We currently do demos with a lot of content. This helps to produce feedback, but still allows us to make decisions that make some players mad. Players seems to like the approach a lot, but we are yet to find out if it hurts sales :D
Generally, demos are perceived well by your audience, but there are varying opinions on how they may hurt sales. However, this is only an issue once the game is fully out, with marketers such as Chris Zukowski recommending taking the demo offline. Personally, we're not the biggest fan of this approach, so we've just kept our demo up and update it together with the main game. Maybe it impacts sales, but I don't have enough empirical evidence for that. -M
I got both Subnautica games in early access. It was fun getting new bits for the first one and watching the story grow til you could finally play through to the end. But the sequel definitely showed the dangers of early access from a player's perspective. It started out fairly interesting. Then they completely changed the story, literally hired a new writer and started from scratch. And the final game was an abysmal imitation of the original. From a developer's perspective, the lesson there is that ignoring the feedback from the early access crowd is a recipe for failure. The sequel sold something like a third as many copies as the original.
I think a benefit of early access is already having 10+ reviews (hopefully) when your full launch comes around, giving more exposure. It also double-dips on the new releases list, even though it can't appear on "new and trending" on the front page.
I did try early accessing a narrative-based game (visual novel). I got the feedback, but overall, it might make the development cycle longer than necessary. I'm gonna test releasing full game and see the difference.
Good video. As a consumer I love early access when done well. For example, I’m loving Jonas Tyroller’s Thronefall - and how they’ve released additional levels and content as they create it. Gives me a bit of joy each time compared to that limited one-off excitement that comes with a new game purchase.
As a consumer I hate it. I feel indifferent about it when done well. For many developers its just a way to get money from their unfinished project that will never truly evolve beyond alpha stage.
Sage advice.Thanks. Answered a few things for me. One being the S.M. time commitment. I'm looking at how I want to approach it without it interfering with game dev. E.A. too has been on my mind but this kinda confirmed what I thought. I think I will stick to my original plan. So thanks for that .
This is a commonly done approach as well, and can work. However, instead of just sending that golden build, I would advise also putting it up on Steam as well as a demo. You can have a great video, that explains the entire premise of the game, but a lot of people still prefer actually giving the demo a spin for themselves if the game is truly a good fit for them. -M
It should be a much more flexible refund policy for early access. Because to be honest, it's not a finished product and some games stay in early access for years and abuse the label.
There is a mobile Early access game on PC (yeah...) from a French studio, Waven, they did open alphas before but they ignored feedback and focused on releasing an almost identical early access with f2p monetization after multiple years, it seems they had contracted a third party studio and now they are just a few people working on it, the game is failing, the game is extremely boring, short and the microtransaction are not appealing, they are still ignoring feedback and their now small team does not update the game, they are conflicted about what the game should be and it ended up being a beautiful but terrible game, they spent a stupidly high amount of time and money on the graphics and sound and contracted the coding. The early access is basically an excuse to monetize an unfinished game. They have also a community of fans from their other games who will be offended by feedback on the forum. I think that's a good example of mishandled early access.
Yeah this is the thing though... a game still needs to be good and worthwhile. This actually is why all the well meant advise surrounding early access, especially from a dev with no experience there, is kinda silly. There are a million ways of releasing a game poorly. And most developers really _don't_ want consumer feedback to dramatically change their game. Often the loud minority has the power to ruin things, more so than to improve things too. Not to mention how as a developer you will want to make 'your' game, not the game thought out by others. I think 80% of early access is about misleading customers into buying early, hoping it will change into something much better, but rarely if ever does.
Pretty sure most of us, at the age of 15, weren't doing what you were doing at 6:03 (is that in the European parliament?!) so you as the community manager of *BiteMeGames* was written in the stars ... if one can make a video games where you can write it in the stars it will be legit.
I am so fucking done with Early Access. I HATE IT. Hey, here's 90% of the game! You can experience most of it, but you definitely don't get the end or all the features. Have fun putting hours and hours into it, then we will take 5 years to do the last 10% of it you will not have any motivation to play after we release it. Every dev for the question: "How long in early access?" It is always "at least one year." I think games in Early Access should have to set a hard date WITHIN A YEAR. If they do NOT release 1.0, they owe 50% of the money back or more. Sick and tired of this shit.
As I state in the video, I don't work in a bubble, I've spent 10+ hours with the Flotsam team for example, talking about their development, challenges, their roadmap, and their experiences. I've also discussed this question with other people, such as Chris Zukowski or Michael Futter, and various other developers, PR firms, and also just regular players of early access games. I don't just make up random stuff, but do actual research, in order to not repeat the same mistakes multiple times, and to help inform our viewers. Didn't sell either also isn't really that accurate of a statement, as the numbers covered in our video are grossly outdated at this point :). It's fair you want to question these sources, and maybe I should have made them more clear, in which case, it's not rude to ask. -M
what I think is that you're not suited for giving an opinion and advice without you even have really good experience and successful game...thats mean no one will trust you..its better for you to make tutorial instead of make video like this without proof
You have very strong opinions for a dev / company who has minimal experience, who hasn't done the thing you are talking about (early access) and whose game sold so very few copies. Bluntly you don't have the experience & knowledge to be justifiably this opinionated.
@saulnores3477 We released a video 2 months ago about our initial sales numbers, th-cam.com/video/yY4NmtNlac4/w-d-xo.html. This is the last public video we made about the game, but it's very outdated currently, as the video itself has caused quite some additional promotion, as well as various events we've gone to. We're by no means a massive success, but honestly I believe we aren't doing too horrible anymore. -M
A great way to learn and grow is to put your thoughts out there and get told why you're wrong. We did that decades ago in boards and it was both fun and useful. But it is based on the assumption that things are up for debate, it's the start of a conversation to build your own thoughts. Wanting someone with authority on a subject to tell you knowledge based on experience is understandable because it's useful, but it's useful in a different way. People are smart enough to know that this is Marnix the Indiedev and not Tim Cain. I for example watch both this and the mentioned Tim Cain ( who has one of the best gamedev channels out there) but for very different purposes. Tim is the wise Wizard telling wisdom, and this is more like the tavern next to the brawlpit we where talk about our latest beatings and what we learned from it.
@@sealsharp My issue is how this video presents itself. It doesn't present as here are some thoughts/ideas we have on this topic but we're not actual experts. It presents itself as confidant, correct expert advice. That makes it wrong and bordering on misinformation IMHO. If they were clear about their lack of actual expertise on the subject and did the video as either obvious non-expert opinion or as a discussion of ideas, cool. Opinions and, better discussions, are fine. But acting like you are a subject matter expert when you are not is not okay, that is misleading.
We currently do demos with a lot of content. This helps to produce feedback, but still allows us to make decisions that make some players mad. Players seems to like the approach a lot, but we are yet to find out if it hurts sales :D
Generally, demos are perceived well by your audience, but there are varying opinions on how they may hurt sales. However, this is only an issue once the game is fully out, with marketers such as Chris Zukowski recommending taking the demo offline.
Personally, we're not the biggest fan of this approach, so we've just kept our demo up and update it together with the main game. Maybe it impacts sales, but I don't have enough empirical evidence for that. -M
@@bitemegameswell without demos refund rate could be higher.
How do you go about collecting feedback from players, given that Steam doesn't allow reviews for demos?
@@jbaidley They can post in the steam community already, but most feedback comes trough our discord that we linked on our title screen.
I got both Subnautica games in early access. It was fun getting new bits for the first one and watching the story grow til you could finally play through to the end. But the sequel definitely showed the dangers of early access from a player's perspective. It started out fairly interesting. Then they completely changed the story, literally hired a new writer and started from scratch. And the final game was an abysmal imitation of the original. From a developer's perspective, the lesson there is that ignoring the feedback from the early access crowd is a recipe for failure. The sequel sold something like a third as many copies as the original.
Very sage and concise advice. Thank you for the awesome video!
I like how the view is framed so that the huge ass XP-Pen and a book titled How To Draw are both visible!
Now all that I need is the skills to actually do it properly... -M
When should the game be free?
I think a benefit of early access is already having 10+ reviews (hopefully) when your full launch comes around, giving more exposure. It also double-dips on the new releases list, even though it can't appear on "new and trending" on the front page.
Marnix looking like a whole community manager over at EA DICE right now. 🤣Great video as always!
I'll keep going until I end up looking like Jeff Kaplan -M
I did try early accessing a narrative-based game (visual novel).
I got the feedback, but overall, it might make the development cycle longer than necessary.
I'm gonna test releasing full game and see the difference.
Good video. As a consumer I love early access when done well. For example, I’m loving Jonas Tyroller’s Thronefall - and how they’ve released additional levels and content as they create it. Gives me a bit of joy each time compared to that limited one-off excitement that comes with a new game purchase.
As a consumer I hate it. I feel indifferent about it when done well. For many developers its just a way to get money from their unfinished project that will never truly evolve beyond alpha stage.
Sage advice.Thanks. Answered a few things for me. One being the S.M. time commitment. I'm looking at how I want to approach it without it interfering with game dev.
E.A. too has been on my mind but this kinda confirmed what I thought. I think I will stick to my original plan. So thanks for that .
Would it be advisable to send "gold" builds of a game to influencers leading up to release?
This is a commonly done approach as well, and can work. However, instead of just sending that golden build, I would advise also putting it up on Steam as well as a demo.
You can have a great video, that explains the entire premise of the game, but a lot of people still prefer actually giving the demo a spin for themselves if the game is truly a good fit for them. -M
How much do you charge to make a game?
It should be a much more flexible refund policy for early access. Because to be honest, it's not a finished product and some games stay in early access for years and abuse the label.
There is a mobile Early access game on PC (yeah...) from a French studio, Waven, they did open alphas before but they ignored feedback and focused on releasing an almost identical early access with f2p monetization after multiple years, it seems they had contracted a third party studio and now they are just a few people working on it, the game is failing, the game is extremely boring, short and the microtransaction are not appealing, they are still ignoring feedback and their now small team does not update the game, they are conflicted about what the game should be and it ended up being a beautiful but terrible game, they spent a stupidly high amount of time and money on the graphics and sound and contracted the coding. The early access is basically an excuse to monetize an unfinished game. They have also a community of fans from their other games who will be offended by feedback on the forum. I think that's a good example of mishandled early access.
Yeah this is the thing though... a game still needs to be good and worthwhile. This actually is why all the well meant advise surrounding early access, especially from a dev with no experience there, is kinda silly. There are a million ways of releasing a game poorly. And most developers really _don't_ want consumer feedback to dramatically change their game. Often the loud minority has the power to ruin things, more so than to improve things too. Not to mention how as a developer you will want to make 'your' game, not the game thought out by others. I think 80% of early access is about misleading customers into buying early, hoping it will change into something much better, but rarely if ever does.
Pretty sure most of us, at the age of 15, weren't doing what you were doing at 6:03 (is that in the European parliament?!) so you as the community manager of *BiteMeGames* was written in the stars ... if one can make a video games where you can write it in the stars it will be legit.
So what do they answer? 5:56 Cause I would ask the same question too lol
They responded that they never lost passion and vision of their end product, which is Star Citizen levels of commitment, so not for everyone I feel -M
I am so fucking done with Early Access. I HATE IT. Hey, here's 90% of the game! You can experience most of it, but you definitely don't get the end or all the features. Have fun putting hours and hours into it, then we will take 5 years to do the last 10% of it you will not have any motivation to play after we release it. Every dev for the question: "How long in early access?" It is always "at least one year." I think games in Early Access should have to set a hard date WITHIN A YEAR. If they do NOT release 1.0, they owe 50% of the money back or more. Sick and tired of this shit.
6:02 Justin Bieber, is that u? jk jk
I don't want to be rude, but you didn't do early access and didn't sell either. So I don't know where these opinions are coming from.
As I state in the video, I don't work in a bubble, I've spent 10+ hours with the Flotsam team for example, talking about their development, challenges, their roadmap, and their experiences.
I've also discussed this question with other people, such as Chris Zukowski or Michael Futter, and various other developers, PR firms, and also just regular players of early access games.
I don't just make up random stuff, but do actual research, in order to not repeat the same mistakes multiple times, and to help inform our viewers. Didn't sell either also isn't really that accurate of a statement, as the numbers covered in our video are grossly outdated at this point :).
It's fair you want to question these sources, and maybe I should have made them more clear, in which case, it's not rude to ask. -M
what I think is that you're not suited for giving an opinion and advice without you even have really good experience and successful game...thats mean no one will trust you..its better for you to make tutorial instead of make video like this without proof
You have very strong opinions for a dev / company who has minimal experience, who hasn't done the thing you are talking about (early access) and whose game sold so very few copies. Bluntly you don't have the experience & knowledge to be justifiably this opinionated.
Hi. Is there a link to know how many copies a game has sold? Or how many whishlists a game has?
@@saulnores3477 you can only estimate it with the number of reviews.
@saulnores3477 We released a video 2 months ago about our initial sales numbers, th-cam.com/video/yY4NmtNlac4/w-d-xo.html.
This is the last public video we made about the game, but it's very outdated currently, as the video itself has caused quite some additional promotion, as well as various events we've gone to. We're by no means a massive success, but honestly I believe we aren't doing too horrible anymore. -M
A great way to learn and grow is to put your thoughts out there and get told why you're wrong. We did that decades ago in boards and it was both fun and useful. But it is based on the assumption that things are up for debate, it's the start of a conversation to build your own thoughts.
Wanting someone with authority on a subject to tell you knowledge based on experience is understandable because it's useful, but it's useful in a different way.
People are smart enough to know that this is Marnix the Indiedev and not Tim Cain.
I for example watch both this and the mentioned Tim Cain ( who has one of the best gamedev channels out there) but for very different purposes.
Tim is the wise Wizard telling wisdom, and this is more like the tavern next to the brawlpit we where talk about our latest beatings and what we learned from it.
@@sealsharp My issue is how this video presents itself. It doesn't present as here are some thoughts/ideas we have on this topic but we're not actual experts. It presents itself as confidant, correct expert advice. That makes it wrong and bordering on misinformation IMHO. If they were clear about their lack of actual expertise on the subject and did the video as either obvious non-expert opinion or as a discussion of ideas, cool. Opinions and, better discussions, are fine. But acting like you are a subject matter expert when you are not is not okay, that is misleading.