3. Early-Access Clarification
It's no secret that a great number of indie developers get their initial backing through services like Kickstarter or Steam Early-Access, and although the moral compass-spinning complexities of asking people to stump up their hard-earned for an unfinished product will automatically put you on one side of the spiked debate-fence, there are larger issues when bigger more financially-stable studios do the same thing. "Just trust us guys, we know what we're doing" is the general statement that surrounds early access, as what developers do to secure funding is offer a description of their in-progress title, asking for a certain goal amount of cash that'll help bring it to fruition. The problems come when said initial statement changes, or the final product never comes. Take one Prison Architect. Although it's a fantastic little indie gem that lets you manage and monitor the wants and needs of an entire prison full of inmates, it's been sitting in early-access for almost two years now, never going to full retail release but instead asking sticking on a full price tag to an in-progress game. Double Fine's Tim Schafer is another assumedly well-meaning individual who many gamers adore deeply thanks to his previous work. But he too stretched the limits of acceptable behaviour in regards to crowd-funding when after initially netting $3 million in 2012 for new adventure title Broken Age, both he and his company took to asking for more money to finish the now in-progress project, mentioning that their lofty design aims were too high for the millions they'd taken in. When it then turned out their were
celebrity voice actors such as Elijah Wood and Jack Black involved heavily it raised a few more eyebrows, and now that part two of the experience is still without a concrete release date, it's left fans out in the cold as to where their money's actually gone. Early-access can give early developing projects a chance to shine, but all developers have a responsibility to set achievable goals they are comfortable meeting - rather than attempting to metaphorically leap out of a moving plane with a few needles and thread, and knitting a parachute on the way down. Where do you stand on the idea of funding a game through its development?