Meanwhile, open betas allow for outside feedback. However, when done incorrectly this often becomes an attempt to please everyone. There will always be dissatisfied people and this is both painful for those individuals as well as game developers. This is partly because there will always be those people who think that Dub Wars needs mermaids and whether or not that is the case it will be up to the developer. Yet, in a game where the focus is on space, music, and neon lights, how are mermaids relevant?
The creators of Dub Wars, MURA Interactive Steam page says Early Access “will allow us to build the game the community wants to play”.
It is not uncommon to see beta access as part of a Kickstarter and while this is a good option for those developers lacking the funds for more physical rewards, developers need to understand that open development should not begin without an already marketable product. However, the choice to use open development is a great marketing tool as it allows many developers to create a hype machine around their games and push votes through Steam Greenlight.
Problems occur when developers are not willing to improve upon the product they already have by sifting through the multitude of ideas and finding the few pieces of gold among the unhelpful comments and advice. Additionally, open game development is not a great idea if a developer can not tell the difference between good and bad suggestions.
Mouldy Toof Studios, the creators of The Escapists, declared on their Steam page “We’re entirely open to any and all ideas.”
It is easy to get overwhelmed by “this is what I like from this other game” comments which kill of creativity, originality, and innovation. This makes for bland and generic games. This becomes even worse when a project far from finished is given to an unexpected and unprepared crowd because they should not be expect to fix a broken game or build one that is not there.
It is not that crowdfunded games should not use open development. Crowdfunded game developers just need to provide a decent project beforehand, not make promises they cannot fulfill, and stick to their vision. Open game development is less about compromise and more about improvement. With this in mind wonderful game will be invented. Meanwhile, players who have the chance to beta test should share their opinions as suggestions rather than make them as demands. Suggestions are nice, demands can get a little scary.
Interesting discussion. I feel like this could be a good beginning to a solid string of articles. #IDARB would be a great game to examine with the “Open Game Dev” mindset since they built their entire game off of user feedback after they drew a red box on the screen (IDARB = I Drew A Red Box).
Thank you, this will likely be part of a string of articles. I remember looking at IDARB pretty early on and creating a character for the gallery that I called “Interns Coffee” it was interesting to see what others had come up with at the time.