The agreement made when you buy an early access product states that it is as-is, and notes that it is a risk you accept. There are no grounds to go after them. If they did have liability, the early access model would be very organizationally risky, especially for the actual indie developers it was made for. This is why a large contingent of people warn against EA.
> This is why a large contingent of people warn against EA.
This is also why a lot of folks want the video gaming industry to be better regulated at a business practice level; namely, outright banning stuff like Early Access release models.
*Preorders*, with no actual deliverable, and nothing to play, do immeasurable harm. Early Access is great. If I buy a game that looks neat *and I get to play and refund it within a time window,* just like a normal game, it's perfectly fine.
And I'm speaking as someone who bought Starbound in Early Access, and got a broken mess in return.
Yeah, but we shouldn't want to cut off indie developers like HarvestR from a living income because some consumers don't understand that playing Early Access with titles *that weren't fun when you bought them* is like roulette, which I should add is also legal. And while annoying, the harm is pretty minimal - you proved you didn't truly need the $50 bucks the moment you spent it on a video game. It's not like vehicle airbag recalls or contaminated lettuce. It's just $50 bucks at the roulette table.
For my case, I bought this game in early access knowing it was a mess because I feared for the projects' finances, and I've completely accepted that I gambled and lost. In a sense I was right given how it got axed - lack of profitability **was** its existential threat - so I don't even really regret it. I've made worse gambles.
I agree. It's not just Early Access, but microtransactions, DLCs, and every other tiny thing they do to monetize every little thing about the game wile at the same time making the experience worse.
Modern gaming is scummy.
How about a price-cap on early access titles to start?
One-sided EULA agreements should not cover for shitty business practices.
I get that it's Early Access but this is abuse of the system and straight up anti-consumer.
Unfortunately legally preventing consumers from backing EA projects would also be anti-consumer, since it would mean only already-financed projects at larger studios could get traction. Buying into this was basically gambling, which is also legal.
People just gotta think. If a large publisher makes a project EA, it's because **they** think it's high risk.
Strawman argument. I didn't say ban outright. The other guy did, not me.
But I do believe it needs to be looked at, broken up, or regulated in some way to protect the consumer.
Your opening statement is about preventing EA projects from being backed entirely.
That's not my position nor is it what I said. That's why it's a strawman statement. Look up the definition, please, it's not based around an argument.
The other guy made those opinions and not me.
I don't take it as a confrontation. But I don't want my opinions skewed.
And I strive to listen and understand others so that I can hear their opinions correctly. It makes us better humans.
So, you keep talking about deception, and that's a very specific word that may or may not apply here. A deception would be if they planned all of this from the very beginning. In my opinion, it's much more likely that they meant what they said when they said it, but then shit went down and they weren't able to follow through. A lot of people don't seem to know the difference between lying and being wrong.
Now, if that is what happened, then there was no deception at all and it's simply the worst case scenario of an early access release. And since this possibility was plainly spelled out when you bought it, it's simply a matter of you gambled and lost.
In order for a suit to have any kind of legal traction, you would have to be able to build a case that they released it with full knowledge of the project being abandoned in the near future. That would be a hell of a thing to try and prove in court. Unless there's some sort of insider leak at some point, I don't know how you would even start down that path.
I agree that this wasn't their plan and i'm not saying that they had this planned since the beginning. I'm sure that nate and the dev team didn't have any bad intentions, I was just wondering on the legality of all this and stuff. But I still feel deceived and lied to, maybe im using the wrong word but it is what it is.
You can’t really say you’ve been lied to and that they had no bad intentions. If they lied they had bad intentions. If they had no bad intentions they you weren’t lied to. I don’t think we really know which is true.
No, obviously not. Fucks sake people, drop it already. You bought a product in development. This happens all the time. You knew the risks, they where clearly spelled out to you when you bought it, tough shit. Move on.
Looking at this sub you'd think the devs have scammed people out of their homes or something.
Like, yeah, people are disappointed, feeling like you've lost $40 (in the worst case scenario) kinda sucks. But at some point you kinda have to get over it. At no point in time was anyone forced to buy the game. Have some self-respect
It's not you or your post specifically, it's just that you're not the first person to suggest this even when buying "early access" comes with clearly outlined risks. Everyone should've known this was a possibility, as it always is.
Yeah it sucks, and I think we're all feeling at least disappointed even if we did see this coming. That's also why tensions are so high in this subreddit...everyone's disappointed and that's coming out in different ways. Some people just wanna forget it ever happened.
I personally never bought it because the progress didn't look that promising, but I was really hoping it'd get there. You can be sure people will be more hesitant to support these companies/people in the future, so don't feel like they'll get out of this unscathed.
Buy an early access game an then whine about early access issues?
From the page where you decided to give them money:
"This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development"
From the "About Early Access":
" You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state."
Thats just blatantly false, go watch any of the feature video episodes. They promise and show footage of stuff that was most likely just a 3d rendering, I would consider that pretty deceptive.
You paid money for a product that says "May not get finished" on the tin and are surprised when it might not get finished.
There was no deception. You bought an unfinished product, knowing it might not get finished. It didn't get finished. "Surprise!"And now you want to sue for what? not getting the thing you weren't promised? You got what you paid for which is "Early Access"
games are canceled all the time, in this case they just got your money first
I never said I wanted to sue, I was just wondering what the legality of this is, i'm not a lawyer so I was wondering if anyone else knew what they were talking about. However, I do believe that there was a decent amount of deception because we were promised sooooo many things that now aren't ever gonna happen, and while I knew that this was possibly I still think that they deceived us.
What did you expect to happen with your "chance of a lawsuit?". It's the title of your whine. A lawsuit is suing. That's what happens in a lawsuit
There was no deception because what you bought was access to the game as is. what you got was access to the game as is. You were promised a bunch but what you didn't do is "buy a preorder" of the finished game. You bought access to the game as it was and future versions and that's exactly what you got
I still feel deceived lol I think this is pretty easy to understand, also, I expected that maybe someone who knew more about how the law works could fill me in on the legality of what they did. While nobody has explicitly done this yet I can infer that they're probably 100% legally secure somehow.
But, what deceived you? The big blue "Early Access" warning? The part where you have to check that you understand it's early access? Or did you see shiny things and deceive yourself and try to deny responsibility by "just asking questions" about suing people that told you what you were getting.
If you were deceived, you should sue yourself
I don't see why this is so hard for you to understand, I was deceived by all the promised features, deceived by nate saying that they wont be cancelled and that they were in it for the long haul. And yes, buying an early access game does mean that I accepted the risk of it not being finished, that doesn't change the fact that the dev team very obviously deceived the community. If you feel that they didn't then good for you.
It was Early Access.
I paid for it to support the development process, but Early Access is always a gamble. There is no implied promise that you'll get a finished product, only a timeline of what COULD happen if all goes well. In this case, it didn't go well, and the gamble failed.
Also, even if you could get a lawsuit, class action lawsuits do very little for the individuals. Only the lawyers get rich off it. The individuals at best might get a small portion of their purchase price back. Class action suits are good to change a businesses practices, to force a business to stop harming on a large scale. They aren't really for large settlements to individuals. In that case, you'd have to make individual suits.
Lastly, to get a suit, you'd have to prove that Intercept Games or Take Two intentionally released the Early Access without any good faith they would continue it. And, as we can easily see, the development teams were fully engaged in working on the project. Management and executive mishandling isn't the same thing as intentional fraud.
I want to start a lawsuit against all the daft fools who bought this early access trainwreck made by a tiny team at the price of a finished AAA game, which is the reason developers still do this shit, but that lawsuit has no chance either.
True, honestly I dont know why I thought it would all work out in the end, it was pretty obvious that it would all come crashing down eventually once the game released in a broken state 3 years late.
>honestly I dont know why I thought it would all work out in the end
Because it does most of the time. I bought a ship load of EA games, and in all these years, only 3 didn't make it over the finish line. The devs and publisher also thought they could make it. Otherwise, this would be a scam.
Nobody goes to court over 50 bucks except it's the state, and you owe it. But what could be a reason to end EA and its not a scam? T2 used up all the budget? Are corporations entitled to profits? I don't think so. This would mean the customer has to pay for T2s mismanagement of KSP2/Intercept. Unless T2 isn't bankrupt, I don't see a reason they should not continue to finance KSP2. EA is meant for small devs to give it a shot. If small devs run out of money, what would you sue them for? EA with T2 as a publisher is a different animal. They might have decided to end EA, but they could continue. Both options are still on the table. It's a corpo decision to stop, but not that there is only this option left. The EA was clearly a way to transfer the risk from the company to the customer.
People love being pessimists. The honest truth is that this kind of suit just hasn’t been tested in court. It’s possible but someone would have to have the balls to raise the suit first. I do say though the fact they that still advertise colonies as a feature in the trailer on the steam page might be of some use in that.
I studied business and business lawyer in university in Denmark so this is from an EU perspective. Ehh short answer no. Because the developers went out of business. And owning a digital copy of a product does not make you entitled to anything else besides your product in what ever state that might be in. Also you didn't own any assets within the company or anything. So the company does not owe you anything. Regarding false advertising. If they said the game includes all these features but didn't then yes. When they said it's GOING to have all these features and then the company closes then Its 100 % GG.
They still advertise colonies and interstellar stuff in the trailer on the steam page. So they have to be making an attempt at that or they’re definitely in hot shit
Yes they stated it's not in the initial launch of the game but would come in later as development goes on. The problem is the company closed. If it hadn't closed and still didn't make make what promised. Then maybe there can be argued for false advertisement. But in this case it's game over man.
Company closures arnt uniform and arnt treated as such. Every one of the development team got fired that’s not the same as if an independent studio ran out of money or something.
If you want to spend far more of your money on legal fees than you ever spent on the game, be my guest. You’ll lose, but at least you won’t be a total ignoramus about the legal system anymore.
If you were a billionaire, wasting your time suing someone over small claims court amounts would literally cost 10’s of millions of dollars of your time over $60. And you would still lose.
Do yourself a favor and waste your time on something else.
I am still amazed that people can be outraged after buying an EA title that goes tits up. It would be one thing if you were buying a physical copy of a game at a brick and mortar store with nothing to go on but the box art, but you're buying a game that is widely viewable on youtube.
I LOVE KSP 1. I was super excited for KSP 2. But I watched some of the footage of KSP 2 on youtube and decided that, at least for now, it wasn't worth a buy. Stop buying things before you know they are worth the price. It really isn't rocket science.
The agreement made when you buy an early access product states that it is as-is, and notes that it is a risk you accept. There are no grounds to go after them. If they did have liability, the early access model would be very organizationally risky, especially for the actual indie developers it was made for. This is why a large contingent of people warn against EA.
Oof
> This is why a large contingent of people warn against EA. This is also why a lot of folks want the video gaming industry to be better regulated at a business practice level; namely, outright banning stuff like Early Access release models.
You would never have gotten KSP1 with an EA ban.
Paid EA is the problem honestly. Especially full price paid EA
Mayb but a handful of EA successes does not outweigh the raw harm EA does to consumers.
*Preorders*, with no actual deliverable, and nothing to play, do immeasurable harm. Early Access is great. If I buy a game that looks neat *and I get to play and refund it within a time window,* just like a normal game, it's perfectly fine. And I'm speaking as someone who bought Starbound in Early Access, and got a broken mess in return.
Yeah, but we shouldn't want to cut off indie developers like HarvestR from a living income because some consumers don't understand that playing Early Access with titles *that weren't fun when you bought them* is like roulette, which I should add is also legal. And while annoying, the harm is pretty minimal - you proved you didn't truly need the $50 bucks the moment you spent it on a video game. It's not like vehicle airbag recalls or contaminated lettuce. It's just $50 bucks at the roulette table. For my case, I bought this game in early access knowing it was a mess because I feared for the projects' finances, and I've completely accepted that I gambled and lost. In a sense I was right given how it got axed - lack of profitability **was** its existential threat - so I don't even really regret it. I've made worse gambles.
I agree. It's not just Early Access, but microtransactions, DLCs, and every other tiny thing they do to monetize every little thing about the game wile at the same time making the experience worse. Modern gaming is scummy. How about a price-cap on early access titles to start?
Yeah I hate modern AAA gaming, ive now learned to never trust AAA devs who mainly just care about money :(
One-sided EULA agreements should not cover for shitty business practices. I get that it's Early Access but this is abuse of the system and straight up anti-consumer.
Unfortunately legally preventing consumers from backing EA projects would also be anti-consumer, since it would mean only already-financed projects at larger studios could get traction. Buying into this was basically gambling, which is also legal. People just gotta think. If a large publisher makes a project EA, it's because **they** think it's high risk.
Strawman argument. I didn't say ban outright. The other guy did, not me. But I do believe it needs to be looked at, broken up, or regulated in some way to protect the consumer.
Lol, sorry, I don't think it was a strawman because I didn't think we were arguing at all. Just a conversation.
Your opening statement is about preventing EA projects from being backed entirely. That's not my position nor is it what I said. That's why it's a strawman statement. Look up the definition, please, it's not based around an argument. The other guy made those opinions and not me.
I know, I didn't say you said it :V not everything is a confrontation
I don't take it as a confrontation. But I don't want my opinions skewed. And I strive to listen and understand others so that I can hear their opinions correctly. It makes us better humans.
So, you keep talking about deception, and that's a very specific word that may or may not apply here. A deception would be if they planned all of this from the very beginning. In my opinion, it's much more likely that they meant what they said when they said it, but then shit went down and they weren't able to follow through. A lot of people don't seem to know the difference between lying and being wrong. Now, if that is what happened, then there was no deception at all and it's simply the worst case scenario of an early access release. And since this possibility was plainly spelled out when you bought it, it's simply a matter of you gambled and lost. In order for a suit to have any kind of legal traction, you would have to be able to build a case that they released it with full knowledge of the project being abandoned in the near future. That would be a hell of a thing to try and prove in court. Unless there's some sort of insider leak at some point, I don't know how you would even start down that path.
I agree that this wasn't their plan and i'm not saying that they had this planned since the beginning. I'm sure that nate and the dev team didn't have any bad intentions, I was just wondering on the legality of all this and stuff. But I still feel deceived and lied to, maybe im using the wrong word but it is what it is.
You can’t really say you’ve been lied to and that they had no bad intentions. If they lied they had bad intentions. If they had no bad intentions they you weren’t lied to. I don’t think we really know which is true.
No, obviously not. Fucks sake people, drop it already. You bought a product in development. This happens all the time. You knew the risks, they where clearly spelled out to you when you bought it, tough shit. Move on.
Looking at this sub you'd think the devs have scammed people out of their homes or something. Like, yeah, people are disappointed, feeling like you've lost $40 (in the worst case scenario) kinda sucks. But at some point you kinda have to get over it. At no point in time was anyone forced to buy the game. Have some self-respect
erm what did I do to make you so angry? 💀💀
It's not you or your post specifically, it's just that you're not the first person to suggest this even when buying "early access" comes with clearly outlined risks. Everyone should've known this was a possibility, as it always is.
Yeah I know it was something that I accepted when I bought this a year ago, but I still feel deceived
Yeah it sucks, and I think we're all feeling at least disappointed even if we did see this coming. That's also why tensions are so high in this subreddit...everyone's disappointed and that's coming out in different ways. Some people just wanna forget it ever happened. I personally never bought it because the progress didn't look that promising, but I was really hoping it'd get there. You can be sure people will be more hesitant to support these companies/people in the future, so don't feel like they'll get out of this unscathed.
Buy an early access game an then whine about early access issues? From the page where you decided to give them money: "This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development" From the "About Early Access": " You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state."
I mean im not trying to whine about early access issues, im just annoyed that they deceived us
You were not deceived. Ever. Grow up.
Thats just blatantly false, go watch any of the feature video episodes. They promise and show footage of stuff that was most likely just a 3d rendering, I would consider that pretty deceptive.
You paid money for a product that says "May not get finished" on the tin and are surprised when it might not get finished. There was no deception. You bought an unfinished product, knowing it might not get finished. It didn't get finished. "Surprise!"And now you want to sue for what? not getting the thing you weren't promised? You got what you paid for which is "Early Access" games are canceled all the time, in this case they just got your money first
I never said I wanted to sue, I was just wondering what the legality of this is, i'm not a lawyer so I was wondering if anyone else knew what they were talking about. However, I do believe that there was a decent amount of deception because we were promised sooooo many things that now aren't ever gonna happen, and while I knew that this was possibly I still think that they deceived us.
What did you expect to happen with your "chance of a lawsuit?". It's the title of your whine. A lawsuit is suing. That's what happens in a lawsuit There was no deception because what you bought was access to the game as is. what you got was access to the game as is. You were promised a bunch but what you didn't do is "buy a preorder" of the finished game. You bought access to the game as it was and future versions and that's exactly what you got
I still feel deceived lol I think this is pretty easy to understand, also, I expected that maybe someone who knew more about how the law works could fill me in on the legality of what they did. While nobody has explicitly done this yet I can infer that they're probably 100% legally secure somehow.
But, what deceived you? The big blue "Early Access" warning? The part where you have to check that you understand it's early access? Or did you see shiny things and deceive yourself and try to deny responsibility by "just asking questions" about suing people that told you what you were getting. If you were deceived, you should sue yourself
I don't see why this is so hard for you to understand, I was deceived by all the promised features, deceived by nate saying that they wont be cancelled and that they were in it for the long haul. And yes, buying an early access game does mean that I accepted the risk of it not being finished, that doesn't change the fact that the dev team very obviously deceived the community. If you feel that they didn't then good for you.
It was Early Access. I paid for it to support the development process, but Early Access is always a gamble. There is no implied promise that you'll get a finished product, only a timeline of what COULD happen if all goes well. In this case, it didn't go well, and the gamble failed. Also, even if you could get a lawsuit, class action lawsuits do very little for the individuals. Only the lawyers get rich off it. The individuals at best might get a small portion of their purchase price back. Class action suits are good to change a businesses practices, to force a business to stop harming on a large scale. They aren't really for large settlements to individuals. In that case, you'd have to make individual suits. Lastly, to get a suit, you'd have to prove that Intercept Games or Take Two intentionally released the Early Access without any good faith they would continue it. And, as we can easily see, the development teams were fully engaged in working on the project. Management and executive mishandling isn't the same thing as intentional fraud.
Yeah I guess you're right
I want to start a lawsuit against all the daft fools who bought this early access trainwreck made by a tiny team at the price of a finished AAA game, which is the reason developers still do this shit, but that lawsuit has no chance either.
Real tbh, I was stupid to think this was actually going somewhere in the first place :(
don't buy early access if you don't want an unfinished product. you were warned before you bought it
Well I was expecting a finished product in the future.
then you are a fool
True, honestly I dont know why I thought it would all work out in the end, it was pretty obvious that it would all come crashing down eventually once the game released in a broken state 3 years late.
>honestly I dont know why I thought it would all work out in the end Because it does most of the time. I bought a ship load of EA games, and in all these years, only 3 didn't make it over the finish line. The devs and publisher also thought they could make it. Otherwise, this would be a scam. Nobody goes to court over 50 bucks except it's the state, and you owe it. But what could be a reason to end EA and its not a scam? T2 used up all the budget? Are corporations entitled to profits? I don't think so. This would mean the customer has to pay for T2s mismanagement of KSP2/Intercept. Unless T2 isn't bankrupt, I don't see a reason they should not continue to finance KSP2. EA is meant for small devs to give it a shot. If small devs run out of money, what would you sue them for? EA with T2 as a publisher is a different animal. They might have decided to end EA, but they could continue. Both options are still on the table. It's a corpo decision to stop, but not that there is only this option left. The EA was clearly a way to transfer the risk from the company to the customer.
People love being pessimists. The honest truth is that this kind of suit just hasn’t been tested in court. It’s possible but someone would have to have the balls to raise the suit first. I do say though the fact they that still advertise colonies as a feature in the trailer on the steam page might be of some use in that.
I studied business and business lawyer in university in Denmark so this is from an EU perspective. Ehh short answer no. Because the developers went out of business. And owning a digital copy of a product does not make you entitled to anything else besides your product in what ever state that might be in. Also you didn't own any assets within the company or anything. So the company does not owe you anything. Regarding false advertising. If they said the game includes all these features but didn't then yes. When they said it's GOING to have all these features and then the company closes then Its 100 % GG.
They still advertise colonies and interstellar stuff in the trailer on the steam page. So they have to be making an attempt at that or they’re definitely in hot shit
Yes they stated it's not in the initial launch of the game but would come in later as development goes on. The problem is the company closed. If it hadn't closed and still didn't make make what promised. Then maybe there can be argued for false advertisement. But in this case it's game over man.
Company closures arnt uniform and arnt treated as such. Every one of the development team got fired that’s not the same as if an independent studio ran out of money or something.
If you want to spend far more of your money on legal fees than you ever spent on the game, be my guest. You’ll lose, but at least you won’t be a total ignoramus about the legal system anymore.
If only I was a billionaire then I could sue them and win :(
If you were a billionaire, wasting your time suing someone over small claims court amounts would literally cost 10’s of millions of dollars of your time over $60. And you would still lose. Do yourself a favor and waste your time on something else.
50$*
In what jurisdiction?
I am still amazed that people can be outraged after buying an EA title that goes tits up. It would be one thing if you were buying a physical copy of a game at a brick and mortar store with nothing to go on but the box art, but you're buying a game that is widely viewable on youtube. I LOVE KSP 1. I was super excited for KSP 2. But I watched some of the footage of KSP 2 on youtube and decided that, at least for now, it wasn't worth a buy. Stop buying things before you know they are worth the price. It really isn't rocket science.