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So I have a game on my wishlist, which I won't name here, but it's been on there for years now. It recently came out of "Early Access." I.e. it officially "released." (Now, apparently this actually occurred back in December, 2022, but for whatever stupid reasons, the Steam "Now Available on Steam" feed that I follow on Feedly only just today decided to update and show me this, even though the update itself is dated December 2022. I don't know if that's a problem with the feed itself or with Feedly, but I'm guessing it's on Steam's end, since every other not-Steam feed that I follow actually updates properly. But that's neither here nor there.)
Anyway, I noticed that the "Recent Reviews" for this game are "Mixed," so I scrolled down to see what was up. There were a few bad reviews of the game, a lot of which were saying stuff about how the game just felt unfinished, still. One of these reviews had a developer response, so I clicked in to see what the devs were saying. And the dev response was "We hope you will revisit the game when we finish our improvements, starting with our next major update, which we will begin to talk about soon :-)" This developer update was from less than two weeks ago, i.e. well after the game "released."
If your game isn't fucking finished and is still being actively developed, then why the fucking hell is it not still in "Early Access"? Why has it been, ostensibly, "released"?
*weary sigh + facepalm*
Obviously, this isn't the only game on Steam that has this problem, not by a long shot. Honestly, I think the whole concept of "Early Access" needs to die. Or, at the very least, it needs to be more strictly enforced so that games that leave "Early Access" and "release" don't do so while still in an unfinished, unpolished/broken state. (Not that that has ever stopped devs/pubs from releasing unfinished, unpolished/broken pieces of shit, even if they didn't go through Steam's "Early Access" crap [or came out on Steam at all], or before Steam "Early Access" was ever even a thing at all to begin with.)
Anyway, I noticed that the "Recent Reviews" for this game are "Mixed," so I scrolled down to see what was up. There were a few bad reviews of the game, a lot of which were saying stuff about how the game just felt unfinished, still. One of these reviews had a developer response, so I clicked in to see what the devs were saying. And the dev response was "We hope you will revisit the game when we finish our improvements, starting with our next major update, which we will begin to talk about soon :-)" This developer update was from less than two weeks ago, i.e. well after the game "released."
If your game isn't fucking finished and is still being actively developed, then why the fucking hell is it not still in "Early Access"? Why has it been, ostensibly, "released"?
*weary sigh + facepalm*
Obviously, this isn't the only game on Steam that has this problem, not by a long shot. Honestly, I think the whole concept of "Early Access" needs to die. Or, at the very least, it needs to be more strictly enforced so that games that leave "Early Access" and "release" don't do so while still in an unfinished, unpolished/broken state. (Not that that has ever stopped devs/pubs from releasing unfinished, unpolished/broken pieces of shit, even if they didn't go through Steam's "Early Access" crap [or came out on Steam at all], or before Steam "Early Access" was ever even a thing at all to begin with.)
