I honestly prefer Valve’s method. You as a consumer should be reading what you’re buying before you purchase anyway, and you can still use their refund system if you somehow missed the warning.
Removing unfinished games from the storefront just increases the amount of lost media out there. These projects should be available for as long as possible simply for archival reasons.
How about if valve has an agreement with developers where if they release a game in early access, and then abandon it, it switches to free-to-play?
Developers don’t have to pay for the servers, and the source code isn’t released. Gamers get to still play it, if it had any redeeming qualities, or for nostalgia. And valve gets…uhh… community goodwill? Honestly the lack of benefits for valve is probably why this will never happen.
Just give me a notice before I buy, “Warning! This game is in early access and hasn’t been updated in X amount of time. It may be abandoned.”
If they’re going to do anything else, block sales to the game after a certain period of inactivity and notify the dev to either update the game, delist, or make the game free.
That way the game isn’t lost to time, people aren’t getting scammed, and it places some accountability on the dev if they want to continue their project.
I honestly prefer Valve’s method. You as a consumer should be reading what you’re buying before you purchase anyway, and you can still use their refund system if you somehow missed the warning.
Removing unfinished games from the storefront just increases the amount of lost media out there. These projects should be available for as long as possible simply for archival reasons.
Plus, what is the definition of abandoned?
Any deadline is arbitrary
How about if valve has an agreement with developers where if they release a game in early access, and then abandon it, it switches to free-to-play?
Developers don’t have to pay for the servers, and the source code isn’t released. Gamers get to still play it, if it had any redeeming qualities, or for nostalgia. And valve gets…uhh… community goodwill? Honestly the lack of benefits for valve is probably why this will never happen.
Just give me a notice before I buy, “Warning! This game is in early access and hasn’t been updated in X amount of time. It may be abandoned.”
If they’re going to do anything else, block sales to the game after a certain period of inactivity and notify the dev to either update the game, delist, or make the game free.
That way the game isn’t lost to time, people aren’t getting scammed, and it places some accountability on the dev if they want to continue their project.
If you’re not already aware, almost that exact warning message exists on steam now.