Quote of the Day – If You’re Selling it, We’re Reviewing it

If I had paid money for H1Z1, I’d be pretty pissed off right now. Some players have already taken to demanding refunds. And I can’t blame them.

Polygon review of H1Z1

I laughed out loud when I saw that Polygon put up a review of H1Z1 on their site this morning.  But I have to admit that a review is a fitting response to Daybreak Game Company selling the game on Steam.  Not that Polygon hasn’t been on the H1Z1 beat already.

Yeah, yeah, cry me a river about that “Early Access” disclaimer.

I wouldn’t dream of endorsing a review of a product that was in alpha or beta and testing with volunteers.  But my view, and this is an opinion that I hold pretty strongly, is that once you are charging money and have a cash shop setup, trying to hide behind words like “Beta” (the long time Zynga ploy… do you want to be like Zynga?) or “Early Access” is a bullshit move.

The “Early Access” disclaimer has to compete with the pie-in-the-sky marketing vision about what the game might be some day way down the road when it is finished.

Tell me about the reality of H1Z1 please… I hear it isn’t actually an MMO

A “fully transparent” approach to game design would require the equivalent of “Warning: Lark’s Vomit” on the Steam store page and the SOE web site. (Since there is no Daybreak web site yet.)

And Daybreak Game Company is out there with not one but two early access events, with Landmark having mucked about in some sort of limbo for over a year at this point.  And to echo the quote at the top of the page, after my free time in Landmark I was pretty happy I didn’t pay any money for it.  And don’t get me started on the irony of a company whose motto is “Free to Play Your Way” and has a subscription program called “All Access” that doesn’t actually give you access to all of their games.

Yeah, I am on a bit of a rant here over what is probably a pretty small item in the grand scheme of things.  And it would certainly be fair game to ask how I reconcile this with Kickstarter campaigns and pre-orders and whatever other industry practices I don’t seem to take issue with that share some similarities with early access.  My primary goal in all things of late is the finished game, something I even mentioned in the earlier post about Crowfall.  I already have a day job in software development, I don’t need/want to keep fretting about code when I get home at night.

And who knows, the whole early access thing might work out.  I’m just not convinced right now that paid early access is a good thing for the industry, and it is Smed’s handiwork with Landmark and H1Z1 that has pushed me in that direction.

Anyway, cheers to Polygon for having a policy about reviewing early access games so people know what they are getting for their money.  How do you feel about that?

Crowfall Kickstarter Commences

It’s like Game of Thrones meets Eve Online

–Crowfall Kickstarter Tag Line

Today my post will probably echo a lot of other posts around our little corner of the internet in talking about the Crowfall Kickstarter campaign, which kicked off this morning.

Crowfall has gotten some buzz of late.  You can go look at their site if you need to catch up, but it is an attempt to get some new dynamic into the whole fantasy MMORPG thing we’re all keen on around these parts.  It is being led by Gordon Walton who, while not the household name of Richard Garriott or even Mark Jacobs, has MMO online gaming chops back from the late Kesmai era all the way through Star Wars: The Old Republic, and who might be the most famous person to ever follow me on Twitter…  I can’t explain that last bit, but I have a pic so I can prove it after he unfollows me… and J. Todd Coleman, who comes from Kingsisle Entertainment, famous for Wizard 101 and Pirate 101.

They, and a team of developers down in Austin, are making Crowfall.

They are currently on the “fan buy-in” step of the whole project, as they are running a Kickstarter campaign that is asking for a mere $800,000.

Yes, I know that Brad McQuaid couldn’t get there just a year ago, and he might be more recognizable by name than Gordon Walton, but I am not sure it was always recognized for positive reasons. (And then there is Project: Gorgon.)

The Crowfall team apparently paid attention to how successful Kickstarter campaigns work, which puts them ahead of a lot of others.  They built up just about the right amount of buzz, got another industry name (in this case Raph Koster, who is consulting, which stoked some SWG wishful thinking) talking about the game, managed to present some coherent ideas coherently, including business models, and were a bit coy, but not too coy, about where things were heading.  If you were paying attention, you knew they would be launching a Kickstarter today.

And they are off to the races.  If you watch the site refresh, the amount of money pledged keeps on going up and up and up.  I have no doubt that they will hit “Wilhelm’s Minimum First Day Threshold for Success” (the 25% funding mark) within a few hours and it seems completely likely that they will be able to declare success and start talking about stretch goals and alternative funding methods (for those that wish to use PayPal) before we get to the weekend.  The charts and Kicktraq should be fun to watch and I will be interested to see how they play the later campaign, when the inevitable slow down comes.  There is an art to that.  This has all the makings of a model campaign for the MMO genre.

I’m just not kicking in myself.

Wait, what?

I know, right?

There is nothing wrong with Crowfall, or at least nothing to which I specifically object.  They are pushing a lot of the right buttons for me, I like the art style well enough, and things look fine in general.  I’m just not feeling it.

It might be because I am already waiting on enough Kickstarter funded games to finish up and deliver something worth playing. (e.g. Camelot Unchained or Shroud of the Avatar or Star Citizen or Pillars of Eternity… I was feeling generous at some past date.)  It might be that this campaign seems set to succeed, so there is no need for me to rush in, or how some previous games I backed ended up selling Early Access on Steam at a price below the minimum backer price to get the game. (Looking at you Planetary Annihilation!)  It may very well be that I have absolutely no interest in any sort of early access, so why commit money before I have to.  Or maybe it is just the gloomy February blues.

Anyway, it is me, not the game.  But you should take a moment to look at the Crowfall Kickstarter campaign to see what they are pitching.  It might be worthwhile to get in early.

But I will be paying attention and will be interested to see where the final take ends up.

Are you in for the Kickstarter?  I am interested to hear what the biggest selling point is for people.