KickStarter Lets dicsuss the trend of Enhanced Editions for Kickstarted games

[Zarniwoop]

Problem is, when you back a Kickstarter game, you are by definition -ing it ot actually pre-ordering. You get the game on the release day, after waiting for years you will want to play that shit as soon as possible.

So, you will most likely have completed the game long before the Enhanced Ultra GotY Super Fancy edition comes out anyway. I mean I liked Wasteland 2 but I can't see myself replaying it just to see some "extra polish" that the devs put in later. It's good that they do it, but I won't get any benefits from it.

 

[Jigawatt]

Whilst I'm not too bothered by promise of the D:OS one, I'm in principle against this trend as it'll just end up as another avenue to treat paying customers as beta testers. The prevailing culture tends toward stupid very quickly in computer games - I think developers will quickly take advantage of apologetics offered by reviewers and the D1Ping consumer base who will go easy on buggy, unfinished turds because of the promise of an EE right around the corner. That sets up the perfect environment for a lot of 'take the money and run' - by the time the EE finally comes out it only needs to be good enough to not hurt your reputation before your next bug-infested release, creating a nice cycle of only ever having to make 'good enough' games instead of ever striving for anything great.

 

[Cadmus]

Whilst I'm not too bothered by promise of the D:OS one, I'm in principle against this trend as it'll just end up as another avenue to treat paying customers as beta testers. The prevailing culture tends toward stupid very quickly in computer games - I think developers will quickly take advantage of apologetics offered by reviewers and the D1Ping consumer base who will go easy on buggy, unfinished turds because of the promise of an EE right around the corner. That sets up the perfect environment for a lot of 'take the money and run' - by the time the EE finally comes out it only needs to be good enough to not hurt your reputation before your next bug-infested release, creating a nice cycle of only ever having to make 'good enough' games instead of ever striving for anything great.

You are mostly right, however we've been getting "good enough" games as far as I can remember, no?

 

[Ellef]

You are mostly right, however we've been getting "good enough" games as far as I can remember, no?

G.F.W.I.I™ CODEX

 

[Jigawatt]

Whilst I'm not too bothered by promise of the D:OS one, I'm in principle against this trend as it'll just end up as another avenue to treat paying customers as beta testers. The prevailing culture tends toward stupid very quickly in computer games - I think developers will quickly take advantage of apologetics offered by reviewers and the D1Ping consumer base who will go easy on buggy, unfinished turds because of the promise of an EE right around the corner. That sets up the perfect environment for a lot of 'take the money and run' - by the time the EE finally comes out it only needs to be good enough to not hurt your reputation before your next bug-infested release, creating a nice cycle of only ever having to make 'good enough' games instead of ever striving for anything great.

You are mostly right, however we've been getting "good enough" games as far as I can remember, no?

Right. I guess what I'm getting at is that if an EE becomes yet another expected part of the game cycle (like the day 1 patch has now become) there's potential to really lower the bar for what counts as 'good enough'. What today would have months left in early access (yet another paid beta testing scheme) might next year be the day 1 release.

 

[Lucky]

I'm less worried about how companies like Hare Brained Schemes or InXile deal with this trend, than I am about how big publishers react to it. I can see them using it to give developers even less time to make their games, while basing which game gets an Enhanced Edition on how successful they are at launch. That way they'd be able to spread the risk even more, while only spending the full amount of funding on games that are a guaranteed success. The result being even more half-finished games than we already have.

 

[Infinitron]

Don't worry, a successful launch is apparently not a requirement for getting an Enhanced Edition.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I recently bought Wasteland 2 at 50% off and Div:OS at 33% off and now I will get EE/GOTY of both games for free, with a lot of fixes, new content, features etc. .

I have never been a first day buyer since have such a huge backlog that in most cases I rather wait a while playing something else and then get the game cheaper on sale after a few months; this also means I will usually play superior versions that are already properly fixed/patched. I appriciate that the devs still work on their games after realease to enhance the experience. Maybe I am naive but in the case of Larian, inXile and HBS I really got the feeling that they genuinely felt the need to improve their games rather than that of a cynical cash grab. Hell, they are giving their EEs out for free, a practice that I doubted elsewhere is particularly profitable (and Vincke at least is not entirely sure about the profitability of that practice either, according to his latest blog post). It does however introduce a certain mindset in me, that when a game comes out, it is still an unfinished, incomplete, buggy beta that is not as it was intended by the devs and I should rather wait a few months for the inevitable patches, expansions and updates and then get an even better game even cheaper on a Steam or GoG sale.

I also don't have enough time on me to play through games several times. For most games it will be just one single playthrough for many years. So instead of playing a shitty beta release I will rather be a bit patient and then play the best possible version available. It would have made me a little mad had I played hours and hours through Div:OS and after I finished it the devs release an EE with a ton of new features and improvements. Thats eaxtly the reason why I stopped myself from getting the game even though I was looking forward to it very much.

While I appreciate the effort to enhance their games, I am not entirely sure how advantageous this policy will be for devs in the long run. If the EE/GOTY release policy is becoming the new standard for RPGs, I guess it could be possible that more and more people would not want to waste time with inferior release versions and rather wait until they can get the cheaper but superior version a while later.

Maybe thats just me, many people seem just fine to play release versions or even early access.

 

[Ladonna]

I have been sitting on the fence for the big three so all this does is make me sit on the fence for a while longer. The Witcher 1 really taught me that lesson though (Always wait for the Super Awesome Edition) so I don't understand why you guys are so surpised. Don't you remember how many people were racing out and buying the enhanced edition even though they owned the original?

At the end of the day though, why worry about more content? It all depends on whether the original game feels complete. If it does, it is difficult to get all worked up about it.

 

[Mustawd]

It all depends on whether the original game feels complete. If it does, it is difficult to get all worked up about it.

Well so far it's been a limited practice. But I can see the anxiety of it leading to some shady practices. Take Early Access. It's an innovative concept that helps bridge the gap in funding for many games, so they can be made.

However, as we speak there's plenty of cash grabs out there that have no chance of ever being made. For example, After Reset is vaporware trash that is charging ~€50 for a guy walking around in some incomplete sand level.

My point is that there's plenty of room to try and take advantage of ignorant/naive consumers. At the end of the day though, I think it'll just be on of those things people will eventually get used to. Like Early Access or the Day 1 mega patch.

 

[mindx2]

I have no issues with the trend of EEs. I have spent quite a lot of money on KS games knowing I'd be waiting a few years to play them. If it takes another year for them to get the game "just right" more power to them. I will not complain about any of these developers continually improving these games. How much has that happened from publishers before the KS Renaissance? And people are complaining about this... even though it's free...? Dead State is a better game now. SR:R is a better game since Dragonfall. W2 and D:OS are (and will be) better games now (and in the near future). POE will improve with the 1st free expansion, and on and on. How is this a bad thing?! Instead of "mods will fix it" the actual game-makers are doing it. I will continue to "pre-order" these games from KS fully knowing that when they are first released they may not be perfect. I can wait till they are but I won't wait to purchase until the EE is finished because these games may never get made unless their initial KSs are funded.

My concern lies with the push into consoles. That was the dangerous trend in the 2000s that got us into the mess we are in today so that worries me... not these guys trying to improve and make these games better.

 

[Morality Games]

So, what do you think of this trend?

As publisher influence in the industry has increased, production pipelines in game development have been subjected to unrealistic standards. Dragon Age II is an extreme result, but it affects almost every game. Publishers like Rock Star, Valve, and Nintendo are outliers.

Basically, almost every single production pipeline that exists in game development and all assets and resources are approached from the notion that games are completed in a range of 1-3 years, when really, a good, Dragon Age: Origins quality AAA game needs about 5-7 years. A game like Star Wars: The Old Republic would take 12-15 years.

Publishers (who have very nearly bought out every game development studio) can't change to reflect this without gutting their entire corporate structure. Also, how can you possibly raise 12-15 years of worth of development cash from investors? Tolkien could work on the histories of Middle Earth and the Legendarium over the course of his entire life because it was his passion/hobby, supplemented by his work as a professor, and the Roman Catholic Church could finance decades of work on cathedrals and works of art like the Sistine Chapel because they owned bonkers amount of real estate and access to huge revenue streams through the charitable donations of the faithful. Governments can spend 20 years developing and engineering the next generation of submarines, but private businesses rarely possess the resources and revenue streams to pull off long term projects like that.

The result? Early access and enhanced editions; bring the game to the state it needs to be through gradual doctoring in the months and years leading up to and after release.