Developers abandon unfinished Steam title and the 200,000 gamers that bought it

[Justin Kahn]

The Steam Early Access program has been a way for gamers to jump in on titles fairly early on in development and has proven itself to be, in some cases, a worth while investment despite a sometimes buggy product. Recently, a Steam title called Towns has stopped development after selling more than 200,000 copies over the past year and a half.

As you can imagine, many gamers who have invested $15 in the project aren't happy about this, especially considering the game launched in an extremely incomplete and disappointing fashion to begin with. Towns released on Steam in November 2012 as part of the Greenlight program, technically before Steam Early Access began, but it essentially has been treated as though it is part of it because of the troubled launch and ongoing development.

As if the launch wasn't enough of a red flag, continued development on Towns has been rocky with the original lead developer leaving and now with his replacement following, saying sales just can't maintain the cost of development anymore.

While Towns was not technically billed as an alpha or beta project, many Steam gamers are treating it that way and are outraged with the fact that the game now appears as though it will be left dormant. There is no clear indication as to what actions Valve might take as of yet and the current developers of Towns have no plans to offer refunds right now, according to reports, but they do want to make a sequel. The developers are quoted as saying they are interested in moving some of the best ideas from Towns over into a sequel, but are still just in the idea stage at this point.

One thing we do know is that Valve is trying to keep an eye on which projects it allows through its Early Access program, a title called Earth: Year 2066 has recently been taken down from the site and Steam is now issuing refunds to purchasers. Steam claims the removal was due to misleading marketing materials, but some reports suggest it was due to unlicensed artwork and fake reviews.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/56689-developers-abandon-unfinished-steam-title-and-the-200000-gamers-that-bought-it.html

 

[TomSEA]

I think Steam does a good job of managing these early access games. For this one failure, there are a hundred successes.

But it is a good lesson learned in keeping your eye on these early productions.

 

[GhostRyder]

I think Steam does a good job of managing these early access games. For this one failure, there are a hundred successes.

But it is a good lesson learned in keeping your eye on these early productions.

Indeed, its sad when stuff like this sneaks through though (Anyone remember the WarZ?).

I think the developers are being lazy or pushing a hit and run on this. By the fact 200k purchased this for $15 a piece sounds like they got quite a bit of funds for this. I find it hard to believe that they were not getting enough money from this game since to me it does not look like it should cost that much to develop (Unless they were wasting the money some how?).

Maybe more to this, but to me this is not a sign of good faith and will definitely cause problems for this "Developer".

 

[Trillionsin]

I thinnk there is an implied risk when purchasing games like this. Hell, I was afraid to buy Minecraft because it was in beta. I did, and of course we all know that turned out well, but I still realized there was a chance I wasted my money. I have felt no bigger waste of money than on SimCity, honestly. What a waste.

 

[Darkshadoe]

"The developers are quoted as saying they are interested in moving some of the best ideas from Towns over into a sequel, but are still just in the idea stage at this point."

Does this mean the developers are going to make a sequel they are going to abandon too?

"Towns has been rocky with the original lead developer leaving and now with his replacement following, saying sales just can't maintain the cost of development anymore."

They made over $3000000. How could that not be enough for a non-Triple A game?

 

[GhostRyder]

"The developers are quoted as saying they are interested in moving some of the best ideas from Towns over into a sequel, but are still just in the idea stage at this point."

Does this mean the developers are going to make a sequel they are going to abandon too?

"Towns has been rocky with the original lead developer leaving and now with his replacement following, saying sales just can't maintain the cost of development anymore."

They made over $3000000. How could that not be enough for a non-Triple A game?

My thoughts exactly.

 

[BlueDrake]

"The developers are quoted as saying they are interested in moving some of the best ideas from Towns over into a sequel, but are still just in the idea stage at this point."

Does this mean the developers are going to make a sequel they are going to abandon too?

"Towns has been rocky with the original lead developer leaving and now with his replacement following, saying sales just can't maintain the cost of development anymore."

They made over $3000000. How could that not be enough for a non-Triple A game?

Did you take a gander at their forums? I got into the game, because someone did an LP / Give feedback for improvements. Then they basically got to the bottom floor (only real challenge of the game..) and called it quits. Since the game wasn't fleshed out much more, and really I find it a joke given the range of choices. They pulled in various famous people, put as heroes but even then.. it's just to get more people buying the game.

Taking most of the cash, and then just not bothering with development. I had a feeling after a while, it was basically dead after the forums were silent. Aside from the general users, who mod the game it's been dead. It's just NOW the news is official that the game is abandoned, and a sequel is kinda sad really to even talk about. Can't finish the original game, so why are you looking at a sequel? Oh right.. more quick cash out of people.

I also bought into the Minecraft beta, and actually kept on top of all the news. It was enjoyable having the developers actually converse with players, sure we had those rough patches earlier on. but still. It's gone on to become a huge success, and others are jumping onto the bandwagon. Looking to cash in on the success, because they couldn't come up with a better idea as per usual. Catch a hold of the craze, build clones and hope to get cash.

 

[Sniped_Ash]

By comparison, Double Fine raised about $3.4 million on its kickstarter for Broken Age in early 2013. Granted, it wasn't quite enough to finish the game so they released the first half in early 2014 to make enough money to complete it for 2015. I know that comparing Broken Age to Towns is comparing apples to oranges, but considering that Broken Age's team was easily 10x that of Towns' and it had the additional overhead of paying for legit actors to do voice work, it's pretty clear that Towns' developer is full of ****.

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Don't buy early access, I learned my lesson and won't anymore including pre-ordering games.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

"The developers are quoted as saying they are interested in moving some of the best ideas from Towns over into a sequel, but are still just in the idea stage at this point."

Does this mean the developers are going to make a sequel they are going to abandon too?

"Towns has been rocky with the original lead developer leaving and now with his replacement following, saying sales just can't maintain the cost of development anymore."

They made over $3000000. How could that not be enough for a non-Triple A game?

Did you take a gander at their forums? I got into the game, because someone did an LP / Give feedback for improvements. Then they basically got to the bottom floor (only real challenge of the game..) and called it quits. Since the game wasn't fleshed out much more, and really I find it a joke given the range of choices. They pulled in various famous people, put as heroes but even then.. it's just to get more people buying the game.

Taking most of the cash, and then just not bothering with development. I had a feeling after a while, it was basically dead after the forums were silent. Aside from the general users, who mod the game it's been dead. It's just NOW the news is official that the game is abandoned, and a sequel is kinda sad really to even talk about. Can't finish the original game, so why are you looking at a sequel? Oh right.. more quick cash out of people.

I also bought into the Minecraft beta, and actually kept on top of all the news. It was enjoyable having the developers actually converse with players, sure we had those rough patches earlier on. but still. It's gone on to become a huge success, and others are jumping onto the bandwagon. Looking to cash in on the success, because they couldn't come up with a better idea as per usual. Catch a hold of the craze, build clones and hope to get cash.

Nothing wrong with clones. Hopefully, each one brings something fresh and unique to the table. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield series are all basically the same but the uniqueness of each gives people a multitude of choices. And choice is a good thing.

I have thought about buying Day-Z even though it isn't technically finished. Everyone should be able to demo a game that isn't finished to see if it's enjoyable enough at that point to justify having spent the cash early. I am not sure if that's possible though.

 

[stewi0001]

If you're going to abandon a game like that, I'd say open source it at least so that the people who are into it (and spent money on it already) can continue on.

 

[PlanDreaM]

Well, it was pretty much a badly made ripoff of Dwarf Fortress with upgraded graphics. The original is free at
bay12games. Brutal interface but an awesome game.

 

[Puiu]

When you invest money into an unfinished product then you have to keep in mind that it might never finish.

 

[Guest]

@Xclusiveitalian: Gamers shouldn't be pre-ordering or first-day buying either, in the lights of the Alien case, or any DLC-s (on-disc content), yet it's happening all the time. And then they keep complaining about how the gaming industry is ripping them off and tricking them with false advertisements.

 

[wastedkill]

Soo $3mill isn't enough to make a game called towns... These guys should be sued its pathetic what was everyone yearly wage $300,000??????? Plus $3mill aint taking into account the other people that bought it... they prob got around 5-7mill...

I would seriously consider getting a 10year sentance for this...

 

[Guest]

This sounds exactly how most of the DoE grant-based research is done in the US.