I back and follow a lot of indie developers. Kickstarter, Steam Greenlight / Early Access, whatever. I am genuinely happy with the results thus far. I have been fortunate that none of the projects I have supported have been scams, vaporware, abandoned, etc…
What I do see a lot of however; is this large mass of butt hurt early adopters.
Let me explain: A group of small studio, independent developers, “indie devs”, have a project they want to realize. Without the capital and resources of a large corporation, like Blizzard for instance, they turn to crowdfunding and Steam’s Early Access. A great way to get revenue before your product is complete. Moreover, Steam’s early access is basically quality control and beta testers that pay You for their time and effort – you see the logic in that, right?
This way, a project that might never have seen “the light of play”, to quote a friend of mine, gets fully financed, completed, released; all without making the developers go hungry and homeless!
Still, you can’t please everyone, and not every project is legit, I can understand that… What boggles my mind are the people backing the same projects as me; the ones that I feel are right where they should be, and they are extremely angry, even vulgar and hurtful, with their opinions. BUT THEY STICK AROUND?!?!?
I feel it is important to stress a few details here:
- These are people who freely chose to support a project in its infancy.
- It is always very clear what stage the project is at: concept, pre-alpha, alpha, beta, etc.
- Buyer Beware IS A THING! It’s a friggin LAW in most civilized places!
- No one is forcing them to stick around, they can come and go as they please
So, what I need to get off my chest is my frustration with them. This is mostly rhetorical, but feel free to contact me and chime in.
Because, I see a lot of this on steam and kickstarter:
Early adopters, kickstarter backers, Stream Greenlight/Early access buyers, etc. Who are butt hurt over the game, its development progress, whatever. They, quite frankly, bitch the most, don’t offer constructive criticism, insist they were ripped off, that the devs are “challenged” (to be polite), and that the entire project is doomed… Yet they stick around and just continue to be toxic… WHY?!?
Why do the people who know they are getting in at the ground floor, often PRE-alpha, bitch so damn much, without offering detailed info to correct the bug, feature, missing content, etc?
No error reports, or system specs, just BITCH BITCH BITCH This sucks! You suck! I am butthurt! *sticks around anyway for months/years* consistently being butt hurt regardless…
Worse, is that they seem to be so deeply jaded by their perceived bad experience, that no amount of progress or improvement is enough. I’ve seen a large portion insist that the GOOD progress, was a step backwards?!? I MEAN REALLY… WHAT THE HELL?
To be clear, I get why people shun early access. There are scams out there, sure. On the other hand, playing a half made game can be really annoying when it crashes, lacks content, has shit performance, you name it… Those are legitimate concerns and valid points for staying away from such projects. Okay! However, there are good projects, doing honest work, making proper use of the funds and support they receive. I stand firm that those I have backed fit this build.
Full Disclosure: For me, I enjoy trying to find glitches and bugs in a game – I like to break things… So, an early access release of a game is still tons of fun for me; in most cases.
That aside, when I find something I don’t like, or that is “broken” in one of these projects… I report it with as much info as possible.
Example, I got in for the Alpha of Defiance, Great sci-fi show, even better game! Early on, there was a huge delay when connecting to the servers, and game breaking lag that rendered the game unplayable for me. I took some screenshots, my system specs, detailed dxdiag.txt info, ISP details, and internet traceroute info between me and the servers…
I took a lot of very technical, complicated information, that detailed the issue and what I thought was causing it. I also provided some suggestions on how to fix it. Then, I sent all of this in a single bundle to the development team. I then posted it on the forums, with the ticket number they gave me, so that others could say if they were having similar issues. The result, within 3 days the lag was gone! A patch was put together and pushed out to the clients, fixing the whole of the problem! That is how it’s done, or should be anyway!
These butthurts, as we’ll call them, don’t do that! They just express their dissatisfaction in the rudest of ways, and remain that way. All the while, offering nothing to correct the issues bothering them. You’ll find many of them refusing suggestions to fix it, and claiming that anyone who isn’t as furious as them is a fanboy/girl, a relative of the devs, or has been otherwise “bought out”, if they aren’t accused of lunacy or worse.
BUT THEY STICK AROUND! No amount of progress changes their opinion, and they remain toxic to the entire project and its supportive community. I can not understand the pathology that would allow for such behavior to seem logical and proper in a person’s mind.
RAWR! /ragequit, but not really, still i hate you, but i just can’t/won’t go…
That is the summary of their behavior to me, and if it wasn’t for how offensive it often is, it would almost be funny. I think what bothers me most, is that they fail to understand how damaging they can really be. Some go so far as to verbally attack the developers. Claiming incompetence, deception, fraud even… A few will even take their unfounded, dishonest, opinions to other media sources creating a negative backlash of bad PR and marketing towards the project. If you aren’t happy with something, tell the people that can fix it, not the rest of the world!
More importantly, keep in mind that regardless of how you feel, these are real people that are working on this project as a career. You know that job you have that you probably hate, this is theirs. You know what else though? They dont hate their jobs, because they are working on a project they love! They are doing something they enjoy, that they are passionate about. If there is anything they hate, its how you make them feel, and that no matter what they do, you wont change, and you wont go away. It’s an abusive relationship they simply can’t escape. Do you see how unfair and dangerous that is?
In the end, this post is about me voicing my frustration with them, uninterrupted. In a place I won’t have to put up with their drama as a result of it. I get it off my chest and move on… I think this blog of mine will be very therapeutic, if not humorous. Let me be clear on this one final thing, It is MY blog, if you don’t like it, don’t flame me, just take off!!! ^_^
I don't do TL'DR 