JA:Flashback - Early Access Review @ Cliqist

Cliqist posted a new review of the Early Access version of Jagged Alliance Flashback.

Graphically, Jagged Alliance Flashback looks fine. The style is mostly realistic, which follows the same theme as the mandatory reloading and perma-death, and the environments generally look very colorful and finished. There are plenty of flaws to pick out, but overall, this was a fine aesthetic experience, music and all. There’s also a pretty massive island to explore, all sectioned off into a grid that you explore one square mile(ish) at a time. That’s all fine, but unless you are incredibly lucky in combat, you will never survive long enough to explore more than a third of this area.

Overall, I’d say that this was a really good game-in-the-making if it wasn’t for one thing. When I first got this, it cost $45 on Steam. No way. I’m unable to see Steam Early Access as anything but a place to get people to beta test your game for free. If you’re going to charge people $45 for the right to test your game, you’re crazy. It’s unfinished, mildly broken in places, and missing features. It needs to be play tested, and instead of paying people to do that (common practice for most of gaming’s history), most companies charge people to do that. They lose save data, they play a broken game, and they miss out on the inevitable 50% off sale that will render this game a fair trade. Not to mention all the surrounding controversy with this game’s distribution. It’ll be a really good game – when it’s done.

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More information.

And yet again another moron who can't seem to grasp the concept of Early Access.
What part of "this game is in early access do not buy unless you want to support it's creation" is hard to understand?

I'm all for early access but I don't agree with Fargo or this lot's concept of overpricing early access games in the name of matching some tier of kickstarter backer, when most games funded thru kickstarter get all kinds of varying amounts of funding including ridiculously large contributions.

People who back games tend to do so because they want to see the game get made, not because it's some petty pissing contest over who put the most money in the pot, so I don't really think most backers would give a crap if the developer they backed later decides to also include early access - at a reasonable/sane cost.

There is no way I'm paying $40 for EA to this game, just like I wouldn't pay $60 for EA to Wasteland 2 - neither of those games will cost that much when they release - the prices are just jacked up.

There are tons of EA games with far more reasonable pricing or the opposite - where it's cheaper to buy in early and they state the price will be higher at release - you get a discount to help them test and produce the game - which makes more sense since you're risking money and buying an unfinished product.

Terry said:

What part of "this game is in early access do not buy unless you want to support it's creation" is hard to understand?

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Games like this are already funded (unlike some EA games that didn't have full COMMUNITY funding up front) so that makes it even more lame when they overcharge for EA. Any extra money they get is either more money towards development if they're putting all the money they get INTO development, or it's pure profit since the development is theoretically already paid for. So the idea of "supporting its creation" is kind of iffy for games that are already funded and to me makes the stupidly high pricing for EA even more iffy.

I buy a lot of EA games and would've bought this one weeks ago if the pricing wasn't greedy and stupid, even with many people playing it saying it's not really worth playing yet.

The author isn't saying EA is bad or anything or not worth it - unless the pricing is utterly moronic.

Terry said:

And yet again another moron who can't seem to grasp the concept of Early Access.
What part of "this game is in early access do not buy unless you want to support it's creation" is hard to understand?

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And it's a gaming 'journalist' too.

If you don't want to pay, don't pay.

@ Voqar
I have been supporting the kickstarter for games since wasteland 2 and it is unbelievable the pissing and moaning that these developers get in the KS feed back comments so while you are sort of correct when you say

"People who back games tend to do so because they want to see the game get made, not because it's some petty pissing contest over who put the most money in the pot, so I don't really think most backers would give a crap if the developer they backed later decides to also include early access - at a reasonable/sane cost."

There are enough of a VERY vocal minority that doing this would create a major shit storm. I have seen such over much lessor issues like in the case of Shadowrun Returns and the crazy shit storm over the announcement that any new releases after their KS commitments were met would be steam only. Which as we know has become a moot point.

I think that the linking of early access on steam and higher pledge amounts on a KS campaign for alpha / beta is a possible problem in the sense that you should keep the costs equal.

As for early access being cheaper I disagree because if what they are looking for is the committed fan base who wants to help shape the making of the game with their input then if you lay down $60 its because you want to help make a better game. If you sell the game for $15 then all you are doing is cutting your own throat because you get the bargain hunters who don't want to wait for a sale who will not give input and bitch that the game is not ready yet.

The issue that I think there is, is that there are 2 types of early access (EA) games ones who have been successfully Kickstarted and ones that are using EA to fund the whole thing and those are typically the ones who sell for cheap and ramp up the price as they reach completion. This may be what confuses some as they look at the KS EA games and think "what the hell"? this should be like these other ones that are cheaper cause they are not done yet.

EA steam is still a resent idea so many of the KS like Wasteland 2 could not anticipate its use and others simply plan poorly for how they will implement it in to their game development. Which ultimately I think is the case in JA:Flashback.

Terry said:

And yet again another moron who can't seem to grasp the concept of Early Access.
What part of "this game is in early access do not buy unless you want to support it's creation" is hard to understand?

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Early access is one way for developpers to fund their projects. Developpers come with the strategy they think fit to achieved their funding goals.
This guy is entitled to say that pricing it the way it was priced is too high, especially when in the end, it is paying to work, as nothing indicates he did not understand the purpose of SEA.

There were a variety of situations, some went through KS and chose to price higher, other went through KS and chose to price lower the Steam Early Access.

Nothing indicates that one way to do is better to get a committed community involved.

The screening at the entry price rests on nothing in this regard.

More likely, they assessed that their potential customer base was not that large and pricing high would bring more money from less numerous customers ready to buy.
One sale is one sale: it is better to sell an item a price to ten thousand customers
than selling the item to ten thousand customers for a third of the price.