Manor Lords' publisher has hit back at claims the game is an "interesting case study in the pitfalls of early access", …
This really does not sound healthy. The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
But by now gamers have been so trained to expect to endless content treadmills and all their ilk like mtx and battle passes that publishers/developers get egged on if they don’t work on their game 24/7 and forever.
There used to be an unspoken contract with game developers and gamers:
“I’ll release a finished game that you will never need to talk to me again if you don’t want to, and you can play it on any offline computer that meets the minimum specs. You will pay $X one-time for this and expect $0 spent on this game ever again”
“I may release an expansion pack for this game at some point in the future. It will usually cost 10% to 30% of what you paid for the original game. You are NOT required to buy this. If you like the original game the way it is, keep playing it that way. If you are a new player, you will have to buy the base game and then the expansion pack to play expansion pack content”
“I may, in the future, release a stand-alone sequel to the game. This game will have the same themes as the original, but I will increase the quality of the graphics/length of story/sound. You will NOT be required to buy the original game or the expansion packs to play this game. You will pay full price for this finished game”
Somewhere that evolved into shipping unfinished games, subscription based games, battlepasses, endless DLC, loot boxes, and forced online connections for single player games.
The game studios broke the contract. If they want endless money, that comes with endless work.
Because it is a much safer investment to send out a 50% costed demo to see if you can break into the market then trickle out updates to make up the rest of the cost
If your demo doesn’t land then you’ve saved half the cost of a full project that would fail anyway
While I agree with this for bigger game companies the problem is people apply the attitude of deserving infinite content to smaller games as well even if they don’t participate in all the things you talked about. For example with Manor Lord the only thing from what was listed that might apply is it being unfinished since it’s in early access. And while that does come with an expectation of more content the speed people expect it at is wrong especially since this game is basically being made by one person.
And while that does come with an expectation of more content the speed people expect it at is wrong especially since this game is basically being made by one person.
I appreciate the solo developer, and that they are doing most everything else right, but he opened this can of worms because he sold early access. He could have chosen to wait until the game was finished to release it, but I imagine wanted the money up front from early access to help finance the development.
If you release unfinished, you open yourself up to your customers wanting it finished, and also wanting a say in how it gets developed. I’m not saying he doesn’t have a right to sell via early access, but he brought this on himself.
That’s why I’m really glad to see Hooded Horse and Greg Styczeń have this mindset, and that they’re actually speaking out against the GaaS mentality. They’re going back to the unspoken contract and saying the current status quo is stupid.
The headline is poorly chosen. They aren’t saying that studios should be earning endless money without work. They’re saying the GaaS model to try and earn endless money is putting devs on a treadmill, and that this shouldn’t be the case.
I hope to see more like this going forward. I don’t think gamers nor developers are a fan of GaaS trying to stay constantly relevant.
The contract was broken as soon as devs and publishers started pushing the digital download lies, because if you buy the game digitally they wont have to pay for shipping, boxes, manuals, cds, storage, etc etc etc, so the games will cost less and the devs/pubs will still manage to make more money on it than they ever would have otherwise!
and now we have 70-80 dollar charges for the standard, base version of games, with triple digits for the super mega special elite deluxe ultra edition. And you don’t even get to own the fucking game, cause sony and ubisoft have both shown zero issue with going into your account and removing things you’ve bought.
You highlight another point in the unspoken contract:
“After you buy the game, you can play it for as long as you own it with $0 additional dollars spent. At any point in the future you’re welcome to sell your copy of the game for whatever someone will pay you for it. That new buyer will be able to play the game forever paying $0 additional dollars.”
Which is what digital downloads was actually all about.
Killing the second hand market in the belief and hope that those people buying the used copy for 5 bucks, will come to the dev/pub directly and spend the 60 bucks on it brand new.
Until they ditch the “live service” model, this will continues. How many big title games today are really sold in a complete no BS state where DLC actually means extra contents? No much I guess.
That stems from the revenue model, and not by gamers.
I feel like Paradox games falls into this category, problem is everyone is so used to playing the okder title with all of the dlc that people feel the new title is barebones and unfinished.
Yeah but if you wanna buy say, Stellaris, with all its DLCs, you’re looking at at least $100-$200 depending on the sales. You pay for that bigger game.
Definitely. Age of Wonders 4 was awesome to play at launch, but it definitely feels more “complete” now that all 4 DLCs are out. It feels like it was clearly hacked to pieces to be sold separate.
Minecraft falls squarely in this category. I paid 15$ some 12 years ago and am still getting a yearly update for free.
And yet if you go in the MC community, one of the most common complaints people have is that the updates are never enough and the Devs are lazy etc… I guess this goes to the point of this article, people can easily be trained to have unrealistic expectations.
I’m not crying for Mojang/Microsoft but I can’t imagine how it feels to be an indie dev and have people shit on you because the work you do for free is not good enough.
And yet if you go in the MC community, one of the most common complaints people have is that the updates are never enough and the Devs are lazy etc… I guess this goes to the point of this article, people can easily be trained to have unrealistic expectations.
Tbh I think a big part of the problem is Mojang’s failure to communicate with it’s players, less so the lack of features being added.
I don’t know, they have an annual event, affiliate youtubers who distill the news as they come, “leakers” on twitter. You can’t really expect a studio to pull a 1.16 every year, but short of that it seems there is no way to please the MC community.
Minecraft is a special case. They promise a lot and what we got is a version of the game that’s microtransaction hell. Texture packs, mods, maps, etc all cost outrageous amounts of money in the console/windows10 version of the game. The community is mad because they’re clearly spending way more money on making content for the store than doing any actual updates for the game. The most we get is something like a new mob every six months…
As far as i know the full game is entirely playable without spending a dime more than the price of the game. You can join an infinity of multiplayer servers or play the game solo from start to finish and beyond, and you still get the yearly update which, despite your statement, includes much more than “a new mob every six months”.
I personally don’t mind that cosmetics and entirely optional non-game-advantaging additional content are paid, as it is what bankrolls the studio to keep pumping out free updates every year. How do you propose they finance this otherwise ?
As far as i know the full game is entirely playable without spending a dime more than the price of the game.
That’s not the point, they took something that was free and community-driven and locked it down so you can only install things from the store where everything costs money. Only specific people even have access to make mods in that version.
as it is what bankrolls the studio to keep pumping out free updates every year.
They’re not a small indie company. Mojang earns hundreds of millions of dollars per year. They can afford to do something with the game other than pumping out dozens of microtransactions a month. They could optimize the good version of the game but actively choose not to. They promised a proper modding toolkit for the game but never made it because it would harm their paid store. The game practically lives off its modding community and in the last 10 years they’ve done nothing for them.
I don’t know, the bedrock version started in 2011 way before Microsoft bought the studio. It was never free or community-driven, it is cheaper than the Java version, but it doesn’t have access to the free modding community. This sounds like a relatively good non-toxic deal to me, either you pay upfront or you suffer the micro-transactions. If you don’t have the money, you can still play the full game for a relatively low price.
Your implication that they don’t optimize or develop new content for the base game is simply unfounded and proven wrong every year like clockwork.
The dev seems to have a good publisher that’s on their side, which is nice to see. I find it bizarre that this rebuttal comes in response to the CEO of Hinterland Studios, the devs of Long Dark, which was in early access itself for ages. Dunno if they think they’re above it all now, but you’d think they would at least be sympathetic of devs facing that kind of shit. Probably just CEO saying CEO shit. Hopefully the Manor Lords dev doesn’t let it get to them much, or at all.
I don’t care about extra content, it is a welcome addition for games with long-term support like Stardew Valley. If the dev and publisher have a lot of money I do expect long-term bug fixing.
It depends on the game. If I buy a game from a smaller publisher I expect it to be a complete work with full story line. Unfortunately… When I buy from a large publisher I expect to be getting a ¾ complete game that will give me expansion packs.
This isn’t the case with Nintendo games though. I feel like and Nintendo game is just done and any extras are… Extra.
I’m not saying anyone should work without pay. I’m saying that with the way publishers release games I expect AAA releases to be unfinished works at this point.
Gamers are not asking devs to work until burnout on social media or forums, that’s management and usually in person or department/company policy and procedure.
Edit: more specifically to the article for solo devs they are talking about critics complaining they should have made something bigger which is not a bad problem to have for securing funding for future games if people like your art enough to request more and doesn’t require working burnout hours.
Especially with this game, where the dev and publisher have actively worked to manage expectations before early access. That it’s not at all complete yet. There were so many people super hyped, comparing it to total war and what not. So they made it clear this game is on another scale.
If it had been the other way around, if they had hyped up the game like crazy and made huge promises about the post EA launch content, then yeah, it would be a failure.
And I suppose in practice it also would’ve been a “failure” if they hadn’t managed expectations, due to the hype and the general expectation from post launch content these days… (sigh)
But what we got is exactly what was promised, so what on earth is that Hinterland guy talking about.
Good thing I double-checked to see if someone else made this point yet.
Yeah. Not only that, but the splash screen when you launch the game makes it incredibly clear that it’s one guy called Greg (very humanizing) and he’s working on it, but he’s not some superhero.
If someone complains about buying a finished game and not getting more of it later, they’re idiots and there’s nothing you can do but ignore them.
Publishers that do ultra-early access/roadmaps/live services with promises of content/bug fixes/trust me we’re making the rest of the game later, are clearly to blame for the mess too. They’re the ones poisoning the well.
But plenty of games release in a final state and that’s okay. They have to be firm about it though.
It’s a tough line to walk. You want to create reasonable hype and you have an idea where you want to go, but as you correctly point out, it’s really easy to over promise and under deliver.
I felt this way about Back 4 Blood. The game came out, it was genuinely fun and had a good amount of content, and they added DLC that expanded the game while also not ruining things for anyone who hasn’t installed it.
But there was an unending cry from gamers that it was getting “abandoned”. You can still gather 4 players, or fewer with bots, and have a good time. It’s a different appeal from Left 4 Dead with the card system, and that was fine to me.
Agreed. I think it was an OK game but that doesn’t mean that the devs should work to their death to make it totally what I or other people think it should be.
Very reasonable, I hope the dev sticks to his guns and keeps a manageable pace. I feel that it’s right to expect content updates coming in if the game is marked early access, but so long as you don’t pull a Valheim, people shouldn’t be mad at you
I think it’s going to be like 7 Days to Die and just never be completed. I’m hoping they’ll eventually do one big announcement or final release that will get my friends to log back in
Nothing that bad, but the updates are insanely slow and the roadmap of things they promised in 2021 took 3-4 years instead of one. At this rate the game could spend a decade in early access.
The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
The problem does not lie with gamers. It lies with ‘AAA’ developers who publish unplayable cashgrabs that need years of bugfixing before reaching a playable state, thus leading to expectations of ongoing development. Not that Early Access has helped in that regard.
Excellent write up by the publisher and good that they warned Greg of the shit storm ahead.
I bought it, played it. It was already fun. The patches fixed some of the issues that made playing it not fun… so good choices there. I left him some small feedback on the game and some words of encouragement in the hopes that helps.
I hope he can continue his development to deliver his vision for the game. I feel like I got my moneys worth already and I’ll spin it up when the next series of updates are done.
Till that time I just saw Timberborn (another one of these jewels) had a cool update so I’ll go and try that or one of the mysiad of other cool Early Access games that still receive a lot of love.
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Sadly this even has evolved into never buy at launch
There used to be an unspoken contract with game developers and gamers:
Somewhere that evolved into shipping unfinished games, subscription based games, battlepasses, endless DLC, loot boxes, and forced online connections for single player games.
The game studios broke the contract. If they want endless money, that comes with endless work.
Because it is a much safer investment to send out a 50% costed demo to see if you can break into the market then trickle out updates to make up the rest of the cost
If your demo doesn’t land then you’ve saved half the cost of a full project that would fail anyway
Good luck trying to win market share with a half baked game.
While I agree with this for bigger game companies the problem is people apply the attitude of deserving infinite content to smaller games as well even if they don’t participate in all the things you talked about. For example with Manor Lord the only thing from what was listed that might apply is it being unfinished since it’s in early access. And while that does come with an expectation of more content the speed people expect it at is wrong especially since this game is basically being made by one person.
I appreciate the solo developer, and that they are doing most everything else right, but he opened this can of worms because he sold early access. He could have chosen to wait until the game was finished to release it, but I imagine wanted the money up front from early access to help finance the development.
If you release unfinished, you open yourself up to your customers wanting it finished, and also wanting a say in how it gets developed. I’m not saying he doesn’t have a right to sell via early access, but he brought this on himself.
That’s why I’m really glad to see Hooded Horse and Greg Styczeń have this mindset, and that they’re actually speaking out against the GaaS mentality. They’re going back to the unspoken contract and saying the current status quo is stupid.
The headline is poorly chosen. They aren’t saying that studios should be earning endless money without work. They’re saying the GaaS model to try and earn endless money is putting devs on a treadmill, and that this shouldn’t be the case.
I hope to see more like this going forward. I don’t think gamers nor developers are a fan of GaaS trying to stay constantly relevant.
Exactly and now they found that doesn’t work, they’re blaming the consumer, again, for things that are their own fault.
Agreed.
The contract was broken as soon as devs and publishers started pushing the digital download lies, because if you buy the game digitally they wont have to pay for shipping, boxes, manuals, cds, storage, etc etc etc, so the games will cost less and the devs/pubs will still manage to make more money on it than they ever would have otherwise!
and now we have 70-80 dollar charges for the standard, base version of games, with triple digits for the super mega special elite deluxe ultra edition. And you don’t even get to own the fucking game, cause sony and ubisoft have both shown zero issue with going into your account and removing things you’ve bought.
Keep in mind that games have cost $60 for fucking ages, regardless of inflation.
Games Are Cheaper* Than They’ve Ever Been | Extra Credits Gaming
Games Should Not Cost $60 Anymore - Inflation, Microtransactions, and Publishing - Extra Credits (6 years old)
You highlight another point in the unspoken contract:
That’s gone too.
Which is what digital downloads was actually all about.
Killing the second hand market in the belief and hope that those people buying the used copy for 5 bucks, will come to the dev/pub directly and spend the 60 bucks on it brand new.
Which is why some degree of chaotic lawlessness (as in pirate disks being sold near subway entrances) is good for humanity and good for the market.
And there’s no inherent moral value in intellectual property or copyright, so only whether it’s ultimately better or worse to have it is important.
Until they ditch the “live service” model, this will continues. How many big title games today are really sold in a complete no BS state where DLC actually means extra contents? No much I guess.
That stems from the revenue model, and not by gamers.
I feel like Paradox games falls into this category, problem is everyone is so used to playing the okder title with all of the dlc that people feel the new title is barebones and unfinished.
That is because DLCs add a lot of value to Paradox games (excluding recent controversies) so people wait then grab all DLC in a bundle discount.
Yeah but if you wanna buy say, Stellaris, with all its DLCs, you’re looking at at least $100-$200 depending on the sales. You pay for that bigger game.
Definitely. Age of Wonders 4 was awesome to play at launch, but it definitely feels more “complete” now that all 4 DLCs are out. It feels like it was clearly hacked to pieces to be sold separate.
Minecraft falls squarely in this category. I paid 15$ some 12 years ago and am still getting a yearly update for free.
And yet if you go in the MC community, one of the most common complaints people have is that the updates are never enough and the Devs are lazy etc… I guess this goes to the point of this article, people can easily be trained to have unrealistic expectations.
I’m not crying for Mojang/Microsoft but I can’t imagine how it feels to be an indie dev and have people shit on you because the work you do for free is not good enough.
Tbh I think a big part of the problem is Mojang’s failure to communicate with it’s players, less so the lack of features being added.
I don’t know, they have an annual event, affiliate youtubers who distill the news as they come, “leakers” on twitter. You can’t really expect a studio to pull a 1.16 every year, but short of that it seems there is no way to please the MC community.
Minecraft is a special case. They promise a lot and what we got is a version of the game that’s microtransaction hell. Texture packs, mods, maps, etc all cost outrageous amounts of money in the console/windows10 version of the game. The community is mad because they’re clearly spending way more money on making content for the store than doing any actual updates for the game. The most we get is something like a new mob every six months…
As far as i know the full game is entirely playable without spending a dime more than the price of the game. You can join an infinity of multiplayer servers or play the game solo from start to finish and beyond, and you still get the yearly update which, despite your statement, includes much more than “a new mob every six months”.
I personally don’t mind that cosmetics and entirely optional non-game-advantaging additional content are paid, as it is what bankrolls the studio to keep pumping out free updates every year. How do you propose they finance this otherwise ?
That’s not the point, they took something that was free and community-driven and locked it down so you can only install things from the store where everything costs money. Only specific people even have access to make mods in that version.
They’re not a small indie company. Mojang earns hundreds of millions of dollars per year. They can afford to do something with the game other than pumping out dozens of microtransactions a month. They could optimize the good version of the game but actively choose not to. They promised a proper modding toolkit for the game but never made it because it would harm their paid store. The game practically lives off its modding community and in the last 10 years they’ve done nothing for them.
I don’t know, the bedrock version started in 2011 way before Microsoft bought the studio. It was never free or community-driven, it is cheaper than the Java version, but it doesn’t have access to the free modding community. This sounds like a relatively good non-toxic deal to me, either you pay upfront or you suffer the micro-transactions. If you don’t have the money, you can still play the full game for a relatively low price.
Your implication that they don’t optimize or develop new content for the base game is simply unfounded and proven wrong every year like clockwork.
I’d recommend the java version
The dev seems to have a good publisher that’s on their side, which is nice to see. I find it bizarre that this rebuttal comes in response to the CEO of Hinterland Studios, the devs of Long Dark, which was in early access itself for ages. Dunno if they think they’re above it all now, but you’d think they would at least be sympathetic of devs facing that kind of shit. Probably just CEO saying CEO shit. Hopefully the Manor Lords dev doesn’t let it get to them much, or at all.
I don’t care about extra content, it is a welcome addition for games with long-term support like Stardew Valley. If the dev and publisher have a lot of money I do expect long-term bug fixing.
It depends on the game. If I buy a game from a smaller publisher I expect it to be a complete work with full story line. Unfortunately… When I buy from a large publisher I expect to be getting a ¾ complete game that will give me expansion packs.
This isn’t the case with Nintendo games though. I feel like and Nintendo game is just done and any extras are… Extra.
deleted by creator
I’m not saying anyone should work without pay. I’m saying that with the way publishers release games I expect AAA releases to be unfinished works at this point.
Remove ‘gamers’ and insert ‘bloated management’.
Is it bloated management who complains on social media and forums?
Gamers are not asking devs to work until burnout on social media or forums, that’s management and usually in person or department/company policy and procedure.
Edit: more specifically to the article for solo devs they are talking about critics complaining they should have made something bigger which is not a bad problem to have for securing funding for future games if people like your art enough to request more and doesn’t require working burnout hours.
Especially with this game, where the dev and publisher have actively worked to manage expectations before early access. That it’s not at all complete yet. There were so many people super hyped, comparing it to total war and what not. So they made it clear this game is on another scale.
If it had been the other way around, if they had hyped up the game like crazy and made huge promises about the post EA launch content, then yeah, it would be a failure.
And I suppose in practice it also would’ve been a “failure” if they hadn’t managed expectations, due to the hype and the general expectation from post launch content these days… (sigh)
But what we got is exactly what was promised, so what on earth is that Hinterland guy talking about.
Good thing I double-checked to see if someone else made this point yet.
Yeah. Not only that, but the splash screen when you launch the game makes it incredibly clear that it’s one guy called Greg (very humanizing) and he’s working on it, but he’s not some superhero.
If someone complains about buying a finished game and not getting more of it later, they’re idiots and there’s nothing you can do but ignore them.
Publishers that do ultra-early access/roadmaps/live services with promises of content/bug fixes/trust me we’re making the rest of the game later, are clearly to blame for the mess too. They’re the ones poisoning the well.
But plenty of games release in a final state and that’s okay. They have to be firm about it though.
It’s a tough line to walk. You want to create reasonable hype and you have an idea where you want to go, but as you correctly point out, it’s really easy to over promise and under deliver.
I felt this way about Back 4 Blood. The game came out, it was genuinely fun and had a good amount of content, and they added DLC that expanded the game while also not ruining things for anyone who hasn’t installed it.
But there was an unending cry from gamers that it was getting “abandoned”. You can still gather 4 players, or fewer with bots, and have a good time. It’s a different appeal from Left 4 Dead with the card system, and that was fine to me.
Agreed. I think it was an OK game but that doesn’t mean that the devs should work to their death to make it totally what I or other people think it should be.
Very reasonable, I hope the dev sticks to his guns and keeps a manageable pace. I feel that it’s right to expect content updates coming in if the game is marked early access, but so long as you don’t pull a Valheim, people shouldn’t be mad at you
God I wish valheim had been finished
Isn’t it still being worked on?
It is. It’s just slow, and you know how G*mers are about slow dev cycles.
“Dead game! Dead game!” Then how come they just released a huge update for it with the next entire biome a few weeks ago?
It’s been four years and all of my friends moved on. I still enjoy it but there’s only so much fun to be had solo
I think it’s going to be like 7 Days to Die and just never be completed. I’m hoping they’ll eventually do one big announcement or final release that will get my friends to log back in
I guess I’m OOTL - what happened with Valheim?
Nothing that bad, but the updates are insanely slow and the roadmap of things they promised in 2021 took 3-4 years instead of one. At this rate the game could spend a decade in early access.
True, but it is still being worked on.
Another EA game that I was really into a couple years ago until they abandoned, and now they’re starting back up on it again, is Starbase.
The problem does not lie with gamers. It lies with ‘AAA’ developers who publish unplayable cashgrabs that need years of bugfixing before reaching a playable state, thus leading to expectations of ongoing development. Not that Early Access has helped in that regard.
Oh I meant that, that’s why I worded it that way.
Spend years releasing unfinished and incomplete work.
Gamers expect work to be unfinished and incomplete.
🫵
Every single aspect of video game development is trash. From executives to absurdly whiney and entitled gamer population.
Excellent write up by the publisher and good that they warned Greg of the shit storm ahead.
I bought it, played it. It was already fun. The patches fixed some of the issues that made playing it not fun… so good choices there. I left him some small feedback on the game and some words of encouragement in the hopes that helps.
I hope he can continue his development to deliver his vision for the game. I feel like I got my moneys worth already and I’ll spin it up when the next series of updates are done.
Till that time I just saw Timberborn (another one of these jewels) had a cool update so I’ll go and try that or one of the mysiad of other cool Early Access games that still receive a lot of love.
Going Medieval is another colony sim, more akin to Rimworld, but it’s constantly getting updates and patches. They’re almost done with their roadmap.