and got a product that was near impossible to play. And in the end the game never really did finish because the money they made wasn't enough to fix all the stuff. And this wasn't just 15 bucks, it was like 25-30

And like Sai, I'll probably wait. For pretty much the same reasons.

[Cerebus]

I know that WarZ (now called Infestation: Survivor Story) had similar issues, although they didn't not finish due to lack of money. Devs are a bunch of incompetents, though.
Valve even refunded the game for some players, something they apparently never did (or very rarely), just to give an idea of how bad the whole thing was.

And yeah, same about Starbound. I'm not paying full price for an unfinished product.

[Archem]

Planetary Annihilation is going in reverse, debuting at $90 for the early access game and slowly dropping to its current price of $60 (still early access). It's kind of crazy to see what some people think will make money (be it an act of desperation or greed).

[Cerebus]

So you can pay more to test a game whereas other people actually get paid for it. Nice.

[Felix-0]

Yea not getting starbound. It looks shiny, but I already have minecraft and terraria.