Nowadays? Not a chance. Preorders nowadays seem to be more of a incentive to allow a studio to just not have a decent final product because people have already bought in.
What about Early Access Games?
If I really like the concept, yes.
Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
Early access is not pre-ordering, and as such is treated extremely differently. Preordering tells me that the product will be finished on release, EA means that it’s going to need a lot of work for a finished product.
If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
I am extremly open to EA as it helps studios develop a product that otherwise may not be able to be created. Actual preordering is a strict closed door, there is very little reason in the digital world we live in to preorder a game.
How do you decide if a game qualifies?
I more likely will buy an early access game if I can open the page and not see:
Major blockers:
Lack of Linux support or compatibility
Reviews talking about the game being dead
Reviews talking about how the developer ignores the community
Update history either showing no changes or minor changes stretching back for a few months(the longer the gap the less likely I am to support the studio)
Opening the developer page and seeing they are actively working on a different game. (this is an instant deal breaker)
Minor Blockers
Developer responses in community pages saying “for support go to external site” usually discord. If you don’t want to support your game on the storefront, don’t use the storefront.
Update logs saying that they are actively working on DLC for their early access game. (free DLC gets a partial pass… but paid DLC for an Early Access game is a huge red flag for me)
No developer interactions in the community forums or an un-moderated community forum.
Toxic community in discussion forums or support channels (I understand this is out of the devs control at times but it still dissuades me from wanting to spend money on the games)
I just played it, it was super cool concept! I died due to cold but, the enviroment felt really good. I spent most of the time just aimlessly wandering. My only complaint was that the game bogged itself down when toggling the lantern on and off but thats probally an issue on my end! Tell them well done for me 😸
Honestly, the only one I’m really looking at is Ranch Sim because it’s down to like 2.50, none of the other ones really look all that attractive, to be honest.
Kicking myself for buying Icarus when it was $20 because it’s now 3.50
I wonder why companies do this? does it actually make it get done faster? Last I knew most workers were only efficient at their job for like the first 5 or 6 hours if that, spending an extra 8 ontop of it sounds like a waste of salary.
omg yes, I loved when games gave a replay stories or replay core concepts section of the menu, it’s not that hard to add but it lets you recap as well!
unpausable cutscenes. Nothing bugs me more than getting interrupted in the middle of a cutscene and not being able to press escape to pause the cutscene. You’re forced to try to split your attention between what interrupted you and the cutscene or restart and see the cutscene from the beginning again.
Extra annoyance points if escape immediately skips the cutscene without any indication it’s going to.
I saw a lot of Silksong and peak; BF6, blue prince, nightrein and there was a passing glance at split fiction I also had 1 creator I follow play death stranding 2 and KD2 one just started e33 last week so I been watching that. The rest fell out of my circle of 40 or 50 streamers.
Note: I technically saw at least 4 people playing silent hill F but didn’t count it as I never saw anyone stream it that wasn’t sponsored so I didn’t feel it was a good representation if it
I decided to go through and mark what I didn’t see
Dk bomanza (surprisingly as many were Nintendo fans)
.Indiana jones
ghost of yotai (surprising because I watch a few souls streamers)
hades 2
ninja gaiden 4
sinobi art of vengence
Lego voyagers
sonic racing
all the fighter category
all the vr category
abaolum
all the mobile games (makes sense)
ff14 dawntrail
avowed
f1 25
tempest rising
ff tactics (probally cause port)
two point museum
all the impact category
So looking back, I guess I did see a few of them more than I thought I had, but there was still a good chunk that just never appeared on the creators I followed.
the nominations for most things this year was fairly disappointing. I hadent heard of any of the events, and the content creator one I didn’t watch and only knew of one by name,
I pegged myself as a fairly casual gamer and I do a lot of stream watching but, a good chunk of the games nominated I had never seen or never saw anyone streaming, many I had never heard of. It was surprising since most of my entertainment is via watching people play games or by gaming myself.
My only thing with this is the claim is a glass cannon if its true. If no company resources were given out in this ordeal, if I was one of the 40 employees involved I would be leaking the forum messages publicly to show how there wasn’t any inside information involved. Make the entire case fall apart because if it’s shown no public info was involved, the claim it wasn’t over unionization becomes harder to fight. But I guess that is a better situation for in a court scenario.
payday still exists? I haven’t heard of the game in years. I’m surprised they even attempted this as a whole because it sounds like it’s only going to piss off their remaining userbase.
BEING SAID, I think their main issue here isn’t the fact that the price went up in the first place, it’s that they decided to make it almost 25% more as the increase after having it be ~52% off for ages. This rollup should have defo been more gradual if they wanted people to not be pissed about that. An instant 50$ increase in price is a tough amount to swallow for a 12 year old game, regardless of if DLC is involved, even moreso when it boosts the price to $170