This Is Why Devs Don't Bother Finishing Games

Sad state of affairs, as far as I am concerned.
People just gobble half finished games up and that will be the new status quo.

Pretty sad when a game like this is the top seller. It's really nothing special.

@get2sammyb The Crash trilogy is priced at $40 on PSN right now, which seems like a good middle ground price. Although I'll be holding off a few months after buying UC HD trilogy at full price and seeing it dip to $20 fairly quickly....

@NintendoFan4Lyf The videogame crash in the early 80s was bound to happen, games were a fad at the time, played by few and the quality was low for home console ports without much replay ability or longevity. Consumers had been playing the same blocky junk for 4 years. Its a completely different point in time now, games are here to stay. We just need shady business practices to be taken to court and quality companies with customers in mind and us enthusiast gamers to buy their games!

I've never understood why people like this game

Nothing new. Just check the top ten about books, movies or records and you'll find crap everywhere.

Actually I don't see a problem in buying unfinished games that are meant to be updated! The problem is buying games that should be finished, like physical copies, and they are not!
Besides the point of the "early access" thing is to inform consumers of what they're buying...

@NintendoFan4Lyf

Pre-Orders do well and there is also a lot of people buying new, if people pay for an unfinished game then thay will have no problem buying new.

There is no way on earth I would pay to play Ark: Survival Evolved, thay need to keep that first access poop on PC where it belongs.

This won't last forever.
Most games I see that are popular on Twitch are multiplayer only, janky messes with minimal effort on balance.
Most are Minecraft/Rust clones with no story concent or offline play.
Eventually people move on from one to the next to the next. Once they're finished people realise they're fav imaginary feature won't be added and they turn on it. Then, Steam reviews quickly turn negative and they find "X but better" and the cycle repeats. Die hards stick around and become so good new players can't start because of PvP, Minecraft is inexplicably popular despite nothing actually working because everyone makes some modded server, turns on creative mode, hangs out and plays Legos.

@NintendoFan4Lyf I dont disagree, games absolutely should be finished.

"consumers are getting tired of paying full price"

Yes they are, but this happens every generation bar a few exceptions. They started off at £50-£60 and now customers expect them to be £30-£40. Black Friday has decimated game prices, and I actually love it!

"companies have to look at other ways to get a return on investment"

This already happens. DLC, special editions, Microtransactions, skins, remasters, events, toys, mobile offshoots, clothing etc etc.

"people are playing the same junk over and over"

This happens in all walks of life. From buying food all the way through to using the same garage to service cars. People like what they know and convenience. I love variety in my gaming (like you) but I'm in the minority like most of the registered users here at Pushsquare.

I get your point, we want finished games. The problem is companies just want games out in the wild. The quality standards and checks are prehistoric to make a game gold and the reality is that needs to be rectified first. If it ever will is anyone's guess.

Woah, I honestly didn't expect to find such a clickbait-y title on this site lol
It sounds just like those lame Zergnet banners you can find pretty much anywhere.

It's a great game and I've spent more time playing Ark than the majority of AAA titles

well as a big fan of Video Games I must say the Concept of what "Early Access" tends to be is great and looks good!
Early Access is invented to be used by game Devs who are short on budget, so they kinda sell the game first and then they make it!
like they sell you half of the game half price...they promise to finish the development... but sadly, some studios sh*t on this concept and instead of finishing their game they start making DLCs and selling them, cuz already they made more money from an unfinished game, that they might have from the actual finished game!
you still playing?! and the other problem is, people buy an unfinished game and play it like hundreds of hours...eventually they get tired of the game (or have played it enough) before the game's development is finished...
there also so many other problems with Early Access games...but the thing is Early Access is kinda destroying somethings here, and mostly in Steam, there's all kinds of Early Access games there.
and yes...when you make something that looks good, but isn't finished people will buy it...I wanted to buy Ark...buy how many years is it now? still not finished...the art of game making is fading in here somewhere!

As with any early access game you should only buy it if you're happy with the state it's in now. While Ark isn't my cup of tea I know a lot of people like it, so it isn't that much of a shock it sold well. It also shows that games can still do well without millions poured into advertising. Not sure why this news is somehow worse than CoD or Fifa being the top selling retail game for the xth month running.

Not been finished didn't harm Street Fighter 5's review 😉

I'll admit to been tempted by this until I watched some videos and it looked a bit dull, at least they're upfront about its condition.

I was more upset that FIFA was the best selling game last year, quite why people fell the need to by the same game year after year puzzles me, the best FIFA I ever played was on the Megadrive 😃

There's a sucker born every minute!!

I haven't even followed this game. Is it really that bad?

I wouldn't consider Twitch and Let's Plays to be a good indicator of game quality. The most popular examples of such are usually bad games.

Me and my friends played this until ou alliance members stabed us in the back and basically became dictators not letting anyone one in or out luckily they got destroyed by a rival tribe

@get2sammyb Kanye West released Life of Pablo unfinished. He's still working on it. Having worked with musicians a lot, there's virtually no examples where they've been satisfied with a release.

I have been wanting to play this game for ages but I refuse to pay for a janky game. The frame rate and bugs are atrocious and they are pushing out dlc while the base game stays shoddy and unfinished. I wish for the day for it to be playable but right now 15 FPS is not my idea of a good time

@themcnoisy
True, gamers have a lot of choice in buying a game now.
You can go all in with pre-order and season pass, getting all the content asap from release, while paying a premium.
You can get the game day 1, not buy any DLC.
You can buy the game used
You can wait a couple of months, wait for the first 30% off or so sale, and get the game and season pass for the original RRP
You can get the game in a sale, then wait for the season pass to be in a sale
You can buy the GOTY, and so on

EA made $650m off Ultimate Team Microtransactions alone last year, out of $1.3bn DLC revenue total.
In the good old days, I guess we would have had ultimate team and cheats as part of the package, but now they are sold to us.

Buying a game feels like playing the stock market to me now, I have a vague idea of what I want to play, and what I'll be willing to pay, based on reviews, then I wait for the price to fall low enough for me to bite. If a game is at the "low end" of my price range, there is a good chance it's also been fully patched and content released, which is an additional bonus.

@zimbogamer Personally I'd never pick it up due to the DLC, I hate day 1 DLC, but as this is an early access game it is actually day -xxx DLC. To release DLC for a game you've charged money for and not yet finished is disgusting and should warn you away from dealing with such a company. I'm sure the likes of Capcom, Konami et al are jealous they didn't think of it though

Ha ha no suprise at all Ark is the best game on PS4 atm I have no interest in picking up any other game for quite some time tbh as nothing available tickle's my fancy, nothing. Every game I bought bar Ark in the last 12 month's has been a dissapointment, except Ark. No suprise a half assed not finished game blow's everything else outta the water. It's not our fault the majority of console game's end up being a dissapointment. DS3 and FFXV spring to mind, dissapointment at it's finest, game's that should take month's to finish take day's instead, is it any suprise real gamer's have turned to something they can get their teeth into and play for longer than a week, casual's beware Ark is not for you It takes 4 days FOUR REAL LIFE day's to raise a Wyvern for example(the same amount of time it took me to complete the whole of Nathan Drake collection 3 games!) pretty much broken sleep for 4 day's and I love it, imagine if something like that was in one of the casual game's, it would soon be taken out because of the cry baby's.

does battlefield 4 count as a good selling unfinished game?

I really want to play Ark but them bugs though... gonna keep holding out until a sale or it actually becomes stable.