How to "correctly" go to Early Access on Steam
In view of the appropriate spring season and many scheduled releases at this time, now is the best time to read the translation of the article by game designer Matthew Donatelli and learn a few useful lessons before you go to Early Access. This is the most sober look at Early Access I have ever read.
The Early Access category on Steam has long been turned into a swamp, but this is not Valve's fault. The blame for the whole gulf of abandoned projects and disappointed players lies precisely on the shoulders of developers. I am writing this article precisely in order to tell you how to go to Early Access correctly, so that we, as game developers, can restore confidence from the players and return to our arsenal of igrodel a very useful tool from Steam. But first, who am I and why should you listen to me?
Hive Jump released in full release yesterday, January 18, 2017
')
I’m a game designer for Hive Jump, a roguelike platformer in the spirit of run n 'gun, which has been in Early Access the past six months and just went on release yesterday on Steam. At the time of this writing, we have 94% positive feedback from players from a small but very active community that we were able to gather during Early Access. Hive Jump had a fairly limited financial success during the Early Access period, but nevertheless we were able to finish our game with the help of players and gained the wisdom we want to share with you. So let's start our story.
Should you display your game in Early Access?
Most likely, the answer will be negative. Too many developers believe that Early Access is a great way to cover their financial problems and troubles, but it’s not. There are many better ways to collect funds, not including the volume of the marketing part, polishing the game and the happy rabbit paw, necessary for the very successful passage of Early Access as Darkest Dungeon or Crypt of the Necrodancer did. If you are going to early access to raise funds for your project:And stop.
Even Early Access requires good marketing practice if you want to set the heat.
Before you go to Early Access, you should consider well whether it will go well on the platform . ) and whether players will be ready to enjoy passing your game for dozens or even hundreds of hours, precisely with the current quality of the project. A linear narrative game will surely be a terrible candidate for Early Access, but there is a set of certain qualities that will allow games to pass the Early Access perfectly. Here are my personal observations on this issue:
Qualities that will help pass the Early Access well
Of course, there are sustainable projects for Early Access, based on their own unique design. As well as vice versa, there are unsuitable. One element from the list above, of course, is not enough, but a competent combination of several such elements as a result will lead to the involvement of players in your game for a long time. So, after reading the information above, you realized that Early Access is a great opportunity for your game, and then what?
You must finish your game before you go to Early Access.
“But I need money from Early Access, which will allow to finish the development!” Probably you did not read carefully when I said that Early Access is not the best way to earn extra money to complete work on the game? Both Early Access and crowdfunding platforms like KickStarter require you not only to think over but also to conduct marketing campaigns in order to at least try to achieve your goal. And the achievement of goals, of course, no one guarantees. And it is precisely this time and money from campaigns that you can direct to complete your game. If you're wondering how we raised funds to develop our Hive Jump, and what methods we used, read the article by my colleague Matt here .
Hive Jump prototype and its version for Early Access, do not release the prototype into Early Access!
“But wait, if my game is ready, why do I need Early Access at all?” Now, now let's talk! If we are not going to use Early Access as a fundraising tool, and our game must be ready, why do we really need Early Access? Most likely, your game is already ready, but it is far from complete development. Early Access is a tool to complete the design of the project, when all the key branches and aesthetics are already implemented in it, but the final high-level polishing or all the features that you wanted to embody in your universe are not yet ready.
Here is a list of the correct applications for Early Access as a developer tool:
When we entered early access, it was a finished game, but not yet completed . And the distinction between these two words, on which I focus your attention, is very important. The finished game can be completed from start to finish, and preferably pereproydena more many times. But the completed game contains all the planned features, is “completely” cleared of bugs and problems, and is sufficiently sustained, like a good wine. Hive Jump was a usable couch cooperative game when it came out in Early Access, but during its passage we together with the players managed to make the project shine!
You need a PLAN and SCHEDULE to access Early Access.
So, since now we are talking about Early Access in the key to completing the game, not fundraising or project readiness for players, how do we do everything as efficiently as possible? You need to have an action plan in place, specifically specifying what features you are going to add during the Early Access, as well as the deadlines for this work.
When submitting the game to Early Access, there is one thing that Valve will ask you about: “How much and how exactly will the version of Early Access differ from the version of the project in the release?”. Valve also asks the following: “Approximately how long will your game be in Early Access?”. Both of these questions should be the basis of your plan for Early Access.
Here is the list of features that we add to Hive Jump
We had a ready list of features to add to the game, which would take us a period of about three months to implement. We assumed that we would have time to complete the introduction of features and the launch of the release version of the project at the holiday sale on Steam. We were wrong in the calculations, and you probably also make a mistake. And that's fine! Rather, even good.
Our timing estimates were not too far from reality, but they definitely did not take into account feedback from the players. Also, Valve has another preference in the documentation, which states that the game should not be completed so that there is no place for it to implement any feedback from the players.
Hive Jump stayed in Early Access for six months, but was made much better precisely because of the benefit of getting feedback from the players in a very effective way. We introduced a special competition mode for speedrunners, as well as a separate mode for hardcore players who wanted an even tougher experience of passing, dying again and again. We also implemented many improvements for multiplayer, fixed a lot of problems that occurred on various specific devices and hardware configurations of players, and of course, tested the network game mode and the width of matchmaking.
Treat the community with care and respect.
Obviously, good handling of your players is important, but what this is pouring into can be a time consuming process. Be prepared for the fact that part of your precious development time will literally be eaten by your yellowed out community of players. But don't worry about it, if you care about your community, it will take care of you.
First, and the key is open and true communication with the community. Post updates, respond to messages on the Steam developer forum, record the maximum amount of detail in your update notes, make it possible to communicate one-on-one with players using the communication channel that is comfortable for you. By doing all these things you can build a healthy relationship with the players and the present community around your project.
The second, and critical, is the schedule for regular game updates. I recommend releasing updates every week or two. If you are not ready for such a short development cycle, perhaps for now your project should not go to Early Access. If you do not have time or can not roll out the update in time, be sure to write about this to the players with an explanation of the reason.
Players are people, as well as developers. Let's communicate well with each other.
Third, know and consider any feedback from the players. Feedback from players can be very insightful, helpful, only tangent or even useless. Regardless of the content and value of the feedback, it is very important to know that you received it and perceive it openly and honestly. At the same time, to answer when you will work on feedback, and most importantly when changes can occur.
A good example of an answer: “Yes, we agree that it will be very useful for players to group faster around the doors at each level. We will try to realize this opportunity in the next weekly update. ”
A bad example of an answer: “While it is convenient for players to crawl and squat, we will support the development in the same way and this is unlikely to happen. Such a feature will take a significant part of the time for rework, which will cause a backlog from the schedule. We also believe that this change will not give such value to our players as those features that we have already planned. ”
Increasingly, in order to calm an irritated player, it is enough just to assure him that he was heard and to tell about the steps that you are going to take to solve the problem. And if you do not plan to take any steps to remedy the situation, explain why. Perhaps the player will not like your answer, but if it turns out that this case is not an isolated case, it is better to deal with the problem before it turns into a snowball.
Discord combines voice and text chat, giving an excellent effect.
In the end, use Discord to manage your community of players (comment analogue of Teamspeak and Skype for gamers) . This is just a personal recommendation, but creating your own forum and supporting it takes a very long time. We tried it this way, but switched to Discord during Early Access. We used it to coordinate multiplayer tests, field notes from the players, and even to share the memes from the Starship Troops in order to build a partnership. We used Discord as a supplement to the Steam forum. You just need to post the invite links in the notes to your update and the most dedicated fans will find you.
Only you can stop the landfill in the Early Access section!
Valve has provided developers and players with a great tool for turning good games into great games by entering Early Access. And I sincerely believe that if you follow the advice from this article, your game will not be another abandoned ship in the Ocean of Early Access, but will become a faceted diamond, passing through the severe tests of Early Access.
Version of the article "Mnogabukav, niasilil"
Early Access is not to collect money to finalize the game to the finished version. As long as your game does not have certain qualities, it has no place in Early Access. If your game is not completely ready, it makes no sense to go to Early Access. If you do not know how long your game will stay in Early Access, it is not ready for it. If you do not respect your players, they will not respect you. If you have scrolled through the article and are reading only this paragraph, you should also not go to Early Access.
Everything, the translation is over, friends. Thanks for reading! I'm from GTP Media, which is right now holding the Indie- GTP Indie Cup .
If this article was interesting, you know what to do :)
The Early Access category on Steam has long been turned into a swamp, but this is not Valve's fault. The blame for the whole gulf of abandoned projects and disappointed players lies precisely on the shoulders of developers. I am writing this article precisely in order to tell you how to go to Early Access correctly, so that we, as game developers, can restore confidence from the players and return to our arsenal of igrodel a very useful tool from Steam. But first, who am I and why should you listen to me?
Hive Jump released in full release yesterday, January 18, 2017
')
I’m a game designer for Hive Jump, a roguelike platformer in the spirit of run n 'gun, which has been in Early Access the past six months and just went on release yesterday on Steam. At the time of this writing, we have 94% positive feedback from players from a small but very active community that we were able to gather during Early Access. Hive Jump had a fairly limited financial success during the Early Access period, but nevertheless we were able to finish our game with the help of players and gained the wisdom we want to share with you. So let's start our story.
Should you display your game in Early Access?
Most likely, the answer will be negative. Too many developers believe that Early Access is a great way to cover their financial problems and troubles, but it’s not. There are many better ways to collect funds, not including the volume of the marketing part, polishing the game and the happy rabbit paw, necessary for the very successful passage of Early Access as Darkest Dungeon or Crypt of the Necrodancer did. If you are going to early access to raise funds for your project:
Even Early Access requires good marketing practice if you want to set the heat.
Before you go to Early Access, you should consider well whether it will go well on the platform . ) and whether players will be ready to enjoy passing your game for dozens or even hundreds of hours, precisely with the current quality of the project. A linear narrative game will surely be a terrible candidate for Early Access, but there is a set of certain qualities that will allow games to pass the Early Access perfectly. Here are my personal observations on this issue:
Qualities that will help pass the Early Access well
- The possibility of passing, of different scenarios
- Online multiplayer
- The steep curve of difficulty passing (approx. Nonlinear complexity)
- Roguelike elements
- Content depth
- Difficult Simulations
- RPG mechanics
- Open world for research
- Survival mechanics
- Physics-based sandboxes
Of course, there are sustainable projects for Early Access, based on their own unique design. As well as vice versa, there are unsuitable. One element from the list above, of course, is not enough, but a competent combination of several such elements as a result will lead to the involvement of players in your game for a long time. So, after reading the information above, you realized that Early Access is a great opportunity for your game, and then what?
You must finish your game before you go to Early Access.
“But I need money from Early Access, which will allow to finish the development!” Probably you did not read carefully when I said that Early Access is not the best way to earn extra money to complete work on the game? Both Early Access and crowdfunding platforms like KickStarter require you not only to think over but also to conduct marketing campaigns in order to at least try to achieve your goal. And the achievement of goals, of course, no one guarantees. And it is precisely this time and money from campaigns that you can direct to complete your game. If you're wondering how we raised funds to develop our Hive Jump, and what methods we used, read the article by my colleague Matt here .
Hive Jump prototype and its version for Early Access, do not release the prototype into Early Access!
“But wait, if my game is ready, why do I need Early Access at all?” Now, now let's talk! If we are not going to use Early Access as a fundraising tool, and our game must be ready, why do we really need Early Access? Most likely, your game is already ready, but it is far from complete development. Early Access is a tool to complete the design of the project, when all the key branches and aesthetics are already implemented in it, but the final high-level polishing or all the features that you wanted to embody in your universe are not yet ready.
Here is a list of the correct applications for Early Access as a developer tool:
- collect feedback from players
- gameplay enhancement
- final balancing
- find the latest bugs and fix them
- build a community around the project
- online functional testing in field conditions
- improve the comfort of the game for beginners
- diva test on a large number of different devices and configurations
When we entered early access, it was a finished game, but not yet completed . And the distinction between these two words, on which I focus your attention, is very important. The finished game can be completed from start to finish, and preferably pereproydena more many times. But the completed game contains all the planned features, is “completely” cleared of bugs and problems, and is sufficiently sustained, like a good wine. Hive Jump was a usable couch cooperative game when it came out in Early Access, but during its passage we together with the players managed to make the project shine!
You need a PLAN and SCHEDULE to access Early Access.
So, since now we are talking about Early Access in the key to completing the game, not fundraising or project readiness for players, how do we do everything as efficiently as possible? You need to have an action plan in place, specifically specifying what features you are going to add during the Early Access, as well as the deadlines for this work.
When submitting the game to Early Access, there is one thing that Valve will ask you about: “How much and how exactly will the version of Early Access differ from the version of the project in the release?”. Valve also asks the following: “Approximately how long will your game be in Early Access?”. Both of these questions should be the basis of your plan for Early Access.
Here is the list of features that we add to Hive Jump
We had a ready list of features to add to the game, which would take us a period of about three months to implement. We assumed that we would have time to complete the introduction of features and the launch of the release version of the project at the holiday sale on Steam. We were wrong in the calculations, and you probably also make a mistake. And that's fine! Rather, even good.
Our timing estimates were not too far from reality, but they definitely did not take into account feedback from the players. Also, Valve has another preference in the documentation, which states that the game should not be completed so that there is no place for it to implement any feedback from the players.
Hive Jump stayed in Early Access for six months, but was made much better precisely because of the benefit of getting feedback from the players in a very effective way. We introduced a special competition mode for speedrunners, as well as a separate mode for hardcore players who wanted an even tougher experience of passing, dying again and again. We also implemented many improvements for multiplayer, fixed a lot of problems that occurred on various specific devices and hardware configurations of players, and of course, tested the network game mode and the width of matchmaking.
Treat the community with care and respect.
Obviously, good handling of your players is important, but what this is pouring into can be a time consuming process. Be prepared for the fact that part of your precious development time will literally be eaten by your yellowed out community of players. But don't worry about it, if you care about your community, it will take care of you.
First, and the key is open and true communication with the community. Post updates, respond to messages on the Steam developer forum, record the maximum amount of detail in your update notes, make it possible to communicate one-on-one with players using the communication channel that is comfortable for you. By doing all these things you can build a healthy relationship with the players and the present community around your project.
The second, and critical, is the schedule for regular game updates. I recommend releasing updates every week or two. If you are not ready for such a short development cycle, perhaps for now your project should not go to Early Access. If you do not have time or can not roll out the update in time, be sure to write about this to the players with an explanation of the reason.
Players are people, as well as developers. Let's communicate well with each other.
Third, know and consider any feedback from the players. Feedback from players can be very insightful, helpful, only tangent or even useless. Regardless of the content and value of the feedback, it is very important to know that you received it and perceive it openly and honestly. At the same time, to answer when you will work on feedback, and most importantly when changes can occur.
A good example of an answer: “Yes, we agree that it will be very useful for players to group faster around the doors at each level. We will try to realize this opportunity in the next weekly update. ”
A bad example of an answer: “While it is convenient for players to crawl and squat, we will support the development in the same way and this is unlikely to happen. Such a feature will take a significant part of the time for rework, which will cause a backlog from the schedule. We also believe that this change will not give such value to our players as those features that we have already planned. ”
Increasingly, in order to calm an irritated player, it is enough just to assure him that he was heard and to tell about the steps that you are going to take to solve the problem. And if you do not plan to take any steps to remedy the situation, explain why. Perhaps the player will not like your answer, but if it turns out that this case is not an isolated case, it is better to deal with the problem before it turns into a snowball.
Discord combines voice and text chat, giving an excellent effect.
In the end, use Discord to manage your community of players (comment analogue of Teamspeak and Skype for gamers) . This is just a personal recommendation, but creating your own forum and supporting it takes a very long time. We tried it this way, but switched to Discord during Early Access. We used it to coordinate multiplayer tests, field notes from the players, and even to share the memes from the Starship Troops in order to build a partnership. We used Discord as a supplement to the Steam forum. You just need to post the invite links in the notes to your update and the most dedicated fans will find you.
Only you can stop the landfill in the Early Access section!
Valve has provided developers and players with a great tool for turning good games into great games by entering Early Access. And I sincerely believe that if you follow the advice from this article, your game will not be another abandoned ship in the Ocean of Early Access, but will become a faceted diamond, passing through the severe tests of Early Access.
Version of the article "Mnogabukav, niasilil"
Early Access is not to collect money to finalize the game to the finished version. As long as your game does not have certain qualities, it has no place in Early Access. If your game is not completely ready, it makes no sense to go to Early Access. If you do not know how long your game will stay in Early Access, it is not ready for it. If you do not respect your players, they will not respect you. If you have scrolled through the article and are reading only this paragraph, you should also not go to Early Access.
Everything, the translation is over, friends. Thanks for reading! I'm from GTP Media, which is right now holding the Indie- GTP Indie Cup .
If this article was interesting, you know what to do :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/319900/
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